Jeff Kent summed it up in his recent post-game comments with the words “I’m perplexed.”
I don’t know what to say. If you’re looking to me for answers, I have none. I have no insight. I have no analysis. I have no explanation for this Dodger season and especially for the way it is ending. This season is not ending the way that I and many Dodger fans expected it to. In fact, it’s ending the exact opposite way that it should have. All I have are emotions, ideas, and theories. It’s going to take me awhile to sort through everything and figure this one out.

Don’t get me wrong. I do have opinions. Right now I’m fighting every impulse to turn this blog posting into a long series of rants about players, coaches, management, decisions made, decisions not made, etc. etc. I’m choosing to hold it all in until I can organize my thoughts and come up with something meaningful and something that makes sense.

I will say this. Many Dodger fans are going to point to this late season losing streak as the reason the Dodgers didn’t make it to the playoffs. While it certainly didn’t help, the Dodgers should never have been in a position where a bad series in Colorado would end their season. The problem was there back when the Dodgers were playing “must-win” games in mid-August.

I have ideas but I don’t have the answer just yet. Until then, I remain “perplexed.”

At the beginning of the season, I posted a blog entitled “Song For Saito?” It was a response to the news that Takashi Saito, like his predecessor Eric Gagne, would be entering each game to his own music. At the time, I felt that Saito had not yet earned the privilege of the type of grand entrance afforded to Gagne or Trevor Hoffman, his counterpart down south. I thought that either the Dodgers were being presumptous to advertise to opponents that Saito is lights out or that they just liked the idea of playing music for closers. I felt that Saito needed a little more time.
Well, that time arrived and it arrived early in the season. The fact of the matter is that Takashi Saito has been every bit as lights out as Eric Gagne was. Check out the numbers. His 2007 E.R.A. is right on par with the E.R.A. Gagne put up in his Cy Young Award-winning 2003 season. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but if Saito has blown more saves than Gagne had at the equivalent stage of his tenure as Dodger closer, it’s only one or two more. The torch of dominant Dodger closer has been passed without missing a step. Dodger fans are just as relieved to see Saito jogging in from the bullpen as they were when Welcome To The Jungle blared through the loud speakers. As far as Dodger fans are concerned, when the left-field gates open in the 9th inning with the Dodgers leading, it’s still Game Over.

Song for Saito? Yes!

Just a note on the recent homestand. This past week was not a week for the Dodgers to gain ground. It was a week for the Dodgers to hold steady. It is very difficult to gain ground on teams when playing head to head. Mathematically, it just works out that way. It takes a sweep to really pick up ground. the Dodgers did what could be expected out of them against two good teams – winning 2 out of 3 in each series. It is the games the Dodgers play against the teams below them in the standings that will make the difference in this season. The Dodgers did what they needed to do over this past homestand – they weathered the Padre and D-Back storms and didn’t lose any ground.

Now they go to work against Colorado. This will be a very important series for the Dodgers. This is where they need to make it happen.

Was today’s loss the end of the road for this Dodger team?
Yes, today’s loss marked the the end of their long stretch of 16 out of 19 on the road.
But no, it does not mean the Dodgers are done for the year.

Yes, the Dodgers lost a golden opportunity to pull to within a half game of the Padres by losing two games they should have won. But this series may very well be what this team needs heading into the homestand.

There will be no overconfidence, no cockiness, no feeling of invincibility in this Dodger ballclub as they get set to face San Diego and Arizona this week. The Dodger players and coaches will have 48 hours to dwell on the mistakes of this past series and the road trip in general and prepare themselves for a critical homestand. The Dodgers will come to the ballpark on Tuesday knowing that they have to bring their A-game or else face the prospect of dropping out of this year’s pennant race.

The Dodgers will fly home from San Francisco fully aware of the task that awaits them. This homestand will be an indicator of what this team is made of.

The Dodgers will arrive at the ballpark on Tuesday knowing that they are a good team but also knowing that they are going to have to play the best baseball they’ve played all year – the perfect attitude to have heading into a homestand like this.

Good luck, Dodgers.

This afternoon the Dodgers boarded a plane bound for Chicago, having just completed a successful weekend down in San Diego. I’m also a mind-reader and know exactly what you’re thinking right now. “This guy is out of his mind. He’s obviously not living in reality”. Well, I will admit the heat has affected me a little bit but I assure you I am in my right mind.

Why do I view this recent series in which the Dodgers dropped two out of three to the Padres a success? Well, there are two reasons I feel this way. First of all, any time the Dodgers can go down to San Diego and walk away with a victory is a good thing. Historically the Dodgers have always had a tough time winning in San Diego and come to think of it, against the Padres in general. Whenever the Dodgers make the bus ride down to San Diego, I never expect a whole lot.

However, the main reason I view this series as a success is that the Dodgers avoided being swept. Again, I know what you’re thinking – “Doesn’t take much to make him happy. He sets the bar nice and low for his team…..and he’s out of his mind.” Okay, allow me to explain. Whenever two teams who are trying gain ground on each other meet in a 3-game series, the series is virtually meaningless unless there is a sweep. A sweep allows one team to pick up three games on the other while anything else is merely a one-game shift in the standings. If the Dodgers had been swept by the Padres this weekend, they would have found themselves 6 games out of the wild-card and 5 games out in the division. A sweep by the Padres would have been a significant setback for the Dodgers and would have left them on the verge of falling out of the pennant race.

But today’s victory allowed the Dodgers to leave San Diego only one game behind where they were when they arrived. The only damage done was one game and three days off the calendar. In a series like this, unless it’s the last week of the season and even one game is critical, you have two objectives: sweep or avoid being swept. While I wanted the Dodgers to do the former – their opponent, the location of the series, and the fact that they were going to face Jake Peavy in one of the games made the latter a more reasonable goal. Mission accomplished and now it’s off to Wrigley!

P.S. I had the privilege of attending Saturday night’s game at Petco at the invitation of my brother and sister-in-law, who had received 4 tickets to the game. We sat in some very nice field level seats near home plate. The game itself wasn’t all that entertaining for us Dodger fans, but the food was great, the atmosphere was pleasant, and we arrived early enough to walk down near the field to watch batting practice. I posted a few pictures I took from my seat.

To my brother and his family, thank you for a fun and enjoyable weekend!