Dodger Blues
Although, after getting crushed 8-3 by the Cardinals yesterday, the Los Angeles Dodgers haven't actually won a post-season game since beating the A's in the 1988 World Series, giving them an unmitigated sixteen year losing streak in the playoffs, you gotta give them credit for just barely edging out the Giants and winning the National League West this year. Well, maybe not under most circumstances, but if you made a bet with LAist about the Dodgers' and Giants' playoff hopes with ten days left in the season, then it seems you do gotta give the Dodgers credit for just edging out the Giants and winning the National League West this year. So alright, here it is, I, Shane, on behalf of all of the SFist staff, am writing a paean to the Dodgers, or at least as much of a paean as I can possibly write without soiling my keyboard, so that Phil Wallace and other members of the LAist staff may gloat. I also have to send Phil a carton of Rice-a-Roni or some other stupid San Francisco treat. (Thank God I vetoed that pound of flesh clause.) So here it comes...
In short, the Dodgers had great pitching in 2003 but couldn't score runs for s**t, so in 2004 they managed to get themselves just enough offense (and defense) (without giving up too much pitching), aided in no small part by the pathetically inept Colorado Rockies, who suck at playing baseball, to beat out a depleted San Francisco team by two games. (What would have happened if Jason Schmidt hadn't gotten injured?) After an ownership change in the off-season, the Dodgers brought in A's wunderkind Paul DePodesta as general manager and he shook the team up like crazy. Like crazy, like literally, when he brought in nut-job Milton Bradley to play right field. The team played pretty well all season and when the July 31st trade deadline came around they had a nice lead in the division. DePodesta, however, wasn't happy with the roster and made a whole bunch of trades that basically amounted to Paul LoDuca, Juan Encarnacion, Guillermo Mota, and some other guys for Brad Penny, Steve Finley, Brent Mayne, and some other guys, but not Randy Johnson and not Charles Johnson. People were freaking out all over the place and the big trades and big non-trades became one of the biggest topics of discussion in baseball over the last third of the season. The Giants, meanwhile, did almost nothing. (People freaked out over that too.)
As the end of the season neared, the Giants had managed to claw their way to within a half-game of the Dodgers with ten days left. The two teams played head-to-head for six of their final games and split them with three wins apiece. In other games in the final week, the Giants went 2-1 against the Padres, who were also fighting for a playoff spot, and the Dodgers played four games against the pathetically inept Colorado Rockies, who suck at playing baseball, and won three-out-of-four, despite the fact that the Rockies had ninth inning leads in all four games. The Rockies, who suck at playing baseball, got swept by the Astros over the last weekend, thus going 1-6 in the final week of the season, and the Giants lost out to the Astros in the Wild Card race by one game. So the Dodgers are in the playoffs and the Giants aren't and LAist won the bet. Happy Phil?
As a special bonus, it's time for the official and long-awaited "Shane O'Connor Playoff Prognostication" for 2004: it's gonna be the Twins over the Cards in six. Minnesota goes crazy after winning it's third World Series in seventeen years and elects Hulk Hogan as "King and Protector of the Great State of Minnesota and All Her Many Lakes." The entire Midwest goes up in flames, even the many lakes. Rapture ensues.