The LA Dodgers defeated the Cardinals 5-3 on Saturday, which broke the Cardinals 3 game winning streak. St. Louis is now 31-17, 1/2 game behind Texas for the best record in MLB. St. Louis is also this week's Sports Illustrated cover story, "The Cardinal Way". The only way the Dodgers will get a second cover story this season is much like how the Red Sox did last season.
Projected title for a Dodgers cover story: "Is This All You Can Get For $216 Million?".
While more Dodgers are performing poorly than are performing well, there are still some Dodgers doing well. One of those players is Adrian Gonzalez. He had a hell of a game yesterday, he was 3 for 3 and got on base all 5 times he was at bat. Gonzalez also had a single, double and his 5th home run of the season. He also had 3 more RBIs which gives him 33 RBIs on the season and is tied for 17th place in all of MLB with the Orioles' Adam Jones.
Surprisingly Nick Punto continues to play much better than I expected. To be honest I really didn't know that much about him before he came over to the Dodgers. He was part of their big trade with the Red Sox last season. Punto was 3 for 4 and got on base 4 of 5 times. He's hitting .340 for the season. Although he did have his 5th error of the season, which lead to a Cardinals unearned run. That's a minor concern as he's one of the too few Dodgers who are actually hitting.
Two of the Dodgerss who aren't hitting are Andre Ethier (.252 BA) and Matt Kemp (.261). Those two are 0-13 in LA's last two games. I don't think Kemp has fully recovered from his injury of last season. As for Ethier he's performing as you'd expect for someone who's on the downside of his career. Too bad the Dodgers decided to sign him to a 5 year-$80 million plus contract last season. Buster Olney, at ESPN.com, writes about some of the options the Dodgers have in potentially trading Ethier. LA has the resources to pay for that mistake fortunately. For that bad decision, among many others, I suggest that Ned Colleti should be on a much hotter seat than Don Mattingly.
LA is 28th in all of MLB in home runs. With 161 runs scored on the season, LA remains in 29th place in that category in MLB.
Dodgers pitching was decent yesterday, LA got about all they can realistically expect from Ted Lilly. He pitched 5.1 innings, only giving up 2 hits and 2 runs. Although one of those runs were unearned due to Punto's error. Kenley Jansen had his 10th hold although he gave up 2 hits but 0 runs. He also had 4 strikeouts. Brandon League earned his 10th save of the season, giving up 0 runs and 0 hits. He still has a perilously high ERA of 4.91 though. Paco Rodriguez, who's expected to be a big time future Dodgers pitcher, earned his first career win.
The Dodgers remain in last place in the NL West, they are last place in the division that has the worst first place team (s) in all of MLB. The Rockies, Giants and Diamondbacks are all 27-22, which is a .551 winning percentage. If a team was 27-22 in the NL Central, they would be in fourth place and 4.5 games out of first place. The Dodgers are 6 games behind the logjam at the top of the NL West. Even more embarrassingly they are 1.5 games behind the 4th place Padres. According to ESPN, the Dodgers have a 2.7% chance of making the playoffs.
There's one remaining game left in the Dodgers-Cardinals series. Today in the final game of the series thankfully the best pitcher in MLB is pitching for the Dodgers. The amazing Clayton Kershaw is 5-2 with a 1.35 ERA. He's also getting stronger as the season goes on. Pitching for the Cardinals is Shelby Miller, who's a very solid 5-3 with a 1.74 ERA.
Next the Dodgers play a 4 game series against the Angels. The Angels have had a very similar season to the Dodgers. They signed the overrated Josh Hamilton in the off season, have an extremely high payroll and have really been struggling this season. However while the Dodgers continue to struggle the Angels had their 7 game winning streak snapped yesterday. Also the Angels pretty much own the Dodgers in interleague play. The first two games will be in Dodgers Stadium and they'll play the two final games at the Angels home field. I'd be good if the Dodgers won 2 of the 4 games in that series.
The Angels are 22-27 and 3rd place in the AL West. They trail the team with the best record in MLB, the Texas Rangers, by 10 games. According to ESPN, they have a 15.6% chance of making the playoffs.
Meanwhile the Braves continue to be incredibly hot. On Saturday the Braves-Mets finished off a game that had been suspended Friday night. Atlanta won that game and then they won the Saturday game. Atlanta has now won 8 games in a row and 8 of 10 games. They lead the NL East by 5.5 games over the second place Nationals. ESPN says they have a 93.9% chance of making the playoffs.
Tonight's Sunday Night Baseball game is Atlanta-New York Mets, the final game in their 3 game series. I'm not sure why ESPN is hyping up Jason Heyward though. Heyward is hitting all of .170 on the season with only 2 home runs and 8 RBIs. Why aren't they hyping feel good story Evan Gattis or Justin Upton? Upton is only hitting .272, but he has 14 home runs and 29 RBIs. Upton is tied for second place in MLB in home runs.
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