Not so fast. The Nationals have a much deeper bench than the Dodgers do, by far. One of the biggest elements to winning to a champion is how deep the bench is and being able to play on the road. The Nats have the best away record in the National League. If the Nats get past round one they will be tough to stop. Not saying the Dodgers can't do it, they very well might, but a deep bench, especially in the playoffs is huge.
The Dodgers actually have a better away win percentage... by 1%. The Nationals DO have more wins, but they've played four more games on the road to this point.
The teams actually look decently matched in two areas. One is that the Nationals have excellent pitching. Strasburg, whenever he gets back, is a stud and Max Scherzer might be one of the top 3 best pitchers in the NL, if not all of the MLB. They're getting a surprisingly strong contribution from Gio Gonzalez, too, who is pitching far above his normal level. They just aren't getting as great of contributions past those three and with the health of Strasburg always a concern, the four, five, six pitcher spots could definitely have a huge impact. On the flip side, you've got the Dodgers with four guys who would be front of the line pitchers on most teams in Kershaw (the best pitcher in the MLB), Darvish, Hill, and Wood. Then, on the back end, you have two players who could easily pitch second or third in most rotations in Maeda and Ryu. Right now, the Dodgers are top in the MLB in team ERA and Washington sits 8. On the front end of the rotations, they're evenly matched, but the Dodgers pitching depth takes them over the top.
As a team, the Nationals are excellent hitters, ranking second in batting average. Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy are in the top 5 in NL BA and I wanna say they have like four hitters over .300 and one or two more over .290, but they aren't majorly outclassing the Dodgers like you'd expect when you consider the Dodgers are 16th in the entire MLB in BA. The reason is because the Dodgers have drawn almost 100 more walks than the Nationals. They're like 50 walks up over second place. The Dodgers actually have a better OBP than the Nationals, despite such a disparity in BA. When looking at OBPS and SLG, the Dodgers are number three in both in the MLB, one spot behind the Nationals. The Dodgers actually are ahead of the Nationals in home runs and sit just two spots behind the Nationals in total bases, ranking fourth, despite such the huge difference in BA.
The real big deal breaker is the bullpens. The Dodgers rank third in the MLB in bullpen ERA (Nats are 29th), have the most wins from the bullpen, and have the third fewest amount of runs with the 14th most innings pitched. On the flip side, the Nationals rank 12th in total runs allowed on the fewest innings pitched from the bullpen. The Dodgers also have the second best BAA from the bullpen, whereas the Nationals rank 29th. The Dodgers also feature this years best closer in Jansen. If I'm the Nats, I'm terrified if the game goes to my bullpen.
As it stands, the Dodgers are 13 games up on the second best team in the NL (the Nationals) and 11 games up on the second best team in the MLB (the Astros). I'm not sure how far out from the trade deadline we are (two weeks or so and maybe 10ish games?), so the Dodgers were the best team in the MLB and then just added another ace to the rotation.
I really see little reason to doubt the Dodgers against anyone. They are top 5 in just about every major stat category of batting, pitching, and bullpen statistics.
