Treating Dodgers-Red Sox outcome as 'World Series preview' is an insane miscalculation

In the Los Angeles Dodgers' final series before the 2026 trade deadline, they took on the Boston Red Sox in a matchup that culminated in a Sunday Night Baseball showdown.

These are two storied franchises with a common link via Mookie Betts and Dave Roberts, for that matter, as he also played for both clubs and owns the most important stolen base in Red Sox's history. As a result, the media was poised to drum up plenty of narratives to sell the show.

One of those storylines was billing this as a potential World Series matchup. Boston has been one of the hottest teams in baseball over the last month-plus, while the Dodgers are the Dodgers. But to declare this particular series a preview of things to come is just misguided.

Saying this isn't just sour grapes either. Yes, Los Angeles was swept, and outside of the middle game of the series, it wasn't particularly close. Getting outscored 20-10 over the three-game set doesn't make LA look like a juggernaut, but there's some important context to consider.

The Dodgers' postseason roster will look very different than the one that just took on the Red Sox

The Dodgers opened the set against Boston with a bullpen game, with Cole Irvin serving as the sacrificial lamb, eating six innings in the middle of the contest and getting walloped for six earned runs. That was his first big league appearance of the season, and he was promptly designated for assignment following the game. Do you really think Roberts would pull something like that in October?

Opening in that fashion was about getting the pitching staff together as we enter the dog days of August. The Red Sox took the middle game by a score of 3-2 despite Yoshinobu Yamamoto tossing eight innings of three-run ball. Hat tip to them; they got the better of the Dodgers despite a pretty brilliant performance from Los Angeles's ace.

Finally, on Sunday Night Baseball, Boston crushed LA by a score of 8-4 on national TV. It looks bad, but the struggling Emmet Sheehan was on the mound for the Dodgers, and he predictably laid an egg, allowing five runs over 2⅔ innings. Sheehan was promptly demoted to Oklahoma City once the trade deadline dust had settled.

All of that's well and good, but it doesn't account for the significant reinforcements Los Angeles has coming off the IL. It doesn't account for the fact that Shohei Ohtani will hopefully return to pitching by October. And it doesn't account for the biggest factor of them all, the addition of Tarik Skubal.

The trade deadline impact cannot be overstated, and that goes for the Red Sox, too. They took a big swing to nab Adley Rutschman from the Orioles. They're a talented team that got better and will look more formidable come playoff time as well.

This was nothing more than a summer matchup between two clubs trying to get their houses in order for the playoffs, and not a preview of things to come. The Red Sox could very well make a deep postseason run and end up as the Dodgers' World Series foe, but if that were to happen, the product being put out on both sides would look different than what we saw this past weekend.

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