By Steven Booth
The Giants came into last weekend in a tailspin. While still in the race, it was mostly due to the Padres’ freefall and the Phillies’ seeming unwillingness to run away with the wildcard. What few hitters they have are slumping, Barry Zito ran out of his magic dust and it looks like Tim Lincecum’s arm is about to fall off.
Enter the Dodgers- With another rough weekend by the Padres, the Giants won two out of three from the white flag-waving blue crew, leaving them one game back of the Padres, and 1.5 games out of the wildcard spot. While they must be hitting themselves at their lack of ability to take advantage of the Padre’s demise, things could be much, much worse.
The Padres’ freefall is worrisome. Not only are the fairweather freaks revsing their “I told you so” statements, their must be a mad rush to drop off all of their Adrain Gonzales jerseys. Not so fast, guys. They beat the Dodgers on Monday, ending their ten game slide. Mat Latos may still be hurt, Wade LeBlanc hit a wall, and it looks like Gonzales forgot how to hit homers, but never fear, the Dodgers may just make things right, conveniently laying down for a slumping team, at least temporarily holding off the wolves from the fiars.
I’m hoping none of them ever read this thing (Don’t think I have to worry about that…). I practically crowned them world series winners a few weeks ago, but the fairweather freaks are probably too busy buying their Pablo Sandoval jerseys to notice.
Speaking of wolves……Here come the Rockies for their mad year-end rush at playoff glory. It’s not Todd Helton or Troy Tulowitski that is leading the way, it is Mr. Rookie of the Year himself, Carlos Gonzales, who is hitting the crap out of the ball. Jim Tracy and co. must certainly be making the Padres and Giants nervous. It helps that their pitching is coming together at the right time, and it isn’t just Ubaldo Jimenez. Jorge De Las Rosa, Jason Hammel and Jhoulys Chacin have all looked sharp. They stay hot, this will get mighty interesting.
The Dodgers have quit. Not their four outstanding starting pitchers. Clayton Kershaw is at or near becoming a true ace. Chad Billingsley has been solid, as has Hiroki Kuroda and the prodigal son Ted Lilly. However, Matt Kemp has given up, as has Andre Ethier. It may be that without Manny Ramirez around to insure that they get good pitches, they’re just not all that. Everyone in L.A. is huffing and puffing about Manny quitting, but give me a break. They made it to the NLCS last year with basically the same team, and Manny was a very minor factor. Don’t blame the McCourt divorce, either. They were indifferent weasals last year also, and they won despite that.
Joe Torre’s seemingly likely departure and the continuing divorce saga that make Jersey Shore look like a Fellini film, portends some long-term horror for Dodgers fans, don’t blame that this year. They didn’t have a good enough team to win a world series, but were certainly good enough to make a serious playoff run in the NL West.
If there is anything the Arizona Diamondbacks and Kirk Gibson has taken out of this year, it is probably avoiding 100 losses, and watching Ian Kennedy turn into a star pitcher. He has eight straight quality starts, including shutting out the Giants for eight innings on a recent start (that the bullpen eventually gave away and the once-feared hitters could do nothing). It will be interesting to see what happens here in the offseason.
