LOS ANGELES — They are the other long-suffering team in this NLCS, co-stars when it comes to baseball misery.

The Dodgers do not have national symbols of despair like a billy goat or a black cat or a Bartman and they do not have the 80-year head start on distress.

But if the symbol of the Cubs’ quest for their first title since 1908 is Odysseus — for a long journey, the Dodgers’ would be Sisyphus because at least they have been pushing the rock up the mountain, albeit futilely.

They are in their 10th playoffs since Kirk Gibson limped into history in 1988 — in the NL only the Braves and Cardinals have more. Still, it is 28 years since they even advanced to the World Series. Heck, when Los Angeles blanked the Cubs 6-0 Tuesday night in Game 3, it marked the first time they had taken a lead in an NLCS since Game 5 in 1988 against the Mets.

The Dodgers actually have absorbed a greater level of criticism and animus from their local fans and media than the Cubs. Much of that, in recent years, in particular, revolves around money.

Think of the Cubs as the Mets. Their rebuild under Theo Epstein involved a strip down of veteran talent and payroll, an acceptance of horrible records to attempt to construct a sustainable contender.

Think of the Dodgers as the Yankees. “In this market, how the fan base has supported us for 50 years, we had to try to be good right away while building for the future.” That came from Dodgers president Stan Kasten, but just as easily could have been said by a Steinbrenner.

Kasten has been a spokesman for a vision since the Guggenheim group finalized its $2 billion purchase of the Dodgers on May 2, 2012. Since then no franchise has spent more in pursuit of a championship than the Dodgers — not even the Yankees — and so far the only one they won was for the 2013 Red Sox.

In attempt to honor that win-now credo, the Dodgers obtained Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez in August 2012. That removed the majority of their long-term commitments from the Red Sox, who reacted by spreading their money around to create a more diversified/deeper roster then won it all the following season.

But Kasten pledged on that May 2012 day that, yes, the Dodgers would pursue immediate victory, but not at the expense of long-term success. “The initial motivation was to revive the brand,” Kasten explained. But the big picture was to return the Dodgers to areas they once were heralded for — notably international signings and high-end player development.

This plan came into even greater focus with what Kasten called “my new front office 2.0” — the large-cost hiring of top baseball officials such as Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi after the 2014 season. This group has swelled payrolls by accepting tons of dead money to rid the roster of unwanted holdovers such as Crawford, Matt Kemp and Alex Guerrero. They have spent lavishly on, particularly, Cuban imports who might not impact the club for several more years.

They have emphasized deepening the 25-man roster with lesser-known pieces and protecting the best prospects such as Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Julio Urias, even if it cost a chance at Cole Hamels at the trade deadline in 2015 and Chris Sale this year. They broke up the Clayton Kershaw-Zack Greinke dynamic when the Diamondbacks soared the bidding at the eleventh hour last offseason to steal Greinke.

Kasten, Friedman and Zaidi have nothing to do with much of what occurred since 1988 — the unpopular trade of Mike Piazza, the frugal, dispiriting ownership of Frank McCourt, the close-but-no-champagne managerial tenure of Joe Torre — but each of those decisions emphasizing tomorrow over today brought the full weight of nearly three decades of anger upon them from Twitter, talk radio, the newspapers, etc.

“We know the media and fans are going to be biased about winning tonight’s game,” Kasten said. “That is not a productive guiding vision for building a franchise. … If you only have short-term goals, you cannot have sustained long-term success.”

So, the Dodgers protected Game 4 starter Urias and their now best player Seager, and used the next level of prospects to get Game 3 winner Rich Hill plus Josh Reddick. The combination had them in as good a position to win that first title since 1988, without jeopardizing chances to keep on going for it.

“It is largely correct that the playoffs are a crapshoot,” Kasten said. “So if you think you can lock something up in just one year by going all in, that is folly. I know our chances of winning a championship are better if we win eight out of 10 division titles.”