Never thought 2010 would come to this. Doing a series preview of the Giants / Dodgers in Sept, and six games separate us with the Giants being the ones looking down at us.
74-60, 2nd place in NL West (Schedule and Results)
View League Standings and Leaders
Manager: Bruce Bochy (74-60)
Scored 593 runs, Allowed 524 runs. Pythagorean W-L: 75-59
I'm going to do this a little differently.
The Giants are the team with the hottest hitting young catcher in baseball while the Dodgers have ... a rod and cripple.
The Giants are the team with a slug 1st baseman while the Dodgers have.......... Loney
The Giants are the team with the CF who has done it all this year while the Dodgers have ..... Kemp
The Giants are the team who acquired two over the hill outfielders at the trading deadline who have put up wOBA of .364 and .376 while the Dodgers have........... Podboy
The Giants have the hottest hitting 2nd baseman in August while the Dodgers have ......... Theriot
The Giants best hitter coming into 2010 has been less then brilliant but he's coming off a hot August while the Dodgers have ........... Blake
So not only have the Dodgers totally underperformed offensive expectations this year but the damn Giants other then Sandoval have totally out performed offensive expectations. It has been a year of juxtaposition as our pitching is doing what many expected the Giant pitching to do.
The Dodgers in August had four starters on the top 30 FIP board while the Giants have......... one
For the season the Dodgers have three starters in the top 15 FIP board while the Giants have ..... Lincecum
Lincecum had an ERA of 7.82 in August.
The Dodgers will be facing Zito, Cain, and Sanchez. For maybe the first time since Tim Lincecum showed up Dodger fans may be lamenting not getting to face him. Barry Zito has been even worse then Lincecum in August. The Dodgers would do well to get off on the right foot and beat Zito tonight.
Many have said we have nothing to play for anymore and that there is no point to watching the rest of the season. If you are not in the pennant race what could be better then making sure the Giants are also watching from the sidelines. We either need to keep the Padres afloat or allow the Rockies to skip by the Giants. The 3rd option is not acceptable.
Since I've pointed out how well the Giant offense has been doing, it may come as a shock that I'm predicting a Dodger sweep. All of those hot Giant bats will find it a tougher go against Billingsley, Lilly, and Kuroda. I want to predict that Loney will lead us in this sweep but we are facing two LHP so that is probably not going to happen. Nor will Andre be part of the equation. I guess Rod Barajas is the only answer.