Heading into the final seven games of the season, it's all but over for the boys in blue. They give it a pretty good ride, but in the end they failed to close out the rest of the pretenders in the league and let weak Padre and Phillies teams pass them in the standings. Tonight's loss epitomized the season perfectly. An early lead, followed by an inferior team's ability to catch the Dodgers and then blow them out of the water late. It's getting to the point where it has become so precitable, that you stop watching because it's like that scary movie where it doesn't matter how many times you see it happen, the stupid half naked girl always goes into the room by herself and get a machete through the skull.
Brad Penny showed tonight why he was the perfect choice to start the All-Star game for the national league. Seeing as how the AL always seems to win home field advantage in the World Series, it is no wonder they let a guy like Penny start off the festivities. Tonight against a club that couldn't get an all-star named to the Valley Adult Baseball League, Penny managed to squander a three run lead by making idiotic pitches to batter he should have blown away. It's like the time UCLA basketball lost to Detroit Mercy in the NCAA Tournament, they got sucked into playing a really slow game and ultimately got beat by an inferior team. The same happened tonight, Penny thought he could be crafty and throw breaking junk that ended up leaving the yard and in the process make a College World Series goat look like Ty Cobb.
The last time I had seen Carlos Quinton, he was crying like a little girl after the Rice Owles handed him and his much hyped Stanford team their asses in the final game of the College World Series. Besides crying, he also took the opportunity to show his team building skills by blaming the loss on his coaches and the starting pitcher who "couldn't seem to throw a big pitch to save his life." He became the latest young player that the Dodgers have made a star of. With a 3-1 lead in the second, Penny hung "the intimidator" to Quinton and it ended up in the alcohol free zone ah-la Jack Parkman. I don't think Quinton did his little shimmie though, the one that makes "all the girls go crazy." What a waste.
The Dodgers then decided to cap the night off with a series of innings that would have pitching coaches around the league proud of Miguel Batista. With a total of 24 pitches in three innings, the Dodger bats decided to go into "operation shutdown" early and call it a night. Apparently it's tough to get a table these days at Cuidad. In any case, the crowd that was there to see if the Dodgers could keep pace with the rest of the teams in contention got to see a tired and battered team beat another tired and battered team 9-3. With as many veterans that Arizona had on the field, it's amazing that they look more spry then the young Dodgers.
The loss pushed the Dodgers to 1 1/2 back in the West and 1/2 back in the wild card chase. With the schedule favoring the Phillies you kind of get the feeling that the Phanatic will probably be doing his stupid dance in the post season. The Friars do have to go on the road and face the Cardinals, a tall order but still troubling for Dodger fans as the Fathers have taken 2 of 3 in the their previous match up and the Cards don't have all that much to play for. Plus, with things being the way they are, the same baseball Gods that have Ozzie Smith hitting rare home runs in the ninth inning in huge playoff games against the Dodgers and have John Tudor, the Dodger Killer, join the Dodgers from the Cards only to blow his arm out, will probably find a way to screw the blue. I guess I'm starting to sound a lot like a Raider fan and the "tuck rule" conspiracy theory.
In any case, the Dodgers now find themselves in a major jam. Grady had said all along that the club would have to hit 87 wins to make the post season. With 7 to go, they would have to go 6-1 and although this team has shown in the past that they are capable of doing it, the chances of that actually happening are slim to none, and yes, slim just got that machete in the back of the head.
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