Dodgers Sweep The Giants! Trades From C.R. and K.B. Sweep ATBATT!

Aloha is an interesting word inasmuch that it can be used to express "Hello" as well as "Goodbye".  

Aloha was the word of  the weekend as the Dodgers swept into the Frisco Bay in second place, and then swept first place back to where it belongs, in beautiful Dodger Stadium. 

That epic sweepage calls for a big post with a whole buncha new Dodger cards to be shown. These came to me from two great bloggers and trading partners, Alex over at Chavez Ravining and Kerry who gives us the always entertaining and educational Cards on Cards.

Let's start off with these fine First Place Dodgers cards from Kerry. First up are two of this weekend's Sweeping Stars.

At times this season I've knocked Kemp when I thought he deserved it.  Now I gotta give credit where it's called for. Since he was moved out of center field, he has slowly but surely been reigniting his hitting.  This weekend he was a vital part of the offense, piling onto several Dodger rallies as they - SWEPT THE GIANTS! 

And how about this kid below? He's the new Dodgers center fielder and he feels fine.  Wild Horse Puig exploded during this weekend's SWEEP OF THE GIANTS hitting three triples and a double in one game, and making an over the shoulder,  Willie Mays catch look easy in the Giant's own CF during today's game. 

 Kerry completed the package with some 90's gold foil goodness from two of my past favorite Dodgers. The home whites look magnificent on these '95 Scores, and I dig the circle LA logo. 

Thanks for the great cards, Kerry. 

Next up is the first time Alex or I have sent anything out to each other. I'll be the first to admit I haven't sent anything in return yet, but Alex - and a few more of you out there - rest assured that I have cards set aside for y'all, and I'll get them to the post office as soon as I'm able to block out the time to prepare all of the packages in one mad flurry of blue tape and labels. 

On to the cards from Chavez Ravining. We'll start again with cards from members of the squad who just SWEPT THE GIANTS!

Hanley seems like he's always injured - or being injured by other teams, but when he's in the lineup, he is always a force to be reckoned with.  Hanley was feeling good this weekend, and it showed as he regularly bopped the ball around and ran the bases like we need him to do.  

Next up is odd man out Either.  He played briefly as a late inning sub or pinch hitter, and it appears he's a pine rider for the coming days (at least until the surprise midnight trade of Matt Kemp).

 Golden Bowman coolness brings up the leadoff batter for the First Place Dodgers. Gordon scored a heads up, kinda steal of home when Buster Posey hurriedly threw to first to get lumbering tank, A-Gon.  Giants, why hurry the throw when the guy running to first isn't exactly doing what we would call "running"? 

And then the great second ace who gets forgotten under all of Kershaw's acheivments, who pitched brilliantly to win the second game of the DODGERS SWEEPING THE GIANTS!

 

This package didn't have any Kershaw cards, but it contained plenty of cardboard goodness of the next best Dodger lefty ace to have cards from...

 Whats more - it's die-cut Koufax! BOO-YAH!

Airbrushed Koufax...

Hey Giants fans, what does Sandy's circle text say?

 Horizontal Koufax....

  
Sweet Dodger Blue No-Hitter Koufax...

 And finally, one with Koufax looking like everybody in the Dodger Nation felt after we SWEPT THE GIANTS and reclaimed First Place!

 Great, great cards Alex and Kerry. They really hit the spot after this weekend's....well, you know.  

First Place Sure Smells Sweet -or- How Don Mattingly Saved The Dodgers Season

I was originally going to post yesterday when the Dodgers tied the Giants for first place, but I figured the Boys would win today and take it all. I held off for a First Place post.

At the beginning of June they said the Dodgers were done, finished, kaput! 

The Dodgers had the worst defense in the big leagues, the shabbiest bullpen, and the most underachieving bats in the game. Heck, even their own manager said they were playing like shite. 

They said we smelled like rotten fish. Well, nobody really said that - that's called puffery and artist's liberty - but you get my point. 

The pundits annointed the hated Giants to be the magic team of 2014. SF was steamrolling teams right and left and the writers were all hopping into the bandwagon.

The Dodgers were down by 9 1/2 games; they said it was an insurmountable mountain. The Dodgers would need another 42-8 tear like last season, and that wasn't going to happen again. 

At least they got that part right. It didn't happen again, and yet the Dodgers found a way to chug and scrap and bash their way past the Giants and to return to the top of the division. On the last day of the month, after Dodger pitchers retired the final 18 Cleveland batters in a row, first place belongs solely to the Dodgers. 

But the beginning of the month was another story altogether. On June 4th, clearly showing frustration and barely masking anger in his voice, manger Don Mattingly abruptly called off his post game press interview and retired to the Dodgers clubhouse. It was the end of another horrific homestand and the Dodgers had been knocked around yet again.  

The next morning he refused to answer questions about the team's lousy performance, said the Dodgers were not playing as a team, and directed the reporters to ask the players themselves why they weren't getting the job done. 

Bloggers and some writers were proclaiming Mattingly had given up on the team and started gathering nails for the Dodgers' 2014 coffin.  

That day I wrote a post  addressing Mattingly's statements. I took the opposite route and read it as Mattingly's genius/crazy roll of the dice play.  I figured Mattingly was repeating a play he tried last season when he called out the Dodgers for lacking grit. It worked then to turn the team around, and I bet - along with Mattingly - that it would work again and his team would catch fire. 

It was a brilliant strategy. I don't know if it will work every season, but it sure worked now. It worked because Mattingly threw his Hail Mary pass at precisely the right time. There were three crucial factors that created the perfect storm that Mattingly's plan needed to succeed.

1. He uncharacteristically allowed his frustration and pointed words to be exposed following that final homestand loss,which probably shocked a few Dodgers as much as it shocked me. It was the last thing he left with his players that night. Perhaps a few of them went to bed with those words and images on their minds.

2. The next day was on off day, allowing Mattingly's words to permeate and settle into the players as they posed for modeling gigs and worked with their charities away from the stadium lights and its press corps. I'm sure a few Dodgers spent that day opening their eyes to the ugliness that was the 2014 season up to that point.

3. The Dodgers then left on a road trip, leaving behind the Dodger Stadium press as well as their "Woe is me" recliners and "I'm the only guy working hard on this team" whirlpools in the clubhouse. They were far from the comforts and enablers of home and only had each other to rely on. 

They had one choice. They were either going to all pull together on the rope or lose it all.  

Slowly but surely Brandon League started improving, Matt Kemp accepted his new reality as a left fielder and began hitting again, Justin Turner stepped in for injured Juan Uribe and more than held his own, and the bullpen stopped blowing leads. All the while the starting pitchers were keeping their rhythms and getting stronger. Beckett threw a no-hitter, the Dodgers started scoring runs in bunches and then Kershaw threw a no-hitter.  

 You know how crazy good the Dodgers are right now? Yes, "No-Hitter" Kershaw is great, and Grienke and Ryu and No-Hitter Becket, but there's more. Dan "First Inning Dinger" Haren pitched tonight without giving up multiple home runs. In fact, he pitched shutout ball. 

Even the wounded Hanley Ramirez played a role in tonight's first place win.  He couldn't start, but Mattingly used him as a late inning pinch hitter in a 0-0 game. Cleveland blinked and walked the dangerous Ramirez, to get to our latest rookie call up, Clint Robinson.  The kid got his first major league hit - and RBI - knocking in Andre Ethier (after his triple) to give us the only run we needed to win.  Yup - it's now 24 straight scorelss innings for the Dodgers.

Tommy Lasorda must be proud- the Dodgers are all on the same side of the rope now, and all pulling together.

I'm not a stats guru, but it sure feels like the Dodgers have won every series since Mattingly's roll of the dice. All of this paired with a very welcome meltdown by the Giants has led us to where we are today - 

Planting the Dodgers flag on top of the mountain, all alone in

 FIRST PLACE. 

Rip This, ESPN

One of the best parts about last night's First Place Dodgers' come back was the way the sports know-it-alls over at ESPN had to "stop the presses" and eat their electronic words because they had the Dodgers written off as losers way too early, and couldn't wait till it was over before reporting it was over.

Last night the Dodgers were facing current Cy Young award winner David Price and the red hot Tampa Bay Rays.  Yes, things did look grim as the good guys were down 6-0 and running out of innings.  But the Rays were in Chavez Ravine - our house - and they ran into an even more red hotter-er team in the Dodgers.  However, that's not the story of this post.

This story begins after the seventh inning.  I was watching the game at home with my son, and the Dodgers had finally scored.  Down 6-1 and between innings, we switched the channel to see what was happening on ESPN.

They were running SportsCenter and while the main screen story was golf, the ticker on the sidebar showed their report about the Rays-Dodgers game was coming up.  We noticed this headline announcing the story:

We switched back to the Dodger game, noting those guys apparently can't wait to report on the Least Coast Rays "ripping" our Best Coast Dodgers.

The Boys in Blue scored 2 more runs in the 8th, to make the score 6-3.  We were coming back!  After the eighth, we switched back to Premature SportsCenter.  I was curious to see how they were spinning a 6-3, tightening up game into a right proper ripping.

The story had been pushed waaay back.  When we last left ESPN, the story was third in the cue.  It was now pushed back to number 6 or 7.  The masterful headline remained.

Well, as we all know by now, the Red Hot First Place Dodgers mounted a 4-run, ninth inning rally, and beat the Rays in walk off fashion, 7-6.

We watched the Dodgers post-game show, so I don't know how the sports reporter prodigies at ESPN covered it.  However, I do know at least one thing that was "ripped" in the SportsCenter studio last night: that electronic headline.

What Are You Doing Tonight?

Hey everybody,

The Boys are back in town... 

We rule in FIRST PLACE...

Greinks is on the mound....

it's FRICKEN' VIN SCULLY BOBBLEHEAD NIGHT...

it's a sellout...

a decent team is walking into Chavez Ravine tonight to challenge us...

and I've got a pair of these...

 Life is good, readers and trade partners.  Life is good, indeed.