Shortened 2020 season prevented 2023 Dodgers from making even clearer history

The Los Angeles Dodgers won a miraculous 100 games in 2023, defying their preseason odds by a 10-game margin. This season, featuring a depleted rotation, tremendous midseason road blocks, and a rejuvenating infusion of new talent seemingly six separate times, might've been Dave Roberts' best managing job, and earned him a slice of Dodgers history Sunday.

Unfortunately, the 2020 pandemic-shortened season clouded the narrative.

Sunday's 5-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants by the Bay marked a top-tier milestone for Roberts and Co. The 100th victory of the season represented the fourth consecutive full season in which the Dodgers have hit that mark.

Due to forces beyond management's control, though, those full seasons were 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

They were consecutive! Consecutive full seasons! Any fool with an once of deductive reasoning reading the baseball history books for the rest of time will be able to discern that winning 100 games in 2020 was, in fact, impossible.

But, in much the same way tow-headed fans will eternally place a mental asterisk next to the odds-defying title the Dodgers won in a bubble that fall, they'll always be able to pretend within the confines of their own skulls that, if 2020 had been a 162-game slate, something would've gone awry and LA wouldn't have hit the mark.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts proud of 2023 roster for making 100-win MLB history

Consider this another piece of objective history that will be slightly twisted by the rival masses, and will need a clarifier every time the Dodgers brag about it.

Might as well go out there and win 100+ again in 2024, then, right? After all, Roberts proved beyond a shadow of a doubt this season that, with a core of Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, anything is possible with any cast of characters.

Now, with the postseason on the horizon, all regular-season records reset, especially in the eyes of rivals waiting to pounce on another Dodgers run cut short. But that doesn't make Roberts' excellent 2023 work disappear, and neither does the "non-consecutive" technicality dagger of his consecutive 100-win triumphs.

Be proud, LA. Be proud, leadership. Because this is beyond impressive and unmatched in league history, no matter how many faded asterisks the rest of the league tries to toss in the Dodgers' path.

You know exactly why they want to cast aspersions. Nobody has ever done this before, and the only non-100-win year was a title-winner. Ideally, the four-full-season stretch will be capped by another miracle.