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Much new to say about the D-O-D-G-E-R-S since we took three of four from three weeks ago? We were chasing them for the Wild Card lead back then. After that series, they went on to lose eight of thirteen and are now half-a game behind us. But we're not in the Wild Card lead.
Kemp's back! That sucks. He hit a walkoff homer against Philly Wednesday. Of that dramatic marathon, Leader of Men Don Mattingly remarked, “I don’t know what this says about us. It was a nice win for us.” And to think the MFYs picked the charismatic Joe Girardi over this guy.
Ethier's back! That also sucks.
Mark Ellis is back, too. Exclamation point optional.
The speedy Dee Gordon has since gone to the DL with a case of the feet were too fast for his own good, replaced at short of late by Luis Cruz. Remember that name. Luis Cruz. I sure don't, but he was a Pirate in '08 and '09 and a Brewer in '10 before resurfacing as a Dodger. He's driven in five runs in twelve games. Todd Coffey is also a DL denizen of recent vintage.
Scott Van Slyke is no longer being attacked by fly balls, having gone to Albuquerque, jerky.
We don't have to look at Kershaw (hurrah!) but will see the other three starters with whom we successfully tangled at Chavez Ravine. Friday it's Dickey's bitch Harang versus Johan; Saturday it's two guys I didn't want to see pitch for the Mets much last year, Capuano and Batista; and Sunday the soporific Niese tries to be interesting on the mound against Nathan Eovaldi. He can be as boring as he wants to be afterwards.
The overarching story of the Dodgers in 2012 is the franchise's revival, detailed here by Albert Chen in an L.A.-lovin' SI cover story from late May when the Dodgers were running away with the West and every team in the Southland was playing playoff games at the Staples Center. Paul White makes similar points -- wrapping the Mets and Dodgers together as two resurgent peas in a feelgood pod -- in the current Sports Weekly.
On a personal note, I kind of liked the Dodgers circa 1974 when it was good to see somebody who wasn't the Reds win the N.L. West. I rooted for them hard to beat the MFYs in 1977 and 1978, but their having let me down annoyed me so that when they fell behind 2-0 in the 1981 World Series, I wasn't happy about it but I wasn't sad for them. They roared back to take the Series in six, which made them all right in my book for five minutes, but then they broke up their longest-running infield, Steve Sax got on my nerves by winning them yet another Rookie of the Year as he threw ball after ball in the general direction of the Inland Empire, and I went on to channel Fletch in my distaste for Tommy Lasorda. Yet I am vaguely happy to see that Dodger business is good business again, because, well, they're the Dodgers. I don't usually go for that sort of default elite status -- and bleep them a thousand times for abandoning Brooklyn (says the retroactive New York Giants worshiper) -- but as R.A. would phrase it, watching them flounder under McCourt was just sad. Let them flounder on merit. Let the floundering commence/continue this weekend.
(Some two-year-old thoughts on a then 14-year-old trip to Dodger Stadium, embroidered with some meta-Dodger thoughts, offered here.)
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