I fully expected to get a fair amount of crap from Ireland today. After all, I did declare the Dodger dead 10 days ago. They had lost 8 in a row and were 4 1/2 behind the D-Backs in the West. All of the sudden, the rose from the dead and rattled off 8 straight wins including a sweep of Arizona over the weekend for a 1 1/2 game lead over the D-Backs. If you want to re-live my miscalculation, Singer and Ireland put together a montage of of some of my harsher Dodger analysis to the tune of Connie Francis' "Who's Sorry Now."
Fred Roggin went me one better on Monday's show. He says that the race is over. The Dodgers have won the division. That makes him a complete homer, and it's ignoring just how bad this team is.
Let me be clear. I am not rooting against the Dodgers, and I hope my original analysis is wrong, but they are very capable of screwing this up. LA had lost 12 of its last 14 on the road going into Monday night's game at San Diego. They were facing a South Korean starter named Cha Seung Baek, who had a 4-10 record coming in, Dodger bats were white hot and Gregg Maddux, looking very old, was on the mound for LA. Final score: San Diego 4- Dodgers 0.
Good break for the Dodgers as Arizona ran into the buzzsaw named Tim Lincecum at San Francisco as the D-Backs lost 6-2, so the lead is still 1 1/2 games. But with 12 of their final 18 on the road, Joe Torre's team better start winning road games. The Snakes, by the way, finish with 10 of their final 19 at home, although, after losing 11 of their last 16, they need to turn it around fast or the race will get away from there altogether.
I now like the Dodgers to win the division, but don't put it past 'em to screw this thing up. Hiroki Kuroda throws for LA at Petco Tuesday vs.some guy named Wade LeBlanc (24 years old with 4 innings pitched and an 11.25 ERA). Arizona sends cancer survivor Doug Davis to the hill in San Francisco, facing the dreadful Barry Zito, who has a 9-16 record.
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