Half-filled duffle bags littered the floor of the Dodgers’ clubhouse Sunday afternoon while a jumble of suitcases stood inside the locker room door.
Sunday’s 3-1 matinee loss to the San Francisco Giants, a game which featured another late-inning bullpen meltdown, was the last chance to see the Dodgers at home during the regular season and 46,601 people brought tickets to mark the occasion, pushing the team’s attendance above 4 million for the first time.
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But the vibe wasn’t so much “goodbye” and it was “we’ll be right back,” since the team and its fans are expecting to return to Dodger Stadium to open the National League playoffs next week. Even the retiring Clayton Kershaw made that point when he briefly addressed the crowd before the game.
“Remember, we’ve got another month left,” he said. “So we’ll see you at the end of October.”
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That may be a bit ambitious. But barring disaster — never count out the Dodgers’ bullpen — the team is guaranteed at least two more games at home this season. The Dodgers will hit the road Monday for their final six games of the regular season with a magic number at three, meaning any combination of Dodger wins and Padres losses totaling three will give the team its 12th West Division title in 13 years — and the Dodger Stadium playoff dates that go with it.
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“Our head right now, to be honest, is on winning this division and going forward,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I just want to win the division and get to the postseason.”
The team missed a chance to move a big step closer to that goal Sunday when it wasted another brilliant performance from right-hander Emmet Sheehan, who held the Giants to a hit over seven innings, retiring 15 in a row at one point.
Sheehan, who didn’t allow a runner after hitting Andrew Knizner to open the third, matched a career-high with 10 strikeouts. But for the third time in four appearances that wasn’t good enough to get the win after reliever Blake Treinen gave up three eighth-inning runs to turn a 1-0 lead into a 3-1 loss.
And that left Roberts to once again profess his faith in a pitcher who has taken the loss in four of his last five appearances and given up 11 earned runs in his last 5 1/3 innings.
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“I’ve got to trust what I’m seeing, and not solely bet on the person or track record,” Roberts said of Treinen, who is 0-5 with a 11.57 ERA in seven innings this month. “We all need to see a couple good outings but most importantly, I want to see his confidence up. And to be quite honest, I think that right now he’s just not as confident in himself as I am in him.
“The main thing is that we got to get that confidence back.”
That didn’t happen Sunday when his brief appearance turned a pitchers’ duel into batting practice.
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Giants’ starter Trevor McDonald, who was making his first big-league start, nearly matched Sheehan through six innings before tiring in the seventh. Max Muncy opened the inning with a walk — the only one McDonald issued — and moved to second on a two-strike single to right by Andy Pages. Michael Conforto then looped the first pitch he saw into left field to score Muncy and end McDonald’s day after 89 pitches.
The Dodgers could get no more, however, with pinch-hitter Tommy Edman lining into a double play to end the inning. And that proved costly when Treinen (1-7) came out of the bullpen to give up three consecutive hits, the last a run-scoring double from pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey.
Three batters later, Willy Adames drew a bases-loaded walk to give the Giants the lead, an advantage they extended to 3-1 on Matt Chapman’s soft grounder to short.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen, right, speaks with pitching coach Mark Prior and catcher Dalton Rushing after giving up a bases-loaded walk Sunday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers went quietly after that, with a pair of Giant relievers holding them to just a hit over the two innings, spoiling the day for a sun-splashed crowd that made history by pushing the Dodgers’ home attendance to a franchise-record 4,012,470.
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The Dodgers, who averaged 49,537 fans a game in 2025, have led the majors in attendance the last 12 years — excluding 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced teams to play behind closed doors. But the most they had drawn in a season previously was 3,974,309 in 2019.
The Dodgers are the fifth team to top 4 million, joining the Blue Jays, Rockies, Mets and Yankees, but the first to do so since 2008, when both New York teams did it. Colorado holds the major league record having sold 4,483,350 tickets during it inaugural season in 1993, when it played at an 80,000-seat football stadium.
“Like every season it’s been up and down, an emotional year. And for these fans to show up every day, it’s incredible,” Roberts said. “There’s a reason why I feel that we have the best fans in sports, and the numbers speak to it.”
The Dodgers rewarded that loyalty, with their 52 wins at home this season ranking second in the majors. What they weren’t able to do was clinch the division title in front of their fans.
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But if they can do that on the road this week, they’ll be right back home for at least two more games at Dodger Stadium in the playoffs.
Notes
Right-handers Brock Stewart and Roki Sasaki both pitched scoreless innings in relief for triple-A Oklahoma City on Sunday in their final rehab appearances before the postseason roster is set. Stewart struck out one and gave up a hit, throwing nine of his 15 pitches for strikes. Sasaki did not allow a runner, striking out one of the three batters he faced and getting strikes on five of his eight pitches.
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Both pitchers will join the team at the start of the road trip in Arizona, as will right-hander Brusdar Graterol, who threw a bullpen Sunday. It’s a sign of just how uncertain the Dodger reliever corps is that Graterol, who hasn’t pitched all season, is still a possibility for the postseason roster spot. Graterol made just seven regular-season appearances last year but pitched three times in the World Series.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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