The Dodgers clinched the NL West on Wednesday with a blowout of the Reds, their 13th title in the division in 14 seasons, and Kyle Tucker put on the kind of night that makes an August waiver-wire arrival look like a heist: four hits, a triple short of the cycle, the tying and go-ahead damage all his. Nobody in the sport is chasing history for suspense anymore. They're chasing a calendar.

Here's the number the trophy presentation will not mention: the Dodgers have now made "clinch the West" a September formality rather than a September story, and a $325 million-plus payroll bankrolled by Guggenheim ownership is why. Bobby Cohn and the front office aren't building a juggernaut, they're renting one, year over year, at a price point the other 29 clubs can admire but not match. Tucker himself was a trade-deadline import, not a draft-and-develop product, proof the roster gets rebuilt with cash as readily as with scouting. The Reds got run out of their own building. The real opponent was a checkbook.