Diamondbacks pitcher joins Dodgers hate bandwagon with more way-too-early trash talk

Mookie Betts' comments from DodgerFest 2024 — "Every game [against us] is gonna be the other team's World Series" — are just over a year old now, but they've aged like fine wine. In the moment, before the Dodgers had even played a spring training game, it was immediately clowned on as a quote destined to land on Baseball Images that Precede Unfortunate Events when the Dodgers faced a premature exit from the postseason.

But then the Dodgers won the whole thing, and no one's been able to stop talking about them. It isn't always unprompted — journalists from opposing beats around the NL West to national outlets insist on asking players from other teams to weigh in on what the Dodgers are doing — but everyone seems to have a very strong opinion about their chances against LA's powerhouse.

Diamondbacks pitcher Kevin Ginkel was one of the latest to weigh in on the Dodgers' dominance. He told Bob Nightengale of USA Today: "Every time we play those guys I feel like they can be beat. They're deep, but with the guys we have and our pedigree, just get us into the postseason, play those guys in a best-of-seven, and I'll take our chances."

Diamondbacks pitcher Kevin Ginkel said he already expects to beat Dodgers in the postseason

Those are big words from a guy on a team that placed third in the NL West last year and held a losing record against the Dodgers. The Dodgers have also hammered Ginkel in regular season play more than any squad in the division. They have a combined .788 OPS against him in 26 games.

Ginkel was a part of the 2023 D-backs squad that kicked the Dodgers out of the NLDS, and he even pitched two mostly spotless innings against them during that series. Arizona's improbable World Series run that year probably gave a lot of those guys a big head, but let's not forget that they weren't able to get it done. The Dodgers were.

The Diamondbacks look like they'll be pretty good this year with the Padres flailing, the Rockies hopeless, and the Giants always sort of TBD. PECOTA predicts they'll win just 87.5 games (to the Dodgers' 103.1), but Arizona still has a 64.6% chance of making the postseason. No one's saying that the Diamondbacks won't be able to give the Dodgers a good fight, but Ginkel's comments feel just as likely to age poorly as Betts' did last year, and Arizona's already on the back foot as it is.