Dodgers Daily, September 9th, 2013: Juan Uribe Has The Game Of His Life, Pirates Win 82nd Game

Hello,

LA started a 7 game home stand Monday, to start this stand they have 3 games against the faltering Diamondbacks. Arizona is the NL West's second place team, the place they look like they'll hold on to the rest of the season. In the first game of the series LA exploded for 8 runs against the Diamondbacks. With LA's victory, their magic number decreases to 8. A combination of 8 LA wins and Diamondbacks losses clinch the NL West for LA. LA winning the NL West has long been a foregone conclusion, the question is when will it happen? With LA playing Arizona for 2 more games the Dodgers can hasten that process.

Juan Uribe had the game of his life. In his first 3 at bats he hit home runs, this is Uribe's first 3 home run game in his career. Previous to this game it took him over 50 games to hit 3 homers. (Thanks as always to ESPN for many of these great Dodger nuggets.) Against Arizona Uribe hit his 8th, 9th and 10th homers of the season. He was also 4 for 4 and is hitting .279 this season. Uribe had 4 more RBIs and has 44 this season. Uribe's three year contract that he signed with LA is finally paying dividends for the Dodgers in the final season of that contract.

The Dodgers ended up hitting 6 homers in this game. When Dodger players do hit home runs, many times they hit solo homers. It's very few teams that can hit 6 homers and only score 8 runs, but I'm so glad LA's offense woke up for at least 1 game. Andre Ethier added his 12th homer, Adrian Gonzalez his 20th and Hanley Ramirez hit his 18th homer in his injury shortened season.

Ricky Nolasco continues his recent string of very effective outings. He pitched 6.2 innings, allowing 3 hits and 1 run. Nolasco improves to 13-9 and lowers his ERA to 3.14. ESPN points out that he won his 7th straight decision, which has occurred over his last 8 starts. This Dodgers pitching staff is turning into a great pitching staff right before our eyes. If they could only find a consistent 5th starter..... then a World Series title could be the limit.

The Dodgers are 84-59 and they reduce their magic number to 8 games. They now lead Arizona by 12 games. If LA wins the next two games, which they play both against Arizona, they can lower their magic number to 4 games. For those that don't know a magic number is the number of Dodgers wins and Diamondback losses for the Dodgers to clinch the NL West.

Meanwhile the Pirates had a very historic moment in their recent history on Monday. The Pirates went to Texas and beat a very good Rangers team 1-0. This was the Pirates 82nd win, which guarantees their first winning season in 21 years. It was Pedro Alvarez's clutch 7th inning double that drove in new Pirate Marlon Byrd.

The roller coaster season of Gerrit Cole continues. He pitched 7 innings and only allowed 3 hits and 0 runs and also struck out 9 Rangers. Cole improves to 7-7 in his rookie season, while lowering his ERA to 3.48.

Of course the Pirates clinching a winning season is just one of many steps they want to take this season. Next up is making the playoffs, hopefully winning the NL Central. Then obviously the final step is to win the World Series, what an amazing story that would make.

Thanks to one of my other teams, the Cubs, they beat the Reds yesterday. St. Louis remains in first place in the NL Central and lead the second place Pirates by 1 game. St. Louis leads third place Cincy by 2 games. The Reds have played 2 more games than either the Cardinals or the Pirates, I don't think that's going to be an advantage for them. I expect the NL Central battle to go down close to the final day of the season.

Meanwhile in the AL West the A's went 8-2 on their recent 10 game home stand and then had Monday off, they lead the Rangers by 2 games. Even though the Rangers aren't hindered by Josh Hamilton any more, I still don't see them winning the AL West.

themusicaddict