Almost seven months ago, some of us donned the turban of Professor Marvel, while others preferred that of Carnac the Magnificent. We peered into the same genuine, magic, authentic crystal used by the Priests of Isis and Osiris in the days of the Pharaohs of Egypt — in which Cleopatra first saw the approach of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony, and — and so on — and so on. We consulted the infinite to predict the number of wins in the 2013 season.
Wins Playoffs Who
100 WS win dodger4life
95 no guess grizzy
95 NL West Nellyjune
94 NL West vl4eccjr
94 NL pennant crash
93 in the NLCS 32and53fan
92 no guess trublu4ever
91 Wildcard enchantedbeaver
91 NL West oldbrooklynfan
89 yes lbirken
88 no jhallwally
87 Wildcard messaogebear
n/a yes kahlifornia
161 games later, it has come down to Trublu4ever and moi, 32and53fan.
Who can it be now?
Whatever happens today, it has been one helluva ride.
While Outside the Dodgers doesn’t have the largest readership among Dodgers blogs, it certainly is among the best in terms of passion, knowledge of Dodgers history, and respect for other OTD members. Thanks to all of you that have added to the fun this year. And the real fun is just about to begin. Let’s win 11 in (month) 10!
32and53fan
colliethec
crash24now
dodgereric
The Beav
GiveUsBackOurTeam
JhallWally
yunghitters89
trublu4ever
Outside the Dodgers 
It certainly has been quite a year…..will be sorry when it comes to a close….hoping ours doesn’t end until we win the whole enchilada.
Tough loss… Although it really doesn’t mean anything.. More importuntly, Greinke looked great..
Another meaningless game today and then we need to get down to business…. Looks like we will be traveling to Atlanta.. Really need the offense to step it up… With Kersh, and Greinke, we have as good a shot or better than anyone….. We’ll see what Dildon has against some of the best managers and teams in baseball…..
Go Dodgers!!!
Good job, to whomever ends up with the correct prediction.
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Now that we have seen 161 games played… Am I still the only one here who thinks we will win it all…
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Nice post 32and53fan!
I almost forgot… pencil me in for 100 wins next year too.
Wow a rare walkoff WP and a no hitter when the scored were tied 0-0 and the Marlins swept the Tigers.
I get the sense the Dodgers are anxious to get the regular season over and start focusing on the next phase. This team has had so many highs and lows this season, so many injuries, so much excitement and disappointment and a lot of fun for all. So let’s all catch our breath and wait for Thursday.
Ironic the Dodgers leave the bases loaded with the winning run in scoring position to end the regular season.
Not good news…Matt is done for the season. Even worse if Dre can’t play either.
😦 I was not counting on Kemp to be honest… However, losing Dre is gonna hurt….
Truly a bummer about Kemp. He must feel sick inside….
Was at Citi Field today where they honored Mike Piazza and put him in the Met’s Hall of Fame. They gave out Piazza #31 T-shirts.
I will hang it up somewhere with his name and number showing.
It was bittersweet as Mike was one of my favorites and was very sadened when the Dodgers let him go.
Well Thursday it will all begin. I think we’ll have to depend on our pitching unless the offense suddenly wakes up.
While Piazza had a part in whatever led to trading him away it was still a bad move by Fox because it was not done for baseball reasons. Fox was trying to prove a point and ended up hurting the team and fans, neither of which Fox cared about anyway.
Congrats Trublu4ever, you nailed it…
OK Dildon, time to sink or swim… We’ll see what you’ve got…. I hope I am wrong and you rock… However, I’m not holding my breath… I guess we will see….
And, for the record, Ned should be fired. Regardless of what he has done with unlimited new funds, he should be held accountable for his terrible signings.. Think League as the latest in a long string of bad deals…… Schidt, Andruw, Pierre, etc, etc….. What a baffoon….
Frankly, I don’t have a good feeling going into the series with the Braves. The injuries and inability to score runs leaves me a little worried, but things rarely turn out as I think they will on the field. We’ll know before long.
Am I the only one who won’t be shocked when they’re 3 or 4 and out to the Braves?
I haven’t given a crap about this team ever since Donnie decided not to play to win all September and that its OK to lose, even looking like he’s tried to lose some games. Then that comment that its tough to win in September? What an asshole. You can’t flick momentum on like a light switch, and this team has zero going into the playoffs. I’m not seeing any difference at all between this current group and what we watched in April and May. Donnie’s making that epic winning streak nothing more than a footnote to the season.
Of course now he’s got a built-in injury excuse for when he does lose so that he’ll still get his contract extended anyway. I just can’t force myself to care what happens with this jerk as manager.
I understand that we won without Matt, but he seemed much better in September than May, thought he could be the leader, with Dre on the shelf, it seems like skippy will be poised for a series of dreams, our outfield will have weak power and weak arms, Puig will be a defensive mystery. But this is why we play the games. Go Dodgers!
I feel personally that Mattingly has done a good job up to this point. I don’t think there’s anyone to blame when you win and the Dodgers have won the N,L. West and are in the postseason.
I’m hoping the Dodgers could’ve won a few more games if he didn’t rest the regulars as often as he did and they’ll do better with them back in the lineup.
Otherwaise I don’t think anyone really knows what the future holds..
The loss of Kemp hurts our offense considerably. The way he was hitting doubles and home runs in September showed flashes of his huge 2011 year.
Let’s take a look at the October lineup:
Puig rf
Crawford lf
Ramirez ss
Gonzalez 1b
Uribe 3b
AJEllis c
MEllis 2b
Schumaker cf
Pitcher
Puig has gone stone cold in September. While he hit six HRs in September, his BA/OBP/SLG line was only .216/.333/.452
Crawford is serviceable at the #2 spot. But his production has been off and on all year long. He started out hot in April, with an OBP of .388, but in September that lofty OBP had deteriorated to .286. That translates to not a lot of runners for the next two guys to bring around. Oh yeah, and need I mention that if Crawford goes down to an injury bug, which he is prone to do, that his replacement is either Hairston or Van Slyke? Ugh.
That brings us to Hanley. When Hanley is healthy, his offense is deadly to the other team. Let’s hope he stays healthy, because his replacement, Punto, had a measly .655 OPS on the year.
Gonzalez will be Gonzalez – slow and steady. Emphasis on the slow. But if there are runners on base, he will often find a way to bring them around.
Uribe is an enigma. He had a fantastic September including five home runs, but was under little pressure to perform. How will he perform in October with all the pressure in the world and trying to supply the offense from the #5 hole that we have come to expect from Ethier and/or Kemp?
AJ Ellis provides some power and no speed in the #6 hole, maybe he should bat seventh.
Mark Ellis provides very little power, but he does have a very consistent .270 average.
Schumaker provides little punch.
All in all, I wouldn’t expect much more than two runs a game from this offense. That may or may not be enough in Games 1,2,and 5 when Kershaw and Greinke start. Game 3 will be a question mark, not sure if Ryu could win with only two runs of offense behind him. Game 4 will likely be a giveaway game.
If we can get past the Braves, and that’s a big “if”, the next question will be whether Ethier will have recovered enough to get into the lineup in the NLCS.
I expect good things from uribe in October ask any gnat fan. Puig has not done well in #1 spot, flip Crawford and Puig. skippy is poised for a good series, perhaps he might lead off. I understand puig’s big bat to lead off, but how many times has he got on base in the first inning lately. He is needed for RBIs now. With Kershaw pitching one run might win it, prefer more, and I realize the braves lead the NL in Hrs, like instant score, so it will be tough.
I am still majorly pissed off that Kemp brought the ankle injury upon himself. Three years ago, I had an email conversation with Steve Lyons lamenting the fact that Kemp was a five tool player but lacked a sixth tool that I called baseball brain or something which Lyons refined to baseball instincts. He later referred to it on the air.
I could not understand why Matt was making all kinds of stupid mistakes on the field. Even Little Leaguers are taught to consider the situation prior to each pitch and have a plan, whether on offense, or defense.
In 2011, Kemp played much better and I thought that his proclivities to bone headed errors were behind him. Last year, Matt’s lack of situational awareness led to him running into a wall at full speed and wrecking his shoulder. I appreciate his physical effort, but unless it is a do or die play in a deciding game in the playoffs or World Series, he should also be thinking about where the wall is and the impact to the team if he disables himself. Vinny would make some literary comment about it like “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
On the play that he sprained his ankle, he needed to be running at a reasonable speed when the ball was hit, but failing that, when he realized that he was probably going to be thrown out, not to make a “Hail Mary” super-long stride that left his body helplessly out of control and susceptible to injury.
Sorry for the rant. As I have indicated before, I have very little tolerance for baseball players who make mental mistakes.
I am much more concerned about Ethier not being ready to play. The Dodgers did okay without Kemp, but Ethier was there to take his place, some say, play an even better Center Field.
Other than starting pitching, the Braves are a better team than the Dodgers, and are hot right now. Our team better figure out how to put more than two runs on the board… and they better do it quickly.
32&53 you must see the similarities in Puig that you describe in kemp, which is why, I was thrilled to see ahealthy kemp come up just as Dre went down. Now we have Schumacher and neither of our dynamic duo!
Yes, Puig also sometimes plays with reckless abandon and also possesses five tools. He is still a work in progress regarding the sixth tool. I was at the Stadium on June 8, Old Timer ‘s Day when Yasiel made a magnificent throw from deep right field to nail the runner trying to go from first to third. But lately, he has bypassed the cutoff man only to throw ten feet up the line, letting the runner score, but more importantly, the other runners to advance a base.
I am also reminded of Jason Repko who, with a much lesser still set than Kemp and Puig, tried to make the team by showing off his willingness to sacrifice his body with efforts that came to naught. I remember him crashing into the wall on home runs that landed several feet over the fence. Who among us can forget him colliding with Rafael Furcal on a play in a meaningless spring training game, where, going well beyond his zone, infringing upon Furcal, who had an east play, he tore his hamstring, sidelining him for the entire 2007 season and causing a severe ankle injury that hampered Furcal all season. I guess in Repko ‘s case, his actions must have felt like do or die in terms of him making the team.
I’m just saying that a player has a whole bunch of stuff to think about before and during each play with sometimes only milliseconds to reach a decision on how to proceed. Like physical attributes, some players are blessed with better mental abilities and judgment than others.
I had no problem with Donnie resting starters in September (sort of…) but Ned’s bench sure wasn’t up to the challenge, and we all know bullpen and bench become huge in a short playoff series. I have zero confidence in Van Slyke on a big stage, ditto Hairston, or even Schumaker, who seems to be grinding his teeth every single second. He reminds me of the guy who gets more and more pissed when he fails because he knows, deep down, his peers expect nothing more. He puts far too much pressure on himself…and this is the guy replacing Ethier and Kemp? And please bat Hanley third. With Uribe or AJ Ellis batting fifth, no one will throw anything decent to Hanley if he’s in the four hole. Let Gonzales deal with that nightmare.
On the bright side, go Kershaw, go Greinke, go Dodgers!!!
After reading the posts above it is hard to come up with anything new to say. What should be an exciting time for Dodger fans right now seems to be more of a “hold your breath” type of feeling but how else can it be explained. The way the Dodgers celebrated after clinching (acting as if they had really won something) and the overall lackluster play in September gives me some concern but then again the last two Dodger World Series winners were probably not the most talented teams in the playoffs. So anything can happen.
I hear a lot of talk about how the Dodgers did without Kemp in the lineup but most of those conversations forget that Andre Ethier was there to take his place. Dre certainly does not have the flash and flair of Kemp and his numbers might not look great but he played much better defensively in center than anyone (perhaps except Dre himself) expected and had a decent year at the plate. He did a good job trying to keep Puig in check in right field so if the Dodgers have to play without Ethier, they will be at a big disadvantage. Will someone else step up? Will Andre be asked to pinch hit and will he be able to deliver?
I am not worried about Donnie. I realize this is his first post game as a manager and has little experience as a player or coach in the post season. As I said in an earlier post, there has to be a first time and hopefully he will make the right decisions. It is still up to the players.
Interesting discussion about Puig and his so called recklessness. I remember criticism of Shawn Green because he rarely dove for a ball and I have heard criticism of other players as well for similar reasons. It seems diving for balls and getting “dirty” is an attribute until an injury occurs. I am sure most of the players who were criticized for not diving were well aware of balls they could get to and ones they could not and did not want to risk injury. Is that selfish play or smart play? Certainly there are times where the only way to get to a ball is to leave one’s feet but even those situations the player has to make a quick decision: can I get to the ball and keep it from getting behind me?” I don’t think Puig thinks like that at all: he thinks he can and should get to every ball no matter what. I think he lacks the baseball knowledge and because he has such great physical skills he never gives up on a ball and has no regard for his own personal safety. If he were a football player he would be revered for this attribute. But he is a baseball player and has to learn to hit cut off men (a skill lacking in many outfielders as pointed out by Vinny and the radio guys all the time). Will Puig ever learn?
Kemp clearly knows he messed up with that bad slide. I also think he has done a good job in the outfield but as we all know, one bad crash into the wall can change a career. I recall the day the Dodgers put James Loney in right field and he almost killed himself crashing into the wall. That was the last time he played the outfield. For the most part players know where that wall is most of the time but are just as willing to sacrifice their bodies to catch a ball. It is surprising more players are not injured crashing into walls or falling into the stands trying to catch a ball.
watching the game, I don’t wonder who would be playing third base for the dodgers if they had the resources of today, back when Beltre went free agent on the dodgers.
I think the Dodgers had the money but not the mindset at the time Beltre left. I don’t think they expected him to leave. Remember, he had that one great year and his next few years after leaving the Dodgers were not all that great and did not justify the money he commanded. However, hindsight tells us the Dodgers would have been better off paying Beltre for an average performance considering how third base has been such a black hole since he left. How do Dodger fans feel right now with the deal Kemp has? Will his long term signing prove to be a bad move? Isn’t hindsight grand?
Oh the road again… It will come down to Kersh and Greinke….. If these two get it done, we will go to the WS…
We need the offense to score some runs…. Give those two a couple of early runs, and it is usually, game over……
Let’s go Dodgerrs !!!!!!
Ugh
Updates on Playoff Eve (not sure which one is Tru’s “Ugh” – both are “ugh” for me:
1. Ricky Nolasco is the starting pitcher for Game 4.
2. Vin Scully says he may retire after 2014.
My ugh…..no Dodger baseball until tomorrow…and, ugh…had to get OTD back on my phone (must keep in touch at home or away) and, ugh….the thought of no Vinny is very sad for me.
I hope Loney falls down the dugout stairs and breaks a keg. Does that make me a bad guy?
Right now, I only have those types of thoughts towards Freddy Freeman. As for Brian McCann, I hope Puig does a HR bat flip, then rips McCann a new one when he tries to block the plate.
All kegs, must, I repeat must, continue to operate properly… The same goes for all Dodger legs!!
leg
I woke up yesterday and flipped on the tube… only to discover that my local Cable Network and Turner Broadcasting are in a feud over compensation of channels of declining ratings. So Turner has blocked the channels that have good ratings until this is resolved. Which means as of right now… I have no play-off baseball.
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I refuse to let these greedy corporations and they’re cronies, ruin my day though.
I will be enjoying the games old-oldbrooklyn style, through the radio waves..
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Go Dodgers!!!
I had to go through this type of nonsense when Time Warner was feuding with CBS. I can’t believe they are doing this to you during the playoffs.
If you can catch AM 570 from LA over the internet, you can listed to Vin Scully for innings 1,2,3, and 7,8,9,10,11,…
Good news…no Marmol, Volquez or League on playoff roster….no Hairston either.
oops, Marmol still on…damn!
….now, a new roster Marmol off…Cappy on. 😉
Big day for me with the Dodgers and UCLA games overlapping. All can say is go Blue (and Gold).
We are going to see whether Donnie Boy knows how to use Dee Gordon and Andre Ethier appropriately. Gordon should be use only as a pinch-runner, then taken out before he goes on defense. Every Day Dre should be used as a pinch-hitter while he is still healing. Once he is fully able to run and turn, he needs to be inserted into the lineup.
Trial by fire for Donnie in the playoffs – if he blows it, he needs to go.
If?
Lineup Time!!!!! Puig moves from leadoff to the #5 hole:
Crawford lf
MEllis 2b
Hanley ss
A-Gon 1b
Puig rf
Uribe 3b
Schumaker cf
AJEllis c
Kershaw p