Hello,
The Dodgers continue their recent run of poor play, losing on Wednesday to Arizona 9-4. LA's magic number remains 2 and on Thursday they'll try to clinch the NL West once again.
At least the Dodgers offense showed up in this game, it's too bad that their pitching was brutal. Clayton Kershaw's was scheduled to start, but his start was pushed back. The start was given to Stephen Fife, which didn't work out in the Dodgers favor. In 2.1 innings he gave up 6 hits and 4 runs in that limited action. The goggled one drops to 4-4 and his ERA is at 3.86. As hard as it's to believe he didn't have the worst outing by a Dodgers pitcher, that honor belongs to Ronald Belisario. Belisario was bad as he bungled his way to giving up 2 hits, 3 walks and 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning. Belisario's ERA increases to 4.13.
The rest of the Dodgers pitchers were better. Carlos Marmol, Peter Moylan and Brandon League had decent outings. Paco Rodriguez and Brian Wilson were both great. Rodriguez has been solid all season and Wilson is a nice late season addition. He also has World Series experience, I'm hoping he gets more World Series experience this year.
Arizona has won 2 of the first 3 games in this series, the fourth and final game is Thursday afternoon. With the Dodgers going after the NL West title again (ahem) they sent the solid Ricky Nolasco (13-10, 3.35 ERA) to the mound. Arizona will rely on Wade Miley (10-10, 3.68 ERA).
The AL Wild Card race continues to be a battle. Right now the two AL Wild Card teams would be Tampa Bay and Texas. However Cleveland is only .5 games behind the Rangers for that second Wild Card spot. If the Indians make the playoffs should Terry Francona be the AL manager of the year? He should definitely be in consideration.
Baltimore, who's 1 game behind Texas and a half game behind Cleveland, stays in the race. Somehow they've climbed to a 17.3% chance of reaching the playoffs. They've won two clutch games in Boston, too bad they didn't have a few more clutch wins previously. The third and final game of this series from Fenway is Thursday night. Can the Orioles win yet again?
After Thursday's game the schedule doesn't get any easier for the Orioles. They play every day the rest of the season. After playing in Boston for 3 games, they travel to Tampa Bay for 4 more games. Right now Baltimore is two game behind Tampa Bay so in this series they could pass the Rays and put themselves into great Wild Card position. Tampa hasn't been playing great as of late so Baltimore still has a slim chance. However the Orioles making the playoffs is highly unlikely.
The other question is will the Rangers continue to fade, it's got to feel like the end of last season all over again.
themusicaddict
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