LOS ANGELES _ The stream of Chandon Brut flowed through the bottle's green stem, across the shorn skull of Dave Roberts and down his forehead. His face clenched when he felt the sting.
During his first season as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, an eight-month odyssey through a record-setting slew of injuries, Roberts had stood on the verge of tears, tested the depth of his stamina and approached the limits of his patience. Now he squinted through the sweetest form of pain: A burst of champagne in his eyes.
"We're going to be ready to go Tuesday," Roberts said, "once I get my eyes open."
Roberts groped blindly for dry cloth. A man nearby offered a shirtsleeve. Roberts cleared his field of vision and witnessed joy all around the clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. A lagoon of liquid pooled in the center of the carpet, while the room stank of fermented grapes and cigar exhaust _ the sights and smells that greet baseball's victors, teams such as the Dodgers, who claimed a fourth consecutive National League West title with a 4-3, 10-inning victory over Colorado on Sunday.
The Dodgers (90-66) clinched a date with the Washington Nationals, the champions of the East, in the National League division series in two weeks. The two clubs will jockey for home-field advantage during the final six games of the season. Washington holds a 1 {-game advantage.
The Dodgers effectively ended the division race by taking two of three against San Francisco in a series last week. But a late-night, extra-innings victory by the Giants on Saturday delayed the party by 18 hours. Trailing by a run in the ninth inning Sunday, rookie sensation Corey Seager tied it with a home run. An inning later, seldom-used infielder Charlie Culberson delivered the winning blow with a homer of his own.
The finish provided a storybook ending to Vin Scully's last broadcast at Dodger Stadium, allowing him to coat a walk-off, division-clinching victory in his unmistakable gloss: "Would you believe a home run?" Scully marveled as the ball landed in the Dodgers bullpen for Culberson's first homer of the season. A crowd of teammates awaited Culberson at the plate. A wave of relievers sprinted from the bullpen as he rounded third base.
"It was an incredible organizational moment," said Andrew Friedman, the team's president of baseball operations. "The number of fingerprints on this division title spanned so many different players and so many different departments in our organization."
The ethos Roberts instilled in this club elevates the group above the individual. But at times, the brilliance of Seager makes that difficult. As the players packed the clubhouse, several swarmed him. He disappeared amid a spray of Budweiser.
A party like this appeared unfathomable in late June, when three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw disappeared with a herniated disk. But rather than flop, the team transformed. The offense came alive. Roberts found a useful strategy with his pitching staff, limiting his starters to five or six innings, like the 5 1/3 received from Brandon McCarthy on Sunday. As the Giants collapsed, the Dodgers took flight.
The formula set the stage for Kershaw's return earlier this month. Despondent during his 11 weeks on the shelf, he has rejoiced in rejoining his team. He was trying to wade through a television interview after the game when the champagne interrupted his speech. Dripping wet, Kershaw shook his hair like a dog and screamed.
"You've got to let it burn!" Kershaw said. "No goggles. You've just got to let it burn!"
Roberts stepped into the camera shot to offer an aside. "Let it burn, Kersh!" he screamed.
Kershaw bulled through the liquid crossfire toward the clubhouse entrance. He found his wife and hoisted his daughter in his arms. A few feet away, Rich Hill stood with his wife and their son. Hill held the boy aloft as he scanned the room. It was Hill's arrival in August, along with Josh Reddick, that fortified the Dodgers' roster and heightened the possibilities for October.
Kershaw and Hill are expected to headline the rotation, a 1-2 combination of left-handers that rivals the team's pairing of Kershaw and Zack Greinke last season. Friedman absorbed criticism after the Dodgers allowed Greinke to depart in free agency last winter. He reloaded in the form of Kenta Maeda, a slight, taciturn 27-year-old from Japan.
Clad in gym shorts and sanitary socks, with goggles and a baseball cap on his head, Friedman locked eyes with Maeda. The two hugged. As they embraced, they were soaked by Will Ireton, Maeda's translator. Maeda found payback later when he dumped Ireton into a container filled with empties.
All around the room stood testaments to the philosophies Friedman brought to the roster and Roberts brought to the clubhouse. The group allowed their minds to drift beyond Sunday's bliss and into the next month, when the team can accomplish the goals left unfinished in the previous three years, in fact left unfinished since 1988.
"Walking around the room, the focus is incredible," Friedman said. "Everybody is talking about three more celebrations."
