The best team in baseball might not finish with the best record in baseball. It’s because the San Francisco Giants haven’t just turned into the greatest surprise of the season, they’ve become the greatest surprise since the Mariners ended up with 116 victories exactly 20 years ago.

We’re talking about the Dodgers here, the team still chasing the Giants in the National League West. If they don’t catch the Giants, they will likely make history (with one more victory) by winning more games than any other defending World Series champ, and more wins than any other second place team (in the divisional era).

The Giants won 103 games in 1993, when there were still just four divisions in baseball and no Wild Cards, ultimately finishing second to the Braves in the NL West and not even qualifying for the postseason. The 2001 A’s won 102 games … and finished 14 games behind Lou Piniella’s Mariners in the American League West. So these things have happened before with 100-win teams -- just not to a team with more wins than the Dodgers have already.

The Dodgers, who still look like the best and most complete team in the sport, might have to play the NL Wild Card Game on Wednesday night against a Cardinals team that just won 17 games in a row. Might have to face Adam Wainwright and the Cards even though they come into the last weekend of the regular season 14 games better than the Cardinals in the standings.

But for now, Dave Roberts’ Dodgers are officially still the champs, at 103-56, still looking to become the first team since the Yankees of 1999-2000 to win two World Series in a row. Looking to play in their fourth World Series in five years, even if they don’t make it eight titles in the NL West along the way. Still chasing the Giants into Games 160, 161, 162.

I asked Roberts on Wednesday about the character of his team across a race like the ones the Dodgers are having with the Giants, what has become something big and grand out of the rivalry of the two teams, all the way back to when the Dodgers were at Ebbets Field and the New York Giants were in the Polo Grounds.

Roberts: “The character of this team has been tested all year. On the field and off. They still remain focused and hungry. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we continue to play team baseball.”

This was the morning after the Dodgers, behind in a game against the Padres they knew they simply could not afford to lose, had blown a big lead, fallen behind, 9-5, on a night when Max Scherzer got lit up, and then proceeded to come from behind and pass the Padres for good by hitting four home runs in the bottom of the eighth -- three solo shots and then a two-run homer from Corey Seager. You see them win one like that and know that they are ready for whatever they will encounter in the first week of October.

No one is crying for what the Dodgers have gone through this season, simply because they are the Dodgers, whose organization is the game’s gold standard right now. They did pick up Scherzer, who might win himself another Cy Young Award, at the Trade Deadline. They picked up Trea Turner at the same time. Even without adding another Turner to go along with Justin, the Dodgers won the Trade Deadline just because of Scherzer, whom many still believe could have changed everything for the Padres if he’d ended up in San Diego instead of at Dodger Stadium.

Clayton Kershaw, their ace for such a long time before Walker Buehler came along – and before Scherzer came to town -- missed two months because of injury. Cody Bellinger had been limited to just 92 games because of various injuries, the latest of which was the fractured left rib that had him on the injured list for the third time this season.

Bellinger was the National League MVP two years ago. But for now he is hitting .162, a number that makes you want to have your eyes checked. He has just 10 home runs (including one of the four in the eighth inning on Wednesday night) and 36 RBIs, has an on-base percentage of .238, a slugging percentage of .301, an OPS of .539. This all really started with the shoulder he injured after an overly-enthusiastic forearm bump with former teammate Kiké Hernandez after a huge home run against the Braves in last October’s NL Championship Series. Bellinger hasn’t been the same player since.

Mookie Betts? He’s another former MVP on the Dodgers. He’s missed 40 games so far this season, mostly because of hip issues, and is batting .268.

But the Dodgers have gone past 100 victories again. They took first place from the Giants on Sept. 1, then got passed again. Now they are where they are, with three games to go. They’ve won 15 of their last 18 games and picked up one game on the Giants. They won 19 games in September. The Giants won 21.

So the Dodgers are still chasing the best record, convinced they’re still the best team. Still convinced they can make history by becoming the first Dodgers team to ever win two World Series in a row. They just didn’t think they’d have the chance to make this kind of history by finishing second in the NL West.