The Los Angeles Dodgers silenced their doubters by winning Game 65 of the National League Divisional Series vs the San Diego Padres on Friday evening, a win that had manager Dave Roberts fired up in the locker room after the game. The Dodgers had to show some resiliency in this series after falling behind 2-1 and were able to win two straight elimination games to get to the NLCS for the first time since the 2021 season.

This sets the stage for a matchup with the upstart New York Mets, who stumbled out of the gates in 2024 but were one of baseball's best teams throughout the second half of the season and used that momentum to propel them past the Milwaukee Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

In anticipation of the matchup, the Dodgers made a couple of key roster moves on Sunday before Game 1 gets underway.

“Shortstop Miguel Rojas and LHP Alex Vesia off the Dodger roster, and replaced by OF Kevin Kiermaier and reliever Brent Honeywell,” reported MLB insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today on X, formerly Twitter.

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As previously mentioned, the Dodgers were finally able to get the NLDS monkey off of their backs that had hampered them for the last two years in knocking off the Padres this year.

Los Angeles was widely expected to be the World Series favorites heading into this season after the offseason signing of superstar Shohei Ohtani, but injuries to their pitching staff caused some to question just how far this team could make it in the playoffs despite all of the firepower they still clearly possess.

In any case, Game 1 of the best of seven series vs the Mets is slated to get underway at 8:15 PM ET on Sunday evening from Dodger Stadium in downtown Los Angeles.