So when do the playoffs start?
So when do the playoffs start?
Yeah, not so much. But wait till next year!
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It sucks that Kershaw will always end up taking the blame for post season failure as long as he wears his Dodger uniform, regardless of his success. The masses that headed to Sport Chalet to exchange their newly purchased Dodger hat they bought on Friday for a Rams hat on Sunday walk around muttering "Kershaw," "implosion," and "postseason" but don't know what an E.R.A. is. The "sportswriters" who only realize the Dodgers are still in the MLB only during playoff time will push the same rhetoric. Yet, this year, it was clearly evident from the beginning of the season that we couldn't hit good pitching. In the post season, good pitching will most certainly defeat good hitting the vast majority of the time and good pitching is all that you're going to see. Kersh could've thrown 18 perfect innings, but you can't win a baseball game 0-0 due to the less than stellar and extremely stagnant offense we put together this year. I'm honestly surprised we got past the Nationals with the numbers of runners we left stranded on base during the divisional series and the opportunities we provided them to steal the series away.
The fact that we couldn't pick up a major arm during the off season and had to throw Maeda out there was a problem. Maeda is a back end rotation type of guy, as we saw during the end of the season and while he dominated the likes of San Diego and Arizona early in the season, teams like the Cubs have too much fire power to think we can throw him out there during seemingly must-win games and remain competitive. And then throwing a talented, but inexperienced 20 year old out there pretty much solidified the fact that the FO needed to get a legitimate arm during the off season, instead of gambling with the newfangled Sabermetric statistics and getting a patchwork of guys like Anderson, Wood and The Others to hold the rotation down. And while a motley crew of starters with Kershaw leading the helm may get you over your division rivals, as time has proven before, it makes you less competitive in the playoffs. You can quantify spin rate, perceived speed, and average exit velocity all you want, but ultimately, "A Guy Who Can Compete" unfortunately isn't a column you can quantify by numbers in a spreadsheet.
Regardless, there have been more positives this year than in year's past, starting with the fact we no longer have an incompetent manager. We have a future 3rd baseman (current SS) who will be the face of the organization for years to come, and a group of younger guys that showed various degrees of promise. There is plenty of work to be done, as our veterans in Utley, Gonzales, Ruiz, etc. are not getting any younger and the FO need to start looking at who will fill in for those players once their Social Security kicks in. The pocket books need to be opened up in order to retain the services of Turner and Jansen, who both have been lights out during pressure situations and need to get rewarded for their efforts. After all, this is a business.
And, in all fairness, this year wasn't as much heartbreak as in years past, simply because when looking at the series between the Cubs and the Dodgers from a impartial perspective, that Chicago team was clearly superior. They showed it during the regular season, and they showed their resilience and depth during the playoffs. Good luck to them and their fans in the W.S. It'd suck to get this close after all this time and lose.
Just keep Bartman away for the stadium until November.
The best picture of the NLDS I've seen showed an elated Rizzo walking past a tired, gaunt looking Utley. Felt that pretty much summed it up.
I think FO was surprised/amazed to have had this successful a season.
Lets hope the rebuilding continues at an accelerated pace.
also, AT&T merger still possible...
You cant be mad at the Cubbies. They came in wanting it. You cant expect a lone star pitcher to do all the work. Dodgers beat their "horse" down.
With the series, its was exciting, I never regret watching my team go to battle. They will be victorious soon enough.
I don't think any non-casual fans are mad at the Cubbies.
Then again, I can't account for the the number of "Cubs Suck!" people who were yelling that at the Ravine this past week who may have actually been mad at the Cubbies, but then again, they don't know what an E.R.A. is and are the ones who are more excited when a beach ball comes into their section, rather than paying attention to the actual game being played on the field. They are probably mad at the Cubbies, until something more interesting than Dodger baseball came their way Sunday morning.
Speaking from a baseball fan/Dodger fan perspective, the Cubs earned their way into the Fall Classic. I'd love to hear an argument otherwise.
something I think about - Clayton is 28. When Orel won he was 30... when Schilling won he was 34 and Johnson was 37... Jamie Moyer was 45 when he won a Series game... is it not out of the realm of possibility that we'll still have a lights-out ace for at least another few years?