It has come down to the final two series of the season. The Dodgers get the luck of the schedule and play two of the worse teams in baseball. If they win both series by taking two out of three, Arizona needs to win out just to force a tie-breaker game.
Dodger Sims breaks down the odds.
I know some Dodger fans have worked their shorts into knots but I'm feeling at ease about the whole thing. We control our destiny, if we don't do our job and Arizona wins out they deserve the flag.
The Dodgers need to earn this flag, someone besides Manny need to step up and win a game on their own instead of depending on their meal ticket for everything. Loney almost did it yesterday but three different times, three different defensive players took a game winning RBI away from him. Someone is going to step up over the next 6 days but we will have to play the games to find out who it is.
Given what we have been up against I'm quite pleased that they are in this position.
1. Losing Nomar/LaRoche in the same spring training game and relying on a AA prospect to fill in.
2. Losing Furcal after his MVP like performance the first six weeks, and having his replacements play like the worse starting SS in Dodger History.
3. Bad Penny showed up time and time again and then not showing up at all
4. Andruw Jones having one of the worse seasons in major league history after being expected to provide power to the middle of the lineup.
5. Smiling Sammy going down for multiple weeks
6. Jeff Kent showing that not even he can buck the age 40 problem for middle infielders.
7. Russel Martin becoming allergic to extra base hits(9 in 250 plate appearances) in the 2nd half and not making anyone forget Steve Yeagar behind the plate.
8. James Loney becoming a double play machine (24) while forgetting how he launched nine home runs last Sept.
9. Matt Kemp dropping 20 something points in OPS+
10. Blake DeWitt hitting the wall harder then most
11. Getting zero again from Jason Schmidt.
However all those negative things were balanced by
1. Greatest trade in Dodger history, or least the greatest trade since we shipped Osteen to the Astro's for the Toy Cannon. Has anyone been more enjoyable to watch this century in Dodger Blue then Manny Ramirez?
2. Chad Billingsley become not just the Dodger ace but one of the top pitchers in all of baseball.
3. Derek Lowe continued to prove that Depo made one of the best free agent signings ever as he was just as strong in the last year of his contract as his 1st.
4. For most of the year Kuo was the best relief pitcher in baseball. His numbers against LHH were just sick.
5. Andre Ethier finally stopped looked over his shoulder and the least heralded of the young hitters, smoked the NL during Aug/Sept.
6. Corey Wade made the most of his opportunity and some think he is the Dodger ROY. I'm not sure about that but he made the Wade/Kuo/Broxton/Saito bullpen quite formidable.
7. Blake DeWitt was an emense help in April/May, sucked in June/July came back in late Aug as a 2nd baseman and helped fuel the Dodger 13 - 2 run that propelled them into 1st place.
8. Matt Kemp took over in CF and proved he can play an adequate CF while giving us some hot streaks. Stole a bunch of bases and seemed to be a decent lead off hitter when given the chance.
9. For the first two months of the year Russel Martin looked like he was going to live up to expectations of being the best catcher in the NL with his 888 OPS.
10. Oh yeah, we had a 20 year put up quite a debut. Can't quite remember his name but it will come to me.
11. Our Japanese import also held his own. Nothing special but he earned his salary.
Six more games to go. How does it play out, heartbreak or celebration?