This Offense Is Tearing Me Apart!

In this instance, the Dodger offense is Lisa. And I'm the crazy foreign guy.

The Dodgers went down 4-3 today to the Arizona Diamondbacks. And while most of today's blame lays at the feet of Ramon Troncoso, the struggling Dodger offense can not go unnoticed.

Take a look at our results from the last month. At first glance, they look pretty average. In fact, since August 9th, we have gone 16-13. Talk about uninspired baseball.

So what? Yeah, we've been playing kind of lame, but we still went three games over .500 over that span. What's the big deal? The big deal is that we could have done so much more.

Here's the kicker. In the 29 games we've played the last month, Dodgers pitching has not surrendered more than four runs in any game during the nine regulation innings. Yes, there were two instances where the pitching gave up five runs, both coming in the 10th inning. Ok, fine. But let me repeat that first fact, because it bears repeating. No more than four runs a game. For an entire month.

Basically, the Dodgers, if they scored 5 or more runs in the first nine innings a game, could be guaranteed, with 100% accuracy, of winning said game. A guarantee. For an entire month.

I mean, look at it like this. Say, at the beginning of the season, I told you that for a whole month during the season, Dodger pitching would not give up more than four runs in a game. If you looked at our lineup, what would you expect our team would go over that span? 24-5? 25-4? Little better? Little worse? Something like that right? How could a lineup as stacked as ours, from 1-8, not manage to scrape together just five runs a game? Manny is good for one or two. Ethier? Kemp? Blake? They could add one. Maybe Furcal. Or Hudson. Even Loney and Martin. Someone could step up and contribute. Five runs is nothing.

And this is what is tearing me apart. We shouldn't be just 2.5 games in front of Colorado. We shouldn't be playing just above .500 baseball.

With the kind of pitching we're getting, and the kind of offense we're supposed to be getting, we should be destroying the league. Instead, the playoff race is getting uncomfortably close. Like, smelly guy on the bus sitting next to you close.

And the worst part about all this: what do you do about it? What do you say to these guys to make them start getting timely hits again? It's infuriating.

Here's the silver lining, I guess: we still have a 6.5 game lead on the Giants for the wild card.

I just hope we don't have to use it...