Video: How the Dodgers became baseball’s most unlikely underdogs

Here’s a hot take for you: The Los Angeles Dodgers, with their tumultuous season of injuries, have actually turned into underdogs. Yes, the baseball team with the highest payroll in baseball has become a riches-to-rags-back-to-riches story at which you have to marvel.

I tackle this in the latest installment of my Open Mike video series, looking at how this Dodgers team is unlike the ones we’ve seen in the past. And the reason, simply put, is injuries.

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The Dodgers have set a record this season for players on the disabled list. There’s been a whole 25-man roster’s worth of players on the DL, an entire pitching rotation too. Yet, the Dodgers are somehow in first place.

Now only that, but they’ve actually been better since losing Clayton Kershaw to a back injury. The Dodgers, after winning Wednesday along with a Giants loss, entered Thursday’s again with a game-and-a-half lead in the NL West. Considering how many were predicting doom when Kershaw went down, it’s hard to not be amazed by this.

It’s hard to imagine the Dodgers as an underdog with that payroll, I get that. But when a team sets the MLB injury record by August, what else can you call them? And despite it all, they’ve pulled themselves out of a funk and climbed to the top of the division.

With all the star-packed Dodgers teams that have disappointed in years past, maybe this is what they needed all along. Something to overcome. A chip on their shoulder. Well, unless that chip requires another DL stint.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz