Suddenly, It Feels Like Winter....

Have you ever been hit by a truck?  Head on, full steam, out of nowhere, and it knocks you upside down?  That was what it was like to watch the Dodgers' season end yesterday.

Two piping hot pizzas were in the kitchen, my buddy arrived with beer that was brewed 60 miles from the North Pole (Einstok), more friends were on their way, and our best pitcher was on the mound about to lead us to a win and Game 7 in the NLCS. Life was unfolding as it should, when suddenly - BLAMMO!

All of us in Dodger Nation were hit with a bucket of cold water.  We had the rug pulled out from under us.  We were all shown in the harshest way possible that the Dodgers were fresh out of miracles and Clayton Kershaw is indeed, human.

Sports isn't supposed to feel that sad, but sometimes it does.  It was brutal even for my friend, a transplant from Australia who finally gave in and paid attention to baseball this season.  He quickly became a true-blue Dodger fan, and felt yesterday's kick in the guts as much as me, a lifelong fan of Dodger Blue.  It wasn't just the losing, which was always a possibility, but it was the way we lost.  All of the wheels just fell off at once, and it seemed to get worse each inning.  *Sigh*

That's baseball.  As Vinny would say, "The 2013 Dodgers and their fans went from the basement to the penthouse, and back down to the basement again."   But oh, what a ride it was.

I can't be angry at the boys or start pointing fingers.  They gave us everything they had, and they gave us a season for the ages.  We went from the absolute bottom of the baseball standings, to chainsawing every team in our path in an historic winning run that we won't see again for another 50 years.  The Dodgers brought themselves and all of the Dodger Nation closer to the World Series than we've been in a generation!  It was just too bad we couldn't make it all the way this time.

After the game, a shell-shocked Clayton Kershaw said, "If you don't win, what's the point?"  I know that was the emotion speaking.  But Kid K's sentiment reminded me of a line from one of my favorite movies "Hard Times", starring Charles Bronson and James Coburn.

After Charles Bronson wins a brutal, bare knuckle fight, Coburn, his manager, collects their winnings and remarks to the losing side, "Like mama always said, the only thing that comes close to playing and winning, is playing and losing".

Thanks for the ride boys.  No matter what they say, it was one helluva season.

fantasysportspunter.com

Who Pitches For The Blue Tonight? My Pick...

Who gets the ball from the skipper tonight?

The great mystery this morning is "Who will pitch tonight for the Dodgers?"

Will it be Ricky Nolasco - who hasn't pitched in  nearly a month??!!!

Will it be Zack Greinke on short rest - who's never done that before in his career?

Will it be a cute chick?????

I gotta call for Ricky Nolasco.  No hesitation.  Why?  Four reasons for Game Four:

1. The momentum is on our side and Nolasco has shown he can pitch well at home.

2. Nolasco's gotta pitch sometime.  If he doesn't pitch in this series, by the time his turn in the rotation for the World Series rolls around, his beard will be longer than Brian Wilson's.

3. We got here as a team, we play it out as a team.  Especially if the guy in question isn't choking and he might even be getting rusty.  If he gets into trouble, we can always go to plan Volquez.  He's also proven he can pitch well at Dodger Stadium.  When these guys are on, they are on.

4. If we pitch Greinke, it smells a bit of desperation, and I aint about feeling that right now.  

First pitch 5:07 p.m. LA time.

Go Nolasco, Go Dodgers, and of course, Go Cute Chicks!!


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UPDATE:  12:57 p.m. Nolasco officially announced by Dodgers as the starter. 

RYU = YAAAA-HOOOOO!!!!

 

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Well, THAT was exactly what the doctor ordered:

A packed house at Dodger Stadium.  Not bad for everyone trying to get to Chavez Ravine at the height of LA rush hour.  C'mon, TV...how about a 6 or 6:30 p.m. start?

A calmed down and most excellent outing from our third ace, Hyun-Jin Ryu. He pitched a masterpiece that I'm sure everyone back in Seoul enjoyed.

Richard Mackson - USA Today

Adrian Gonzalez getting his batting groove back. Cardinal Adam Wainright was irritated by El Jaguar's hand explosions after he knocked in Mark Ellis with a double.  Haha!

Hanley Ramirez back in the line up and doing what he does best.  Manley busted two hits and knocked in a big run, all with a fractured rib. 

Puig chilling out the plate and bashing the ball again.  He missed a home run by a foot or two.  He might have snatched an inside-the-park home run if he had been off and running on contact - instead of vogueing at the plate.

The Beard and bad-ass Kenley Jansen punching out the Cards in the final two innings.  Boo-yah and Good Night little birds.  Sweet.

Finally, a note to the TBS execs who chose the boring announcing crew for the TV broadcast - It should tell you something about your choice for announcers when your own post-game show uses Vin Scully's voice for the highlights of the game. Doncha think?

Have You Ever Been In A Dogfight?

I mean, have you ever been in a knock down, drag out, fight to the finish?  That was Game One of the National League Championship Series tonight between the Dodgers and the Dang Cardinals.  

When you have two teams evenly matched, in a game that is evenly matched, the manager will make the difference.  Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Damn Mattingly is the resident skipper.

This was anyone's game.  It lasted 4 hours plus, and the teams were tied at 2-2 for almost every agonizing minute.  Sure, the Dodgers had their chances.  They were 0 for I-can't -believe-how-many with RISP, and that included not hitting with bases loaded - yet again. 

Once again it came down to the battle of the managers and ours lost it for us. From what I've read in the first postgame posts, Mattingly critics out there are pointing to his removal of Adrian Gonzalez after his single in the eight inning for pinch runner Dee Gordan.  It wasn't a genius move by far, but the move wasn't without potential merits.

At the time the game was tied 2-2, it was the eighth inning, we had a runner on, and Mattingly was playing for the win. Not a terrible move to replace the slow running Gonzalez with Gordon the rabbit.  If it pans out and Gordon scores, we go up 3-2.  Kenley dominates the bottom of the ninth and Mattingly looks like a genius.  The plan didn't work out, but that aint my gripe.

Mattingly blew the game when he couldn't recognize - which he has never been able to recognize, even on his own team - the hot player with the red hot bat.   Damn Mattingly is blind to the hot bat. Which is astounding to me because he spent most of his career being that guy - the guy who will win the game for you, or conversely, the guy who will beat you.

Tonight that guy was the Cardinals' Carlos Beltran.  Beltran knocked in all three Cardinal runs, and he threw out Mark Ellis in a play at the plate in what turned out to be the final chance for the Dodgers to score. 

When we got to the bottom of the 13th ( still tied 2-2), Beltran came up with the winning run on base.  Up to that point he had already knocked in both of St. Louis' runs, and he had that great throw out at the plate.  He came up with the chance to win the game and Mattinlgy chose to pitch to him.  Mattinlgy has a long, regrettable history of pitching to guys that can beat you, and then being being beat by them.  He just doesn't learn this one.

Know what the Cardinals' manager did all night when our guy who could beat you - Hanley Ramirez - came up to bat?  He didn't pitch to Hanley. He took the bat right out of Hanley's hands and therefore he couldn't win the game for us. 

Mattingly refused to take a pass on Beltran in the 13th.  In the previous series he walked weak-hitting Reed Johnson for the bases loaded percentage scenario, but tonight he refused to walk game-dominator Beltran and the Dodger Nation payed for it.  Beltran, the guy who had been beating us all night, capped his evening off with a game winning hit and Zack Greinke's masterful eight innings were wasted.

From here on in it's painfully clear that the Dodger bats are going to have to step it up and overcompensate for Mattingly Baseball, because if this series becomes a chess match between managers, our guy will be the one who keeps asking, "How does the horse move?"

 Can't wait for game two.