Dodgers fans should appreciate teams success

The Dodgers usually are not the norm in baseball. For the bulk of teams in the major leagues, the last week of the common season is the last week until spring training.

As the Angels performed out their closing week, the Angel Stadium store featured a “Thank You Fans” sale, with up to 50% off caps, T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, even genuine Mike Trout jerseys.

Inside the clubhouse, the reminders for gamers had the texture of the ultimate week of college: return your team-issued iPad; order your gloves for next season; take your exit bodily.

As the Dodgers play out their closing week of the common season, on the highway, the Dodger Stadium store is stocking up on blue “October Baseball” T-shirts, the same ones the gamers wore last week, when they clinched a postseason spot.

On Thursday, the Dodgers clinched the National League West, again. On Tuesday, the Dodgers will make their thirteenth consecutive postseason look, one shy of the major league report. Only once in those 13 seasons did the Dodgers fail to win the NL West: in 2021, when they received 106 video games and the San Francisco Giants received 107.

For the Angels and their adorned nearer, and for 17 other teams, Tuesday would be the second day of the offseason. That is the norm in baseball, at least exterior Chavez Ravine, the Bronx, and not too long ago Milwaukee.

Kenley Jansen performed October baseball for the Dodgers from 2013-21, and for the Atlanta Braves in 2022.

In 2023, the first time in 11 years Jansen didn’t seem in the postseason, his household alerted him that the Dodgers’ playoff opener was on tv, with good buddy Clayton Kershaw pitching.

Jansen had no curiosity in watching.

“I’m like, guys, I’m not on the Dodgers anymore,’ ” he said this week at Angel Stadium.

He wished to be around his household. His associates and members of the family wished to be around him, which they assumed meant around baseball.

“I get it,” he said. “I still feel like I’m going to get those calls: Did you watch that game?”

He appreciates how tough it’s to get to the playoffs. In his first two full seasons, the Dodgers vs. the remaining of the league at Dodger Stadium was a sideshow to the main event: Frank McCourt vs. Major League Baseball in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Never thoughts whether or not the Dodgers would make the playoffs. Would the gamers receives a commission?

“We went from the bankrupt Dodgers to getting into the playoffs every year,” Jansen said. “I think it was the core group, the leadership that we had, plus the front office and the ownership wanting to win a championship every year. They make it competitive.

“They’ve got to keep that train going.”

In Anaheim, for the first time in 50 years, the Angels are certain for a second consecutive last-place end. Their last postseason look: 11 years in the past. Their last successful report: 10 years in the past.

This playoff drought included the stretch in which Trout and Shohei Ohtani performed together. The Dodgers are more — a lot more — than Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

“For me, on the other side now, I see how hard it is to get in the playoffs,” Jansen said. “It’s not easy. You’ve got to have depth — not only here in the big leagues, but depth in the system — to give yourself a chance to win the division.”

It’s too dangerous the Dodgers and Angels couldn’t full a commerce to get Jansen back to Los Angeles, where he would immediately have develop into the Dodgers’ most dependable right-handed reliever.

Jansen has a 2.64 ERA this season, and he has transformed 28 of 29 save alternatives. He hasn’t given up a hit in more than a month.

But the Angels didn’t promote at the commerce deadline, declaring they have been in severe rivalry without shopping for any severe upgrades.

Dodgers fans should take it from Jansen: Don’t take this golden period for granted. Take a few days to appreciate it. On Wednesday, Jansen said, he’ll start his offseason exercises.

On Tuesday, the Dodgers will start the playoffs, attempting to develop into baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years. The percentages usually are not in their favor: As of Thursday, Baseball Prospectus provides the Dodgers a 9.6% probability to win the World Series, a smaller probability than the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners.

The Angels have been so dangerous for so long that a division championship can be trigger for great celebration. The Dodgers have been so good for so long that nothing but a World Series championship would suffice.

And so, on Tuesday, the times of gratitude can end, and Dodgers fans can resume reflexively criticizing their supervisor and grimacing about whether or not they can trust anybody in their bullpen.