Brian
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Post by Brian on Mar 11, 2012 23:35:10 GMT -8
Other Dodger fans have grumbled through the off season about the team's inability to acquire a slugger like Prince Fielder -- come to think of it, like they've always done -- but I'm happy with the new contracts for Matt Kemp, who should have won the Most Valuable Player award in 2011, and Clayton Kershaw, the left handed pitcher who could surpass Sandy Koufax' achievements, according to Koufax himself. With Andre Ethier and James Loney possibly playing their final year as Dodgers while facing the biggest negotiations of their careers, there are many good reasons to believe that the Dodgers will win the National League West. Frank McCourt is supposed to be gone by May. Will the rookie billionaire owner who succeeds him have the wherewithal to fund a winning team? Because July is when you buy that slugger. The 2012 season will end with an elimination game in each league for the wild card spot, a big improvement. No longer will a team be able to rest its players and juggle the starting rotation after clinching in September, sometimes before the division leaders are decided. Because Bud Selig and the players union jammed in the expanded postseason after the 2012 schedule was set, they will restrict each five-game Division Series to two cities instead of the possible three before returning to the 2-2-1 format in 2013.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Apr 10, 2012 23:00:51 GMT -8
Time begins on opening day. Actually, some fans started partying in Elysian Park the night before the Dodgers' home opener, soon joined by the LAPD officers swarming the area. Before I got to work, the cars were backed up on the Stadium Way off ramp, more than four hours before the first pitch at 1:06.
It's like Frank McCourt has already left Chavez Ravine. Our long National League nightmare is over.
Five games into this season, it's too early to judge the 2012 Dodgers. So I won't say that although their record is 4-1, the hitting is thin. But I'm going to enjoy watching Dee Gordon on the base paths for the next six months -- and if his team can stay ahead of the Diamondbacks and the Giants, make it seven.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Apr 17, 2012 23:01:12 GMT -8
I have traditionally refused to check the National League standings until the end of April, but I have to mention that the Dodgers have nine wins and only two losses after Tuesday's tough defeat by the Brewers. Yes, it was their first game against a good team in 2012. But almost every Dodger is playing well -- especially Matt Kemp, the NL Player of the Week for the first two weeks of this season.
I'm also not paying too much attention to the Roger Clemens retrial. The steroid era will forever stain baseball, like the Black Sox scandal in 1919, but he's charged with lying to the U.S. Congress under oath.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on May 9, 2012 23:00:53 GMT -8
The Dodgers won two out of three games from the Giants, which is probably why I'm posting tonight. This was the first Dodgers-Giants series of the season -- and the first Dodger homestand under the new ownership -- so all feels right in Chavez Ravine. I get more excited and pay much more attention when these rivals meet. And with many of the Giants' marquee players either injured or suspended, I had a lot of new names to learn. Somehow, they're in second place in the National League West, only five games back. Almost 20 percent of the season has passed, and although I usually ignore the standings until May, I've certainly noticed that the Dodgers have either had the best record in the league or tied for it almost every day so far. The paid attendance for last two games was around 33,000, about 44,000 on Monday -- still better than last year under McCourt -- so I'd better get my ass down to Dodger Stadium before school lets out for the summer and the crowds swell into the harder to navigate 45,000 to 55,000 range.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Jun 3, 2012 0:33:12 GMT -8
With one-third of this excellent National League season in the books, I offer some random thoughts: - The Dodgers still have the best record in baseball despite losing five games in a row last week. They were the last team in both major leagues to lose more than two in a row. Yes, the phenomenal party is over and the Giants are only four games behind. But I love this ever evolving team.
- Matt Kemp and his hamstring, injured again but in a different place, will be out until the All Star break in July, yet Juan Rivera and Juan Uribe are coming off of the disabled list soon.
- Not that the Dodgers haven't been trying to trade for another slugger already. Teams have less incentive to trade this year because of the new playoff game for the wild card spot.
- I haven't been following the rest of the league as closely as the National League West, but it seems to me that the Reds have topped the Central Division for more than a month and that every team in the East has played better than .500 for quite awhile.
- Thanks to the Padres for keeping the hapless Cubs from being the worst team in the National League.
I missed several marvelous opportunities to enjoy games in Chavez Ravine with paid attendance as low as 25,000 in May. I'm screwed in June, when they play only nine games, the first six of those interleague.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Jun 14, 2012 23:00:53 GMT -8
Every June, I threaten to rant about interleague play, which is like a big blister, a constant irritation for three weeks until it pops. When the scab falls off and the itching stops, it's time for the All Star Game.
I've been an old fart most of my life yet I barely remember when the National and American Leagues each split into two divisions in 1969 and expansion began. So I grew to love seeing the Dodgers play 18 games against fellow teams in the National League West and 12 against the East every season. That's three series at home and three on the road with the West, and two series at home and two on the road with the East. Now -- because of further expansion, three divisions and the dreaded interleague play sapping 15 games from the schedule -- the Dodgers meet the Central and East teams just once, home and away.
I'll always treasure the seasons where Dodger pitchers batted in every game, back when National and American League teams never played between spring training and the World Series. As God intended.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Jun 26, 2012 23:00:52 GMT -8
The Dodgers still have the best record in baseball despite losing five games in a row last week...Yes, the phenomenal party is over and the Giants are only four games behind. The party actually hung over for three more weeks. The Dodgers still had the best record in the National League on Sunday night when they arrived in San Francisco, three games ahead of the Giants. Most of the first half of this season has been exhilarating to watch. With interleague play finally over, I had been jonesing for this series against the Hated Ones in AT&T Spies on You Park. (I know, that's so 2006.) If the Dodgers swept the Giants, they would return to Chavez Ravine leading the National League West by six games. Instead, I was forced to tune out Vin Scully in the second inning on Monday, the Dodgers already down 5 to 0. Tuesday night, I sat though the ninth -- the team's 21st consecutive scoreless inning -- because they were only behind 2 to 0, enduring the roar of 46,000 Dodger haters over Vinnie's voice. The Dodgers have lost eight of their last ten games. They lead the Giants by just one. And I will be gratefully stuck at work Wednesday, nowhere near a television, in case they lose again.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Jul 10, 2012 23:00:48 GMT -8
Let's win one for the Chipper. The National League was already leading 5 to 0 when I left work and heard on the radio that Chipper Jones, who's retiring this year after 19 seasons with the same team, had addressed his teammates before the game: "I am not going out losing my last one. You with me?" With the 8 to 0 victory, the National League has now won three All Star Games in a row. The large contingent of San Francisco Giants on the squad, most of them voted into the starting line up by their fans, contributed mightily. I can root for Giants in an exhibition game. The Mets host next year's All Star Game, which hasn't come to Dodger Stadium since 1980. Given all of the new ballparks in both leagues, it could be another 32 years.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Aug 13, 2012 23:19:05 GMT -8
This Tuesday morning, the Dodgers are again tied with the Giants for first place in the National League West, just as they were at the end of June. Both teams have 63 wins and 53 losses -- good but not great.
Four other National League teams have better records -- including the Reds, who've owned the Central Division for months and now lead by five games. (I bet that Roberta wants the Dodgers to sweep the four-game series in Pittsburgh, for different reasons than me.) The Reds winning percentage of .600 beats every team in the American League. But the surprising Washington Nationals have the best record in baseball.
With the Dodgers in the middle of a three-city road trip in the Eastern time zone, I can only watch the scoreboard and the standings. The games start at 4 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends. At least I'm not missing Vin Scully, who doesn't travel east of Arizona anymore. Go Dodgers -- then come home.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Aug 26, 2012 11:17:46 GMT -8
I sat down Thursday night to write the Dodgers’ obituary for the 2012 season, but luckily I got distracted by news of a new Dave Davies album. I had just seen the Dodgers swept in Chavez Ravine by three Giants starting pitchers in peak form, a wonderfully balanced line up of batters and two or three relief pitchers I wish we had. Los Angeles started the series half a game ahead. When the Hated Ones left town, the Dodgers were behind two and a half.
But now, the slugger of my dreams is a Dodger. Adrian Gonzalez, born in San Diego only 30 years ago and a former Padre, hit a three-run homer on his second pitch Saturday evening, joining Dusty Baker and Eric Karros in an elite club of Dodgers who debuted with a home run. To get him, the club had to buy the bloated contracts of pitcher Josh Beckett, disabled outfielder Carl Crawford and utilityman Nick Punto from the Boston Red Sox and say goodbye to four fine minor leaguers and James Loney, whom I loved but grew tired of defending after seven disappointing seasons. This is the biggest August deal ever in baseball.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, purchased for more than two billion dollars last April by the Guggenheim group from the hapless Frank McCourt, added yet another quarter of a billion dollars to the payroll. One could hardly blame Giants fans for hating the Dodgers if the boys in blue win the division. They will have become the Yankees of the National League.
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