Trade Deadline in 3 hours and 5 Minutes...

As the trade deadline looms, the Dodgers certainly accomplished what they wanted to do in the first place.

Be better.

With the addition of George Sherrill, they have arguably the best bull pen in major league baseball.  Belisario is in the DL, but could be back soon.  The return of Hong Chih Kuo couldn't have come better against the Cardinals, even wanted to pitch against the best hitter in the league.  Our pen has been worked up the ass, but with the help of Sherrill (and maybe more ) our bull-pen can contribute a whole lot in the post-season. 

People forget that Kershaw is 21.  As we learned from Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, the Dodgers need to preserve his arm.  He has already surpassed his IP (Innings pitched)  from last season and is projected to pitch 191 innings this season. That is a lot for a young arm, I mean, he pitched in high school two years ago.  My guess is that Colletti and the Dodgers are looking for more bull-pen help to save an inning or two from our young starters (Bills and Kersh) to limit them to five innings or pitch less than 80 pitches in the post-season. 

Yes, it's fair to say that Kershaw is now the ace of the staff and should have a better record than he has now.  But the way the Dodgers are working him right now, they need to start limiting him now even if he is having a terrific game.  Kershaw pitched 112 pitches in 8 innings against the Cards, but he pitched "for contact" instead of pitching for strike-outs and I think he should keep doing that because it really worked well for him. 

Look, I want Roy Halladay too. With him, we would arguably be the team to beat in the post-season.  But with the bull-pen aid Colletti is trading for, it is fair to say that gaining bull-pen help is one of the most important ways to accomplish our goal in picking up our seventh World Series trophy.

And we just started to accomplish