A 100-Win Season With a Week To Go Not Good Enough For Ya? Grab A Bat!
Here's what's next for the second-place Dodgers.
The Dodgers are 100-56. One hundred and fifty-six! They’re 100-56 two years after finishing 106-56 and four years after completing a 104-58 season. In between they played .717 ball over the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, with a 43-17 mark, while winning a record 13 postseason games and the World Series. And that’s not good enough for you? Hello?! Well, grab a bat!!!
Complaining about the Dodgers is a thing. It’s an odd thing, but it’s a thing which goes back generations, as if 19 National League West division titles, 24 NL pennants and seven World Series championships somehow doesn’t measure up. Admittedly, I’m guilty of such whining on occasion. OK, fine; often. I complain about the club regularly, wailing away on Twitter in real time, exhorting the men to do as I say, because clearly I know better. From my armchair, I must know better, right?
I usually come to my senses after a good night’s sleep. And thank my lucky Hollywood Stars I didn’t suffer through the Brooklyn failures from 1884 up to and including the 1954 season, when — gasp! — the New York Giants won the Fall Classic. Then I think about the poor folks in Cleveland, who’ve been waiting since 1948 to exhale triumphant in October. And those in San Diego, with their six playoff appearances, two pennants and zero championships in 53 seasons; with their five retired numbers (two of them Dodgers Steve Garvey and Jackie Robinson) and one of them Randy Jones. The supposed world-beating 2021 Padres, who will have to go some to finish a break-even 81-81. And I think, I’m sure glad I’m me instead of them.
Then I think of the messes in Queens and Baltimore which shouldn’t exist, and about fans in cities who’ve never seen ticket tape rain down on their baseball players — ever — like in Tampa, Texas and Colorado. And in Milwaukee, which has experienced baseball nirvana for the Braves once (in 1957), but not the Brewers. And then I think about the greatest of them all, the New York Yankees, with their 40 American League pennants and 27 championships. And I ask myself, would I trade places with those fans? Would I trade my baseball watching experience for theirs, with all that diamond glory? The answer comes quickly : not on your life. Not. On. Your. Life.
I’m a Dodger fan. I’ll take the bad with the good, complain when it makes me feel better temporarily, criticize where criticism applies and be thankful for the last eight years of unparalleled success, and the first 25 weeks of this year’s. I’m not going to devote the column inch space to complain about the performance of a 100-56 team. Perspective is required.
Los Angeles sits two games back of 102-54 San Francisco with six to play. The Giants won the season series 10 games to nine. The difference between the two teams is one head-to-head game. One. Had the Dodgers won any one of the 10 they lost, they’d be tied for first as we speak. So yeah, 100-56 isn’t good enough to lead the division after 156 games, but the season is 162 games long the last I checked.
Plenty of things can happen in the time remaining. San Francisco can go 4-2 while L.A. wins six straight, which would force a tiebreaker game in the Bay Area next Monday, with a potential matchup of Max Scherzer versus Alex Wood. The Giants can split their remaining games while the Dodgers win five of theirs, which would produce the same result; a one-game playoff at Oracle Park. San Francisco can go 2-4 while L.A. goes 4-2. Again, the same result. Or the Dodgers could go 5-1 or 6-0 while the Giants go 2-4 or 3-3 and win the West outright.
I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen this week, or in the postseason. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’ll take my chances with Walker Buehler, Scherzer and Tony Gonsolin the probables opposite the Pads’ Yu Darvish (1-7, 6.28 in the second half), Undecided and Undecided Tuesday through Friday at Chavez Ravine. The Giants host the DBacks the same three nights, with Logan Webb, Wood and Undecided scheduled to face Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly and Madison Bumgarner. One would expect San Francisco to win that series, and possibly sweep, but stranger things have happened. I’m confident the Dodgers will have some breaths left come Friday morning. Let’s compare notes then.
In the meantime, a few items, the first three in tweet form:
Corey Seager stroked his 11th and 12th home runs of the season (and 99th and 100th of his career) in L.A.’s 3-0 win at Phoenix Sunday. The Dodgers’ shortstop is hitting .313/.405/.522 with eight homers and 28 RBIs since returning from a broken hand July 30. He’s at .350/.448/.588 with five and 14 in September.
The Dodgers’ other shortstop, Trea Turner, also hit his 100th career long ball Sunday, his 25th of the year, to go along with 66 RBIs and an NL-leading 31 steals. He’s now hitting precisely .322 as a Dodger after hitting exactly that in Washington. All told, he’s at .322/.370/.529, with the .322 being the best in all of baseball.
If Turner wins the batting title — and he’ll have to beat out his former Nats teammate Juan Soto (.321) to do so — it will be the 12th time a Dodger has won the batting title. The other 11 instances are as follows: Dan Brouthers (1892, .335), Jake Daubert (1913, .350), Daubert (1914, .329), Zack Wheat (1918, .335), Lefty O’Doul (1932, .368), Pete Reiser (1941, .333), Dixie Walker (1944, .357), Jackie Robinson (1949, .342), Carl Furillo (1953, .344), Tommy Davis (1962, .346) and Davis again (1963, .326).
A.J. Pollock, who was hitting .297/.352/.508 when he strained his right hamstring September 4, went 4-11 in his return over the weekend at Arizona to raise his season slash line to .299/.358/.518, with 17 homers and 61 RBIs. In the 31 games in which he’s faced off against his former DBacks mates lifetime, Pollock sports a .372/.431/.702 mark, with nine homers and 26 RBIs in 121 at bats. I’ve maligned the Dodgers’ left fielder a number of times in the past. No longer. He’s been great. A great Dodger.
Julio Urias (19-3, .864), Scherzer (15-4, .789) and Walker Buehler (14-4, .778) are about to finish the year as the game’s leaders in winning percentage. The 1927 Yankees are the only other team in baseball history to have their pitchers finish one, two, three (with a minimum of 15 decisions). Those Yanks were George Pipgras (10-3, .769), Waite Hoyt (22-7, 759) and Urban Shocker (18-6, .750).
A note about subscriptions:
I know it can be confusing, so I wanted to take a minute to explain how subscriptions at Substack work. Or, more precisely, how writers working for wages go about it, which is most of them.
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Media Savvy:
ESPN.com can be unexplainably lame at times, with football and baseball players (the two sports I’ve noticed recently, I imagine it’s the same NBA and NHL too) being left completely out of stat leader pages for no apparent reason. See my exasperation at Tuesday’s intentional or unintentional Dodgers dissing below.
The Athletic posted its final regular season 30-team power rankings Monday, with the Giants on top, followed by Los Angeles and Tampa Bay. By Tim Britton and Chad Jennings.
Here is a piece about how Yoshi Tsutsugo has found his stroke in Pittsburgh, by Steve Adams at MLBTR.
This is interesting. “I Had a Chance to Travel Anywhere. Why Did I Pick Spokane?” by Jon Mooallem and Meron Menghistab at the New York Times.
From baseball historian Bill Arnold: “The Braves, Dodgers, Giants and Phillies are the only teams not to lose five straight or more this season.”
Also from Arnold: “Wednesday marked the 110th anniversary of Cy Young's (then pitching for the Boston Rustlers), 1-0 shutout of the host Pirates to win his 511th career game in 1911 at 44 years of age.”
And finally from Arnold: “White Sox' reliever Liam Hendriks is attempting to join Koji Uehara (2013 - Red Sox), Andrew Miller (2016 - Yankees/Indians) and Kenley Jansen (2017 - Dodgers) as the only relievers to strike out at least 100 batters but walk 10 or fewer in a season; the Australian-born right-hander has recorded 104 strikeouts and given up just eight walks (with one intentional) through Thursday.”
Baseball Photo of the Day:
Stickball in New York City with Mickey Mantle and Paul Simon.
Dizzy Dean.
Don Sutton and Jerry Lewis in “Which Way to the Front,” 1970.
Hint.
And remember, glove conquers all.
Howard Cole has been writing about baseball on the Internet since Y2K. Follow him on Twitter. Follow OBHC on Twitter here. Be friends with Howard on Facebook.
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It might sound harsh, but I don't care about division titles. I care a little bit about pennants - you can't play in the World Series unless you win the pennant, right? So, at age 45, I am too young to remember winning in 1981. I remember 1988 (I was 12) and I obviously remember 2020. I remember losing in 2017 (brutal at the time; even worse later) and 2018 (not as painful because we got crushed).
Instead of the division titles (meh), pennants and World Series championships, what I appreciate RIGHT NOW is that the Dodgers have the talent to win each year. It's probably like the 1950s - the talent was there but most of the time they just didn't get it done. Well, hopefully we get it done this year.
I also appreciate we have an ownership group willing to spend to field a great team. I only with George Steinbrenner was alive to funnel more money into the Yankees to make them more competitive. Because what we all want - Dodger and Yankee fans, MLB certainly - is a Dodgers vs. Yankees World Series.