Dodgers' Magic Number Revealed Heading Into Final Month of Season

There's still almost a month of regular season baseball ahead of us, but the postseason will be here before we know it.

The Los Angeles Dodgers entered the second half of the season on top of the world, with a league-best 61-36 record. Since, they have struggled to put together wins, going 21-19 after the All-Star break.

Because of their struggles, primarily due to a lack of offensive production, the Dodgers' lead in the National League West division has decreased, allowing the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres to have an outside shot of taking back the division for the first time since 2021.

Dodgers starting pitchers over the last four games:

Yoshinobu Yamamoto: 6.1 IP, 1 ER, 8 K
Tarik Skubal: 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 K
Blake Snell: 5 IP, 1 ER, 10 K
Tyler Glasnow: 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 K

This is who the Dodgers are expecting to carry them through October. pic.twitter.com/uxQkQqB130
— Noah Camras (@noahcamras) August 30, 2026

With a 9.5-game lead over the Diamondbacks for first place, the Dodgers should be able to hold on and win the division. With a magic number of 16, the Dodgers control their destiny in the division if they can go 16-10 over their final 26 games of the regular season.

With the most expensive roster in baseball and an ungodly amount of talent across the board, the Dodgers not winning the NL West would be a horrific collapse. While their fifth-straight NL West banner should be a given, their chances of getting a top two seed in the NL playoffs is out of their control.

Currently, the Milwaukee Brewers own the top spot in the league and the Atlanta Braves have a tiebreaker over the Dodgers for the second spot. As it stands now, the Dodgers would be forced to play in the NL wild-card round rather than having time to rest ahead of the Divisional Series.

Recent series against both the Brewers and Braves in the past two weeks would have been great opportunities for the Dodgers to gain some ground or even retake the top spot in the league, but LA went a combined 1-6 against their fellow division leaders.

Of the six remaining teams the Dodgers will face this season, only one — the San Diego Padres — is within a game of the playoffs. The Dodgers will likely be favored in a hefty majority of their remaining games, and could use some momentum going into the postseason.

“Once the calendar gets to September, I think guys by nature see the finish line more,” manager Dave Roberts said. “They get more excitable because their finish line is getting closer. So that that could be it. But yeah, we just need something to kind of spur that change. And for me, I’m just trying to look at what I can do to help spur that too.”

Dodgers' Odds for First-Round Bye in Postseason

According to FanGraphs, the Dodgers' odds for clinching a first-round bye (finishing as one of the top two seeds in the NL) remains at 77.4%. The Braves' odds are just 34% despite being in the driver's seat.

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