Well, At Least We Aren't The Angels

Being down 3-1 is bad. Being down 3-1 with the only hope left being three straight wins against the Yankees, with two games on the road? That's worse.

Anyway, I just had a couple thoughts so, here it goes.

1. Ned Colletti signed an extension with the Dodgers. I'm indifferent. I've liked some of Colletti's moves (or non-moves for that matter) but I've also hated some of his moves. He's neither the best GM nor the worst, but he's serviceable, and I feel like he has gotten a little better as the years have gone on. For now, I'm ok with this decision, especially because it saves us from having to do a GM search during the offseason.

However! However... the caveat to this situation is the loss of one of our assistant GMs. If we can keep intact this GM triangle of Colletti, Logan White, and Kim Ng, then I'm happy. If we lose either of those two to some other team, then I'll be sad.


2. Another blown call today in the Yankees/Angels game, following the strike zone debacle of yesterday, and now I'm only half-joking when I say I'm ready to throw out the umps and let robots call the games ...or at the very least, extend instant replay.


3. Game 5 is tomorrow. I'm still optimistic.

We're not eliminated yet, and we won't be until the last out is recorded.

*Deep Breath*

I was going to go with "Huuuu huuuuhhhh," but I'm not sure entirely how to spell out a deep breath. And I only do this because that's one of the few ways I can express my feelings on tonight's game.

And believe me, I had a lot of feelings. First, stunned silence. Then anger. Sadness. Denial. And now it's just deep breaths. In a way, they're kinda deep breaths of acceptance. We are down 3-1 in the NLCS. Our season is on the brink of ending, and our prospects don't look good.

I'd recap what happened for you, but chances are you've already seen it, and if you haven't, you probably don't want to know. Trust me, if you didn't see it, all you want to know is that we lost.

So, let's move on. Let's look ahead. It's easy to call it a season. It's easy to say we have no chance to come back. And in all honesty, it's probably the wise and correct route to go, so I don't blame anyone who wants to feel that way.

But here's how I'm going to look at it.

I am going to remain cheerfully (possibly ignorantly) optimistic.

And why not? I've, for a long time, believed in the idea of hoping for the best and expecting the worst. So... what is the absolute worst that happens? We lose Game 5 on Wednesday and go out in the NLCS. Ok.

And what's the best? Well, consider this. Coming into these three games in Philadelphia, would you be content with winning just one game out of three and bringing the series back to Los Angeles? No, it's not the ideal situation, but if I knew coming in we'd be able to bring the series back home, I would be content. Frankly, it's kind of what I was expecting anyway. I wasn't expecting a blowout and a heartbreaking loss in the span of two nights, but ultimately, how you lose doesn't matter in the end.

Look, all I'm saying is this: wait for Game 5. As crushing as this game was, and as bad as Game 3 was, we are still not eliminated yet. Again: We're not eliminated yet. Take it one game at a time. If we win Wednesday, then we've gone 1-2 in Philadelphia, and we're only down one game. Then we take it home. Then, who knows?

Right, Randy Wolf (via Dodgers.com)?

"All we have to do is win three in a row," said Dodgers Game 4 starter Randy Wolf, who was one out away from picking up a win against his former team.

"No matter how you spin it, when you're that close, it hurts. You feel stunned. It's not a good feeling and you've just got to move on. It's always tough to swallow. Now we have the opportunity to make something magical happen."

Don't give up hope. We've played underdog all year. We've come from behind all year. We've done some magical stuff already this year. Why not do some more?

3-1 is not impossible.

Why can't we do this?

The McCourts Separate

Reports today are saying that Frank and Jamie McCourt, owner and CEO (respectively) of the Dodgers are separating.

I don't want to delve too deep into this. As much as you might or might not like the McCourts, you don't want to wish any hardship on them. And separation can be a messy thing, so, I'd like to avoid talking too much about their personal situation.

It's just a little shocking to me, and immediately, I have some questions.

• Is this going to cause a lot of front office commotion? There can't be any way Frank continues to pay Jamie to remain in the team CEO position if they're going through a messy split. Is this going to cause problems when Ned Colletti's contract is up at the end of this season and the team might or might not be looking for a new GM?

• Is this going to lead to a Padres-esque situation? Many of the stories being written are comparing this situation to that of Padres owner John Moores, who is splitting with his wife. As is part of the divorce proceedings, the couple begin to split their possessions. Moores prepared for this process by beginning to slash payroll, trading away bigger contract players for lesser players just to rid the team of contracts. Obviously, you can see the effect this practice has had on the Padres.

• Finally, is this going to lead to a sale of the team? Can McCourt continue to support a major league sports team that he was already having some trouble financially supporting?

Again, just a lot of questions that popped into my head. Who knows? In the end, it might not be a problem.

Or it could. There could be a lot of upheaval coming. We'll see.

Ultimately, I guess it boils down to this for me: a lot of people really care about the Dodgers and I'm just hoping that the team doesn't getting negatively affected as an unfortunate by-product of an already unfortunate situation.

EDIT: There's been some word from Jamie's lawyers that she doesn't intend to step away from her position with the Dodgers. Think about that for a second: a team CEO working for her ex-husband owner. Yeah, that's not going to create any distractions...

So I Guess Anyone Can Be An Expert These Days

That was easy... Too easy...

It's a trap!


Ok, maybe it's not a trap. Rather, it's a trip to the NLCS, the second year in a row for the Dodgers. And as I said on my Twitter account, I'd really just like to dedicate this series to the "experts" who picked against us.

First though, a little credit for those who got it right. What's that, Eric Neel? You picked us? In 5 games? Ok. Half-credit for you.
Also, congrats to Jeff Bradley, Peter Pascarelli, Enrique Rosas (who?), Jon Sciambi, and Gene Wojciechowski. Of the 24 people who made predictions for ESPN, you were the select few who picked the Dodgers correctly. Did any of you have the Dodgers in 3? I seriously doubt it, but that's ok. Everyone gets half credit.

Now, on to the wrong people.

Who had the Dodgers and Cardinals battling it out to five games, only to have the Cardinals come out on top?
Wow, look at that. Pedro Gomez, Buster Olney, and Keith Law amongst the moderately wrong people. Include in that list magical baseball stat gnome Tim Kurkjian, who stated in an article his prediction of "Cardinals in Five."

And I'll just include these names here, as their predictions didn't have a number to go with them, but good work to Dave Campbell, Jerry Crasnick, Peter Gammons, Steve Phillips (who knew he was a bad decision maker?), and Jayson Stark who all picked the Cards. Also, I'd like to acknowledge the select few who picked the Cardinals to win the World Series: Jorge Arangure Jr., Dave Campbell, Jason Grey, and Steve Phillips. I'm no "Expert" but I have to imagine the Cardinals elimination in the NLDS is probably detrimental to their World Series hopes.

Who's left who did have a number attached to their prediction? Why, Jim Caple of ESPN.com, who predicted this:
Cards in 4, eh? (He also picked the Cards to win the World Series) Yeah, I guess the Cards would pretty much just beat down on us like they did in 2004, and maybe the ghost of Jose Lima possesses Vicente Padilla or something and we scrape out a win. Sure thing. Expertly picked, buddy.

Which brings me, finally, to this. Karl Ravech. Who was absolutely correct in one sense... he predicted a sweep.
A Cardinals sweep. Ravech, my friend, turn in your card, and go home. You could have sat a monkey down at a computer and told it to make a prediction and there's only a 1/6 chance that he picks as badly as Ravech does. Ravech's prediction could only be more wrong if he predicted something like "Dodgers forfeit the series after Game 1" or "Cardinals in flurple!" Karl Ravech, you are so so so wrong, that I'll ask this of you one more time: turn in your "Expert" card, and go home. Otherwise, the people may have to rise up and seize your card from you. (By the way, as I typed this article, the Angels just completed a sweep of the Boston Red Sox, and you'll never guess which team Ravech picked there. Don't worry though, he had the Red Sox in 4, which is lucky, because I think if someone was so wrong in such a short span of time, they'd probably burst into flames.)

So there you go. A special thanks to all of you who picked against us. In all honesty, it probably helped us win. We didn't have the pressure on us of being the heavy favorite while having the horrible fear of a tremendous collapse in the back of our minds. In fact, you almost put us in the mentality of a team playing spoiler at the end of the season. You'd written us off, and counted us out. Some of you, like Ravech, made it seem like we didn't even need to show up. Why bother? We're only going to get swept anyway.

But here's where you guys are so fail. We don't mind playing underdog. We've done it all season. I've said it before, but we don't give up. We have that something special about our team. Something you experts would probably notice if you cared to stay up late enough to watch West Coast games (it might have helped some more of you pick the Angels, too).
In any case, I noticed no one, not one person in the 24 who made predictions for ESPN picked the Dodgers to win the World Series (though I imagine that would be hard considering 18 of you already had us eliminated). But again, that's ok. Do whatever you guys gotta do. We'll just keep doing what we're doing. And I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

But in the meantime, someone needs to find Karl Ravech and tell him to surrender his card.

Off-Day Puzzle (Sorry SoSG)

You might have already seen this on my Twitter feed but I'll repost it here just in case.

I created a puzzle on Sporcle.com about various player stats from the Dodger 2009 Season. Some are easy, others more difficult. Anyway, give it a shot, it'll only take you six minutes, at the very most.

BIG LINK TO PUZZLE RIGHT HERE!

Alright, Here We Go...

It's really kind of weird when you think about it.

Six months and 162 games all leading up to this. A mini-season. One where almost nothing we've done the last half a year means anything. In fact, everything we've done for the last half a year can be negated with three bad games... it's weird... these playoffs.

They start for us on Wednesday against the St. Louis Cardinals. And despite the weirdness, I'm excited.

Yeah, we finished the season on a mostly lame note. And yes, our pitching rotation probably isn't as strong as their rotation. And yeah, our three and four hitters probably aren't as scary as Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday.

But I'm still excited.

And even though almost every single "expert" is picking against us, I've still got hope. Maybe our team doesn't match up well with the Cardinals. Ok, I'll give them that. But there is something special about this team.

We've got veterans mixing with youngsters. We have long tenured Dodgers gelling with newcomers. Despite not having a "Game Changer" like Albert Pujols or a "Staff Ace" like Chris Carpenter, we've still managed to win more games. And anyway, we have quality players who step up and take on those roles before passing it on to another player. Probably most important though, is that we seem to have that interesting kind of intangible team spirit that doesn't allow the team to give up. A "Never Say Die" kind of attitude that allows a team to win in comeback fashion, over and over again, many times in the last at-bat.

We just seem to have something special.

So, yeah, the playoffs start Wednesday. And hey, maybe we do get swept. Or... maybe, just maybe, we do the sweeping (It's not like the experts haven't been wrong before). We'll see.

Either way, I guess this is just my way of saying "Thank You." I want to thank the Dodgers for this season. It's been a season of ups and downs, and it's been (mostly) fun. So seriously, thank you Dodgers.

...but the real season is over. And we're ready to move on. So let's do it. Bring it on, Cardinals. Our team is mostly healthy. Our players are ready to go. And I'm pretty sure we still have some of that magic left in the tank.

The new mini-season begins Wednesday.

And I'm excited.

J's Dodger Tweets - September Edition

I'm back, returned from the land of analytical papers. 'Tis a strange and lonely place, and it smells of despair.

In any case, I'm here to completely ignore the failure of the Dodgers the last half a week or so and just copy and paste some of my best tweets from the last month, you know, on the Twitter.

• Weird that Clay Zavada wasn't brought in to face Ethier. Maybe he needed the day off to rest his mustache.
• Zavada is in. Guess I was wrong. The mustache needs no time off. It is always ready to go.

• Sergio Romo's facial hair makes him look like an Aladdin villian.
  

• My Dad, on seeing Jim Thome getting ready in the dugout: "Oh good, Bigfoot is going to come up." Oh yeah, he went there...

• Can I just RT something I said earlier this season: "Over/Under: Juan Pierre finishing the season batting .300."

• Man, anyone know who that young third baseman is on the Pirates? That kid can hit! Though, hey, I guess Mark Loretta is 1-2 today...
• Dear Dodgers, you should have traded Blake DeWitt instead of me. Signed, Andy LaRoche.

• I totally get taking out Duke here. Best pitcher all season, 2 outs, 9th inning, 10 run lead, last home game for the Pirates. Good move.
• Plus, this 59th win is pretty vital to their season, so can't risk blowing a 10 run lead, at the expense of giving the fans something nice.

• I like Everth Cabrera's name. It's like someone with a lisp trying to say Everest.

Playoffs starting soon. Remains to be seen if we'll be the NL West champions or the Wild Card. Sadly, I'm only half joking.