Hello,
San Francisco completed a 3 game sweep of the LA Dodgers last night. With the sweep San Francisco solidified their hold on first place on the NL West. Meanwhile the Dodgers are still barely holding on to the NL West's fourth place. They only lead the hard charging Padres by 1/2 game. It was a season that started out with so much promise, although there were plenty of warning signs also. It looks like it's going to be a very long season for the Dodgers.
I hope that Dodgers management takes a long term view and builds for the future. As a Dodgers fan I'd much rather they be relevant for a long time than to be really good short term and burn out quickly. The win now philosophy rarely works and even when it does it doesn't last long. The Dallas Cowboys have been operating on a win now philosophy for about the last 17 years and look where that has got them. Dallas went from one of the NFL's proudest franchises to what they are now, which is a complete laughingstock. But the Dodgers hopefully have a much smarter management team in place than do the Cowboys. But it's not much harder to be smarter than Jerry Jones.
Anyway the Dodgers have lost 4 games in a row and 6 of 8 as things don't look to be getting better. In fact things are getting worse, with Hanley Ramirez re-injuring himself. Also Adrian Gonzalez was a late scratch yesterday, although he did have a 2 RBI pinch hit in the 8th inning. Thank goodness for Gonzalez, I'd hate to see how bad the Dodgers offense would be without him. Gonzalez leads the Dodgers in batting average at .337, in RBIs with 22, in hits with 33 and also with on base percentage at .398. Gonzalez is tied for second on the Dodgers for home runs with 3, he's tied with Andre Ethier.
Carl Crawford leads the Dodgers with 4 home runs. Meanwhile Matt Kemp is tied for 6th on the Dodgers with one home run. He's tied with Justin Sellers, Jerry Hairston Jr., Clayton Kershaw and Hanley Ramirez. Kemp is tied with two players with low batting averages, a pitcher and a player who has only played 4 games this season. Kemp is one of many reasons for this Dodgers ineffectiveness.
So far Gonzalez has been the best players the Dodgers received in the trade with the Red Sox. He's followed by Carl Crawford and then surprisingly by Nick Punto. Josh Beckett is dead last in value in that trade.
The Dodgers now return to Chavez Ravine to play a 3 game series with the Diamondbacks. Arizona is 16-15 and only 3 games out of first place in the NL West. The Dodgers will be most fortunate to win 2 of those 3 games. According to ESPN the Dodgers have a 12.6% chance of making the playoffs. But in the real world I doubt this Dodgers team is going to make the playoffs. Before the season started I predicted this Dodgers team wouldn't make the playoffs.
Speaking of sweeps, another one of my teams was swept this weekend. The Red Sox went into Texas and were swept by the Rangers. The Red Sox are better able to absorb a sweep than the Dodgers. Even after being swept the Red Sox are still tied for the best record in MLB. Boston, St. Louis and Texas are all 20-11. Boston also returns home and they'll play 7 straight games at Fenway. The Red Sox will play 4 games against the 13-14 Twins and then play three games against the criminally underperforming 11-21 Blue Jays. I predict the Red Sox will get home and get their groove back and I predict they'll win 5 of those 7 games.
The Red Sox still lead second place New York by 1.5 games and have a 63.4% chance of making the playoffs.
Also Braves stalwart Brian McCann is suppose to be back with Atlanta today. He's returning from injury. Hopefully he'll be back from injury longer than Hanley Ramirez was.
themusicaddict
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