Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday Sept. 14 edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. I made sure to watch the Dodgers clinch the division title last night. Not because there was any doubt they’d do it one of these days, but because I wondered how they’d celebrate this time.

There are other headlines today:

Columnist Mirjam Swanson says the NBA’s light punishment for Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver weakened the league’s stand against racism.
Mike Trout’s home-run streak for the Angels ended one game short of the major-league record.
LAFC came back on a Carlos Vela goal to earn a big point in Minnesota.
And UCLA’s move to the Big Ten is up for discussion at the UC Regents’ September meeting – could it be blocked?

But the big headline is reserved for the Dodgers clinching first place in the National League West with Clayton Kershaw’s 4-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, doing it for the ninth time in 10 seasons, doing it with 21 games still to play in the regular season and doing it while holding a 6½-game lead in the race for the best record in baseballand home-field advantage through the postseason.

How did they celebrate an achievement that has become almost routine for them and is only a step toward their World Series championship goal? Mildly? Wildly?

Yes, they celebrated both mildly and wildly. See Bill Plunkett’s tweet below about the quiet hugs after the final out in Phoenix, as well as the photo below of the champagne-and-beerclubhouse party.

That’s appropriate.

Most Dodgers players and staff have been here before, and if their division-race loss to the San Francisco Giants in 2021 made it feel less routine, that also was the exception that proves the rule of L.A.’s indomitability.

And this year as much as ever, winning the one-sided 2022 division race is less mission accomplished than a further cranking-up of expectations when the playoffs begin.

But at the same time, this already has been a season worthy of a party, one of the greatest in Dodgers history.

As Plunkett points out in his game story: This is the earliest the Dodgers have clinched a division, five games earlier than the 2019 club did it. They’ve had a double-digit lead over the second-place San Diego Padres every day since July 21. They’re going to win 100 games for the third consecutive full season and the fourth in the past five. They’re on pace to win 113 games and smash the franchise record of 106. (Fangraphs projects them to finish 110-52.)

As Bill Shaikin notes in the Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers can become the first team in 147 years of major-league history to win 106 games in three consecutive (full) seasons.

As if they didn’t have enough stars last year, new Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman leads the league in hits and hitting (.329).

“These division champion Dodgers are the most heightened version of (the teams in) their decade-long romp,” wrote Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.

It would be a shame if we shrugged off all that just because this wasn’t as dramatic as a down-to-the-wire race or as charming as an underdog story.

It really would have been a shame if they shrugged it off.

In 2013, after clinching the first division title in this decade-long run, Dodgers players frolicked in the swimming pool beyond the outfield fence at Chase Field in Phoenix. That was appropriate.

Last night, after doing it again – and again and again – their initial reaction to Christian Walker’s final-out line drive to second baseman Chris Taylor was to play it cool on the field. That was appropriate.

Then they cut loose in the privacy of the clubhouse and thousands of TV households in L.A. That was very appropriate.

Whenever they wake up today, they’ll know they did something special and that it promises more to come.

TODAY

• Angels face the Guardians (10:10 a.m., BSW) to complete their trip. A losswill doom the Angels to their seventh consecutive sub-.500 season, matching the franchise’s worst stretch.

• Dodgers wrap up the series against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix (6:40 p.m., SNLA) and then have a day off before playing three games againstthe Giants in San Francisco.

• Angel City FC, which plays at North Carolina Courage (4 p.m., BSSC), is one point out of a playoff spot – and only six points behind NWSL-leading Kansas City. Here’s a preview.

• Galaxy is three points out of an MLS Western Conference playoff spot going into a game at Vancouver (7 p.m., SPSN). Preview.

READERS REACT

I asked, “Do you like Major League Baseball’s decision to ban defensive shifts in 2023, or are there better ways to try to improve the game?”

Joe Keaney emailed to say: “If baseball management and the players wanted to improve batted-ball outcomes they should hit to the weak side of the shift. Once a rally starts and runs are scored, teams will stop shifting. Or they can once again impress upon the players how negative a strikeout is and encourage batters to put the ball in play.”

Gordon Remala said baseball games have turned into Home Run Derby: “It is absolutely abhorrent that those with a batting average in the .220-.230 range are regularly trotted out on good teams, just because they swing wildly and occasionally hit the ball. There appears to be no need for strategy if all a team cares about are home runs. … It is not good baseball.”

NEXT QUESTION

On a team of stars, who deserves the most credit for the Dodgers’ ninth division title in 10 years? Email your opinion to [email protected].

280 CHARACTERS

Fairly subdued celebration for division champion #Dodgers. Almost like they expected it pic.twitter.com/uZEOqhdyke

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 14, 2022

– Beat writer Bill Plunkett with video of closer Craig Kimbrel and catcher Will Smith exchanging a routine hug after the final out of the Dodgers’ division-clinching win last night.

1,000 WORDS

Max Muncy, playing for his fourth National League West-winning Dodgers team, helps infielder Hanser Alberto celebrate his first division title with L.A. last night in Phoenix. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

TALK TO ME

Thanks for reading the newsletter, Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at [email protected] and via Twitter @KevinModesti.

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