06 August 2007

Must ... Suck Out ... the Venom

by Joshua Worley

So, it turns out the Diamondbacks are better than the Dodgers after all. See, I even used the real team name, all three and a half syllables of it. ( I consider "dia" to be 1.5 syllables. )

Because of this unpleasant revelation about the Snakes and how good they are, and my inablity to see that they were good, I have to wonder what value there is in this blog. All the people at the real Dodger blogs, such as 6-4-2 and Dodger Thoughts and True Blue LA knew the Snakes were good, where all I could see was a team getting lucky. Maybe the lesson here is to leave the analysis to them, and stick with rants and stuff.

My last rational thought is that I wish even more than ever that the Dodgers had kept Wilson Betemit. He could have played second base instead of the awful Ramon Martinez. Brad Penny is a better hitter than Martinez. Really, he is. Grady Little should have batted Penny eighth yesterday.

I'm pretty sure that Eddie Murray must have sneaked back into the Dodger clubhouse and resumed his duties as hitting coach. How else to explain the sudden hitting slump? Wasn't it so clearly the firing of Murray and hiring of Bill Mueller that produced the hitting surge a month ago? Sure it was! Everyone said so. And so conversely it follows that Murray is back. I bet he is just staring silently at some young Dodger right now, refusing to communicate with him. There's nothing like an uncommunicative curmudgeon to put you off your batting stroke.

I remember walking out of the stadium late last year after a Dodger win that put them four up on the Padres. I was so sure at the time that the Dodgers would hold on to this lead and go on to finish in first place. Instead the Padres caught up to the Dodgers shortly after and the teams eventually finished tied for first. So I know that 4 games isn't too much to overcome. I also know based on last year's Dodgers that a team can go from looking like the worst team in the league to looking like the best team in a matter of weeks. I guess all this means I can't declare the Dodger season over.

But that's no consolation when it feels like it's over.

4 comments:

Jon Weisman said...

You're a real Dodger blog too, and you may yet be proven right on Arizona.

Anonymous said...

Four games isn't too hard to overcome, but unfortunately we now have two decent teams we have to pass up that are both a few games ahead of us. Keep up the good work! vr, Xei

Joshua Worley said...

Thanks, both of you.

The thing with Arizona is it's hard to tell how good they really are because they are on a hot streak. But I think it's fair to say they're better than I thought they were.

And that's a good point about two teams to pass up, rather than one. It's always harder to catch two. But at least there are still two months to go.

Anonymous said...

... and there are more than two for the wild-card. Luckily we have some head to head games left against the Pads and DBs. And by the way, many people subscribe to the theory that a very good bullpen could skew the pythagorean win/loss percentage for teams. Something to perhaps look into. It might explain off some of the preceived Arizona luck, then again it might not.
vr, Xei