7 things that make the SF-LA NLDS special

Rivalries are one of the many wonderful things about baseball; the energy and excitement behind the game’s most historic rivalries are unmatched. Those threads and memories can make an April 3 game between foes feel like it’s happening under the bright national-focused lights of October.

What about when those head-to-head games actually do happen in October, like the upcoming Giants-Dodgers NLDS? That’s an extra-special treat.

We just saw an AL Wild Card Game between the Red Sox and Yankees, who have now met in the postseason in five different years. In 2015, the NLDS pitted the Cubs and Cardinals against each other for the first time in the playoffs. And now, we get this West Coast matchup. Keep in mind that all of these historic rivals, who have always been in the same leagues and divisions, weren’t even able to meet in the playoffs until the introduction of the Wild Card for the 1995 playoffs.

There are so many fun angles to the Giants-Dodgers NLDS. Here are seven things to know about the series:

• Los Angeles and San Francisco are finally meeting on this stage. As alluded to above, this is the first postseason series between the Giants and Dodgers. These teams have played each other in 2,535 regular-season games, the most for any two teams before their first postseason matchup.

• And it isn’t just any season in which they’re finally meeting. They are facing off after being the two best teams in the Majors this year. The Giants set a franchise record in wins (107), and the Dodgers followed close behind with 106, tying their franchise record set in 2019.

• How rare is it for two teams to meet after having each won 105 or more games? Glad you asked. This will be the first such matchup -- regular season or postseason -- between two teams who had already won 105 or more regular-season games that year.

Of course, it’s just the third time in MLB history that two teams won 105 or more games in the same season, and the first time those two winningest teams were in the same league. The other instances were in 2019, with the Astros (107 wins) and Dodgers (106), and in 1998, with the Yankees (114) and Braves (106).

• The two teams combined for 213 regular-season wins, the most in a postseason series ever. The prior record was 212, set by the Yankees (114) and Padres (98) in the 1998 World Series.

• Think about it: we have the team with the best record in baseball, the Giants, facing the reigning World Series champs, the Dodgers. And it’s happening early on in the playoffs in the Division Series. It’s just the third time that the defending champions will face the team with the best record in the Division Series round, along with the 2012 NLDS between the Cardinals and Nationals and the '08 ALDS between the Red Sox and Angels.

• It’s fitting that these two teams will battle in a postseason series after a head-to-head regular season that was close, to say the least. The Giants won the season series, 10-9, while the Dodgers scored 80 runs to the Giants’ 78. That difference of just two runs marks only the sixth time since these teams moved west that their season series has featured a run differential of two or fewer.

• It’s worth noting that despite entering this series with 100-plus wins apiece, the expectations and projections for these teams were vastly different entering the year. The Giants entered with a 0.2% chance to win the NL West, according to FanGraphs, while the Dodgers were at 70.0%. The overall postseason odds followed a similar trend: a 5.7% chance for the Giants and a 98.4% chance for the Dodgers. And yet, here they are.