Fresh off of the Dodger thumping of the sad sack Padres and Arizona losing to the Cardinal AAA team the Dodgers are 99.85% ready to head to the post season.
Some folks are doing playoff rosters but with Kent and Furcal both showing up last night, I think we have to wait to see how healthy they are come Sunday before we can make any intelligent decisions for the post - season but you all and Andrew are free to give it a shot.
That was pretty sweet of Kent to walk up and lace a single into right field three weeks after arthroscopic surgery. Furcal almost followed suit with his drive down the right field line but it just landed foul. He then ended his first ab in 4 months by flailing at a knuckleball. Of all the things that tried to kill the Dodgers this year it was Furcal going down that had the most impact. A healthy Furcal in the postseason would be just what the doctor ordered but with little time to get ready I'm not holding out hope he's going to be ready. Is a rusty gingerly Furcal better then Berroa? Maybe the old pre-Manny Berroa but since Manny arrived Berroa hasn't been a complete offensive hole but the defense still looks suspect to me. Just the speed and defense would be worth Rafy playing in the playoffs. Kent is another story as it looks like he could only pinch hit. That might be enough but we will know more on Sunday.
In 50 something games Manny has managed to hit more home runs then anyone on the team except for Etheir/Kemp, and by Sunday night he will probably have passed Kemp. At age 37 Manny has put up a combined OPS+ of 165. For baseall purposes Baseball Reference considers this season his age 36 season. It is still a historic season, as only 10 players in history have had an OPS+ > 150 since 1947 at age 36. I think we can throw out Bonds numbers so of those 10 only Stan the Man at 172, and this years version of Chipper Jones at 177 stand a head of Manny's season. His Dodger OPS+ was 217 which easily ranks 1st for players who have played in at least 50 games for the LA Dodgers. Shockingly Rick Monday is 2nd in 1981. Dude had a robust year for a part time player. The difference was that Rick was a part time player and those few at bats were spread out over a full season while Manny has played every game since showing up at the Ravine.
While the other Dodgers may not be hitting home runs they have been hitting doubles at a historic rate per Jon Weisman. Since that post Loney has joined the Trio of Terror (Ethier, Kemp, and Loney) as they become the first trio to hit more then 35 doubles in a season. Let's go for 40.
And one final note on our prime plum, Mr. Clayton Kershaw. During his age 20/21 season he managed to strike out exactly 100 batters while keeping his team in just about every game he pitched. He curveball and fastball look prime to buddy up with Chad and give us one of the best RH/LH combinations in the league over the next few years. If we need a 4th starter it has to be him instead of Maddux, unless you go in with idea of tag teaming a 4 inning Maddux with a 4 inning Kershaw and not let Maddux see the 5th inning no matter how good he looked in the previous 4.