Orel Hershiser’s 1988 season added one more line to an already wild year on this day in Los Angeles Dodgers history: he was voted the unanimous winner of the National League Cy Young Award.
That honor landed weeks after Hershiser had helped push the Dodgers past the Oakland Athletics in an improbable World Series win, and it capped a run that put him in a class all by himself. He became the first player in MLB history to win the Cy Young, and MVP of both the National League Championship Series and World Series in the same season.
The 1988 numbers tell the story of just how dominant he was. Hershiser finished 23-8 with a 2.26 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP, 15 complete games and eight shutouts across 35 games, 34 of them starts. He led the league in wins, complete games, shutouts and innings pitched, piling up 267.
He set the tone early, opening the season with six straight starts in which he went 6-0 with a 1.74 ERA. His seventh outing came in relief, and he still found a way to impact the game by earning a save in the 14th inning against the Chicago Cubs.
Then came the streak that made the season unforgettable. Hershiser put together 59 consecutive scoreless innings, a run that started on August 30, 1988, when he closed out a complete game against the Montreal Expos with four shutout innings.
He followed that with five straight nine-inning shutouts, then finished the regular season with 10 scoreless innings in a 2-1 loss to the San Diego Padres in 16 frames. That stretch broke Don Drysdale’s MLB record of 58 innings.
Hershiser carried that form straight into October. In the NLCS against the New York Mets, he appeared in four games, three of them starts, and worked 24.2 innings with a 1.05 ERA. One of those outings was a save in Game 4, coming just one night after he had started and thrown seven innings.
He was just as sharp in the World Series. Hershiser threw nine shutout innings against the Athletics in Game 2, then allowed two runs in another complete game as the Dodgers won the title in five games.
The awards kept stacking up from there. In 1988, Hershiser also won the NLCS MVP, World Series MVP and a Gold Glove.
In Other News...
Dodgers Face A Costly Infield Decision After Key Departures
The Dodgers are already looking ahead to how they patch up the infield after a pair of familiar faces moved on, and the early free-agent market has given them a couple of practical options. According to The Athletic, Los Angeles has shown interest in Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Mauricio Dubon as it weighs how to replace the departures of Miguel Rojas, who retired, and Kike Hernandez, who is now a free agent.
Both players bring the kind of flexibility the Dodgers tend to value, with the club evaluating not just defense but whether either can add enough offense to make the fit worthwhile. It is the sort of decision that can quietly shape a roster for months, especially for a team that likes to keep its bench and infield mix adaptable, and the next move will say plenty about how aggressively the Dodgers want to address that opening. [Read more 🡒]
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The Blue Jays, in particular, appear capable of changing the conversation if they decide to lean into a longer-term proposal, the sort of structure they reportedly explored with Kyle Tucker. That leaves the Dodgers in an interesting spot, interested but maybe not yet as aggressive as some of the other suitors. With talks still ongoing, the question is whether Los Angeles is waiting for the market to come to it or whether a rival is about to set the pace on one of the winters biggest rotation prizes. [Read more 🡒]
Dodgers Face One Contract Problem In Tarik Skubal Pursuit
Tarik Skubals arrival last season gave the Dodgers exactly what they hoped for when they swung the trade, and he backed it up with strong work in both the regular season and the postseason. So it is no surprise that Los Angeles is expected to stay in the mix if the left-hander reaches free agency, especially for a club that has never shied away from chasing elite talent when it believes the fit is right.
The complication is the kind that can shape an entire winter: money. The Dodgers have to weigh the expected cost of a long-term Skubal deal against broader financial concerns, including the possibility of a future MLB salary cap, and that could make them more cautious than usual about how far they go. Even with their track record of landing top free agents, this is the sort of contract decision that can force a team to choose between staying aggressive and protecting its long-term flexibility. [Read more 🡒]