Assorted Diamondbacks take a victory dip in the Chase Field pool after they swept the Dodgers in their NLDS Wednesday.

This may actually be the worst Dodger takedown of all time. They’ve suffered legendary takedowns as much as legendary triumphs in their storied history, but this one may actually out-rank all the others.

Worse than the day the Philadelphia Whiz Kids’ veteran Dick Sisler ruined them on the season’s final day after Cal Abrams couldn’t score from first to keep the pennant-losing game out of an extra inning.

Worse than the day Bobby Thomson ruined Ralph Branca after a second-half Giants surge from thirteen games back through the lens of Leo Durocher’s telescopic from-the-clubhouse sign-stealing.

Worse than the day a still-not-himself Sandy Koufax couldn’t hold the Giants off in another pre-division play, three-game pennant playoff deciding game. Worse than the week the Orioles swept them in a World Series.

Worse than the day Tommy Lasorda let Tom Niedenfuer pitch to Jack (the Ripper) Clark with first base open and the Dodgers an out from forcing a seventh National League Championship Series game. Worse than back-to-back World Series losses in 2017-2018.

Never before were the Dodgers swept out of a postseason set in which all three Dodgers starting pitchers including a future Hall of Famer combined to pitch four and two thirds innings.

And never before had any team surrendered four postseason home runs in a single inning until Lance Lynn, the husky righthander who was the Dodgers’ key trade deadline pitching pickup, but who surrendered a Show-leading 44 home runs all regular season long, went to work for the third inning of their National League division series Game Three.

Geraldo Perdomo, Diamondbacks shortstop—leadoff home run. Ketel Marte, Diamondbacks second baseman, an out later—home run. Christian Walker, Diamondbacks first baseman, an out after that—home run. Gabriel Moreno, Diamondbacks catcher, following Walker, and after a long drive ruled just foul—home run.

None of baseball’s classic slugging teams ever did in any postseason what the Snakes did in that inning. Not the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees. Not the Foxx-Simmons-Grove Athletics. Not the DiMaggio-Berra-Mantle Yankees. Not the Boys of Summer Dodgers. Not the Mantle-Maris Yankees. Not the Swingin’ As or the Big Red Machine. Not the Pittsburgh Lumber Company, Harvey’s Wallbangers, or the Bash Brothers A’s.

“I’m a fan, too,” said Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, after his Snakes banked the 4-2 win, the division series sweep, and a date with either the Phillies or the Braves in the National League Championship Series, “and I was looking at it thinking, what in the world is happening here?”

So were the Dodgers. Maybe all series long, never mind in the third inning Wednesday night.

“You look at the game, the series, they outplayed us, and there’s no other spin to it,” said manager Dave Roberts. “As far as our clubhouse, it’s just a lot of disappointment.”

As far as the Diamondbacks clubhouse, this team of rising youth, veterans who’ve been called “quirky” among other things, role players, and about as much star power yet as a cactus plant, has arrived. They slipped into the postseason via the wild card system after an 84-win season, swept the Brewers out of the wild card series, then dismantled a Dodger team full of stars who’d usually dismantled them while owning the National League West for most of a previous decade.

And they couldn’t have cared less about the financial power behind that Dodger star power, either. “We shouldn’t be worried about what their payroll is or who they’ve got over there,” said Snakes outfielder Alek Thomas after Game Three. “We’re just worried about what’s right in here in this clubhouse. You saw that this series.”

“They kept punching us in the face,” lamented Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernandez, “and we weren’t able to get back up.”

Just when did the Diamondbacks and their fans really start believing they might have more than a few lessons to teach the pitching-compromised Dodgers (three injured starters, a fourth on administrative leave over domestic violence charges) and the country this time around?

Was it when they bludgeoned six runs out of a possibly still-ailing and finally out of fuel Clayton Kershaw in the Game One first?

Was it when they pried three Game Two first-inning runs out of Bobby Miller, the Dodger rookie who’d looked promising enough over the regular season but now looked as though he was in enough over his 24-year-old head?

Was it after Lynn actually spent the first two Game Three innings on cruise control despite a pair of second-inning hits, before Perdomo hit a 2-1 meatball over the right center field fence, Marte hit a 1-0 service into the right field seats, Walker hit a 3-1 meatball into the left field seats, and Moreno hit a full-count hanging slider into the left center field seats to end Lynn’s night?

Was it when the Diamondbacks’ bullpen, formerly cause for plenty of alarm, left the torches behind long enough to surrender only four of the six series-long Dodger runs?

The Dodger bullpen did what their starters couldn’t do and kept them alive and within reach in the final two games. But their big bats couldn’t do anything, either. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman may have posted Most Valuable Player-style regular seasons, but after fueling the Dodgers lineup all year long they went 1-for-21 together in the division series.

“I know for sure I did absolutely nothing to help us win,” Betts acknowledged. It was the first postseason series of his entire career in which the Mookie Monster went hitless.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Diamondbacks rookie star Corbin Carroll said after Game Three ended. This is a team with whom the Dodgers had their regular season way from 2021-2023, the Dodgers going 38-13 against them over the span.

But the division-series beatdown they laid upon the Dodgers was real enough. And it’ll feel even more real to the Dodgers as they face a winter whose number one mandate will be figuring out how to turn their regular-season dominance into anything other than postseason submission.