An Off Day Thought

Just some thoughts running through my head today after the just-completed road trip heading into the final series this weekend against the Rockies out at the Ravine.

Last night on the game chat thread on Dodger Thoughts, I let my frustration take over after just an inning and half when I errantly posted this comment:

"It's only the second inning and I can tell this is gonna be another long night... jesus... they're not even trying..."

Obviously, "not trying" was a bad choice of words. In fact, I was way off-base with those words. But it was another long night, and they did look flat last night. They only mustered one first inning single all night. That's it.

Sitting through reading that thread, and the next one Jon Weisman posted, throughout the game last night, I came to the realization that I'm not in the minority when it comes to my frustrations with the Dodgers in recent days. But not once, did I ever give up on them as it seems so many fans have. It's almost as if Dodger fans are expecting the worse to happen.

Well, what is the worse that could happen, the lose the division and head into the post-season as the Wild Card? I thought the ultimate goal was to win the World Series?

So, I went to bed last night dwelling on that first question, and then woke up to see this ridiculous column this morning by Bill Plaschke on the L.A. Times Sports webpage. It really got me thinking because amazingly, Plaschke really put things into perspective for me. In a nutshell, when he gets all worked up over something like this, you know it's much ado about nothing.

That's when it all became to clearer to me, that my sentiments all week, and even last night with my single line comment on Dodger Thoughts was, indeed, all out of frustration. But Plaschke? Well, he's really concerned about this. And so are a lot of other Dodger fans. And between the two, it prompted ESPN's Rob Neyer to write this on his blog this morning.

Neyer's advice to Dodger fans? Relax! The Dodgers are still going to the post-season. And, as I questioned three paragraphs up, does it really matter if they go in as the wild card as opposed to the division? Not when the ultimate goal is to win the World Series.

The Dodgers aren't the only team struggling. It's been noted here in this space already that both Philly and St. Louis have also struggled in the past 10-12 days, as well. They, too, like the Dodgers, have problems. Sure, the Dodgers many not have that "ace" that Philly and St. Louis have, but their rotation might just be deeper and better suited for a post-season series.

The Dodgers have also still scored the third most runs in the N.L. despite their recent struggles to score, and the most important bottom line, they have, far-and-away, the best run differential in the N.L. at a +163. That is a very telling number.

Sure, that still may not be any consolation to some Dodger fans; this past week has been hard to watch. It's been very discouraging and very disheartening. They haven't played well at all. They've made a lot of unusual mental mistakes, some costly errors, and the timely hitting that we've seen much of the season has disappeared. Maybe they're trying too hard, pressing too much to get that one win out of the way. They all but had the division clinched on Sunday until they broke down in the ninth inning. I'm sure it's tough to over come those kind of losses. Those kind of losses stay with you a long time. But they've overcome them before. We've seen it all season from them.

And the odds of winning the division are still in their favor. We've seen the match-up numbers for the Rockies pitchers for this weekend against the Dodgers (see previous post). The Dodgers have two overwhelming advantages in the first two games. And we've seen the Dodgers struggle like this before, even heading into a series against the Rockies as recent as August, and they came out of it just fine.

The Dodgers know what they need to do this weekend. They what the task at hand is. The goal, however, is to win the World Series. Nothing less. Winning the division or the wild card doesn't change that. Losing three games this weekend isn't the end of the world, and it certainly isn't the end of their season.