All the storylines that defined Dodgers' magical title run

This story was excerpted from Sonja Chen’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The 2025 season was another magical run for the Dodgers, one that saw the team navigate peaks and valleys before ending on the highest of highs: a World Series championship, the first successful title defense in the Major Leagues in a quarter century.

With the new year just around the corner, it feels like a good time to reflect on the past season. Here are five storylines from the regular season -- and one from each postseason round -- that defined the Dodgers' march to back-to-back championships:

REGULAR SEASON

8-0 start
It's hard to say that any team punches its postseason ticket in the opening days of the season, but looking back, this undefeated streak may have sealed the deal for the Dodgers. In the eighth game of the season, Shohei Ohtani hit a walk-off homer to secure an 8-0 start, the best by a defending World Series champion. It was also the Dodgers' longest win streak to open a season since 1955, when they started 10-0 and won the first World Series in franchise history.

Another MVP season
Ohtani secured his third straight MVP Award, his second with the Dodgers and fourth overall -- all unanimously. While his successful return to the mound created little question that he would receive the honor, his production at the plate all year long might have been worthy of MVP recognition on its own. Ohtani hit 50 homers in back-to-back seasons -- the first to do so in the Majors since Alex Rodriguez from 2001-02 -- and passed his own L.A.-era Dodgers record for runs scored.

A rotation full of aces
It took until August, but the Dodgers finally got to see the full-strength rotation they had envisioned. And it was dominant. Yoshinobu Yamamoto had a breakout year in the Majors, emerging as the ace. Clayton Kershaw had a resurgent final season, reaching 3,000 strikeouts in July and retiring as a champion. Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell, who returned from shorter-term injuries, and Ohtani and Emmet Sheehan, who returned from elbow surgeries, were all nearly untouchable at times. It led to one of the deepest rotations in Dodgers postseason history.

In-season turnarounds
Max Muncy had one of his worst season-opening months at the plate. Mookie Betts lost around 18 pounds due to an illness at the beginning of the season and scuffled at the plate into early August. Both turned it around immensely. It's no coincidence that L.A. had a rough two months in July and August -- when Muncy had two stints on the IL -- and struggled to produce consistently as an offense when Betts was underperforming. Unsurprisingly, the Dodgers were at their best when those key cogs in the lineups made things happen.

Injury-related adversity
It didn't take long to dispel the notion that this year's Dodgers, constructed to be a super team, were going to bulldoze their way through the regular season. Their .574 win percentage was one of the lowest marks in the 13 years in a row that they've made it to the postseason. Pitching injuries played a key role. Yamamoto was the only starter who remained in the rotation the entire season, and in the bullpen, inexperienced arms carried the load with many veterans dealing with injuries or underperformance. But the Dodgers ended the season closer to full strength than they had been all year.

POSTSEASON

NL Wild Card Series: Dominant starting pitching
It sure helps when the offense is as productive as it was in these two games, but it was really the starting pitching that propelled the Dodgers past the Reds and into the Division Series against the Phillies. Snell tossed seven innings of two-run ball in Game 1, followed by Yamamoto's two unearned runs across 6 2/3 innings in Game 2. The leaky bullpen still reared its head, but the Dodgers did enough on the front end to counteract it.

NLDS: Sasaki anchors the 'pen
The bullpen let Game 3 get away -- and very nearly did the same in Game 2 -- but it really felt like the Dodgers would not have gotten the job done without their relief pitching. The emergence of Roki Sasaki as the postseason closer was nothing short of monumental for this team, because having an arm that they knew they could turn to in the ninth inning was a huge difference-maker. Sasaki pitched in three of the four games, including three perfect innings in Game 4 to help L.A. clinch a return trip to the NL Championship Series.

NLCS: Performance of a lifetime
The Dodgers beat the Brewers at their own game while sweeping them in the NLCS, but for the first three games of the series, they were doing so without much help from a slumping Ohtani. That changed in a big way in Game 4. Ohtani struck out 10 across six scoreless innings as the starting pitcher, also hitting three homers -- including one that left Dodger Stadium entirely. The extraordinary performance netted him NLCS MVP honors despite his earlier slump, ushering in a repeat trip to the Fall Classic in grand fashion.

World Series: Yamamoto all the way
This is no slight to Miguel Rojas or Will Smith, who hit game-changing homers to secure a dramatic comeback in Game 7. But as the winning pitcher in three of the Dodgers' four victories, Yamamoto was the story of the World Series. Yamamoto went the distance in Game 2 -- after doing the same in the NLCS -- and warmed up to pitch in the 18-inning Game 3 marathon two days later (although he didn't make it into the game because Freddie Freeman walked it off). Coming off six strong innings in Game 6, he pitched the final 2 2/3 frames of Game 7 the very next day.