Dodgers Celebrate, Then Celebrate Again Against the Giants

Conventional wisdom would suggest that a team that clinched the NL West shortly after noon the previous day, partied like it was 1999 and then boarded a flight home that Dave Roberts described as “a happy flight... both planes” might have been forgiven for showing up Friday night with a little less than its usual enthusiasm.

Instead, the Dodgers showed up on national television and promptly reminded everyone that the party apparently had no expiration date.

Los Angeles beat San Francisco 8-2, turning what began as a fairly ordinary Friday night into a home-run circus, with four balls leaving the yard in the eighth inning alone. The Dodgers had already secured their fifth consecutive division title less than 30 hours earlier. Now they were back at Dodger Stadium, chasing the best record in the National League and playing as if somebody had forgotten to tell them the celebration was supposed to be over.

Tyler Glasnow was at the center of it, and depending on which part of the box score caught your eye, you could have come away with very different impressions of his night. Yes, 98 pitches over six innings is a substantial workload. It is also difficult to complain too loudly about six innings in which he allowed three hits, two runs and two walks while striking out 10. Those are numbers most pitchers around the league would happily take home, particularly on a night when the team was coming off a champagne celebration and a long flight.

Glasnow wasn't pristine, but he was effective, and he gave the Dodgers exactly what they needed. The Giants tied the game on Jung Hoo Lee's leadoff homer in the second and took a 2-1 lead on Jonah Cox's two-out RBI single in the third, but the Dodgers gradually took control. Josue De Paula singled and scored on Teoscar Hernández's RBI single in the fifth, then came through again in the sixth with a two-out double that drove in the go-ahead run.

De Paula's first week in the major leagues continues to look less like an introduction and more like an extended audition for a permanent role. He is still learning the league, but the moments keep arriving, and Friday was another example.

Then came the eighth.

Max Muncy opened it with a 420-foot drive into right-center. Kyle Tucker followed with a 403-foot shot. Back-to-back.

Two outs later, Mookie Betts hit his second home run of the night.

Will Smith followed him.

Back-to-back again.

Four home runs in one inning, five runs scored and an 8-2 lead that effectively removed whatever suspense remained from the evening.

It was also the 20th anniversary of the Dodgers' famous four-consecutive-home-run game against San Diego, when Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson went deep in succession before Nomar Garciaparra finished the comeback with a two-run homer in the 10th. The 2026 Dodgers apparently decided the anniversary deserved some acknowledgment, although they were courteous enough not to make their fans sit through 10 innings to get it.

Tucker has now come within one hit of the cycle in two games in less than a week, which is becoming a strange little subplot in what has otherwise been an increasingly productive stretch for the right fielder. In Cincinnati, he went 4-for-5 with a homer, two doubles and a single. Friday night he added another home run to the collection.

His reaction remains perhaps the best part.

While the Dodgers were turning the eighth inning into a fireworks display, Tucker was leaning against the dugout railing with a cup of water, looking like he was perfectly content to let the rest of the world go by.

Muncy homered.

Tucker homered.

Betts homered.

Smith homered.

Tucker took another sip of water.

Apparently this is what passes for excitement in Kyle Tucker's world.

Roberts, meanwhile, isn't allowing the champagne to obscure the larger objective. The Dodgers are now 94-60 and remain within two games of Milwaukee for the best record in the National League, with the top two seeds still in play.

“To get one of these top two seeds is important. And our guys understand that,” Roberts said. “Winning the division is great, but I still think our best baseball is ahead of us.”

That doesn't mean the Dodgers intend to run the same players into the ground chasing every possible advantage. The postseason is close enough now that health has become part of the equation.

“We have a lot of good players that are more than capable of helping us win baseball games,” Roberts said, “at the same time making sure we try to get our best players to optimum health when the postseason starts.”

And then, in the most Roberts-like summation of the evening:

“We still have a lot of work to do.”

Edwin Díaz was part of that work Friday night, making his return from the injured list with the game comfortably in hand. Roberts gave him the ninth inning without the pressure of a save situation, and Díaz responded by allowing one hit while striking out three.

It was a controlled re-entry into the Dodgers' bullpen, exactly the sort of opportunity a team would want for a pitcher coming back from injury.

Díaz, however, did not look particularly interested in keeping the moment controlled emotionally.

He looked like he had just won the lottery.

Which was a refreshing contrast to Tucker, who looked like he had just won another baseball game and was wondering whether somebody had remembered to refill his water.

So perhaps the conventional wisdom needs a slight adjustment.

The Dodgers did celebrate Thursday.

They did take the happy flight home.

They did have considerably less time than anyone would normally want between a champagne-soaked clubhouse and another major-league game.

And then they went on national television Friday night and hit four home runs in one inning.

Maybe they weren't tired.

Maybe they were just having fun.