All Ball Sports: Dodgers: The Blame Game
by Paul Teetor
Who’s to blame for the Dodgers latest collapse?
The arguments are endless – and they’re all correct, to one degree or another. But they’re all missing the big picture too.
Let’s take a look at them one by one.
It’s the piss-poor pitching. They’ve got to get better pitching,
No, it’s the anemic offense. They’ve got to get more dynamic batters.
No, it’s the horrible managing. They’ve got to get a better manager, someone who can bring out the best in the players. Motivate them and kick their ass when they don’t produce. He’s too player friendly.
Manager Dave Roberts was asleep at the wheel while Clayton Kershaw was helpless in game one. Then he followed that up by watching Lance Lynn give up four homers in the third inning of game 3 – four homers in one inning, a new post-season record, for God’s sake – before pulling him two homers too late.
And here’s the incredible part: The baseball gods gave Roberts a second chance on the fourth homer. Gabriel Moreno’s first homer was first called a fair ball, but a review showed it was a foul ball by two inches and Moreno would have to come back and continue his at-bat. Roberts inexplicably left Lynn in, and sure enough on the very next pitch Moreno hit a humongous homer – and this one counted.
There were plenty of other Dodger arguments being made by critics in the past few days.
It’s the roster construction. They’re built to win in the long, grinding regular season – not in the blink-and-it’s-over playoffs.
It’s Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations, that’s the real problem. He didn’t do enough to get the team ready to compete in the playoffs.
A blind man could see that they didn’t have enough starting pitching to get through the playoffs, but the only starter Friedman brought in at the trade deadline was Lance Lynn, who led the majors in giving up home runs with 44. No wonder he was available – and no wonder that he imploded in the playoffs.
The team’s basic record is undisputed. The Dodgers have now been in the playoffs for 11 straight years. They won the National League West for 10 of those years. That’s a pretty impressive record for any sport in any league. Indeed, it sounds like the makings of a dynasty.
Yet they have exactly one World Series title to show for all that – and it was in the pandemic-shortened year of 2020, when no one cared about baseball and the playoffs were all held in a Texas Stadium far, far from Dodgers Stadium.
Someone has to be blamed for their most recent collapse. Is it Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, their two MVP candidates who went a combined 1-for-21 in the three losses to the Arizona Diamondbacks?
Or how about Clayton Kershaw, who gave up five runs and got exactly one out before he was pulled in the all-important first game. By the time that game was over –11-2 D-backs, just for the record – it felt like the Dodgers had already quit.
If their one-time ace, a sure fire first ballot Hall of Famer, couldn’t do anything to stop the D-backs, how were rookie Bobby Miller and journeyman Lance Lynn going to do any better in games two and three?
But the critics are all missing the key reason the Dodgers keep losing in the playoffs: Major League baseball has devalued the regular season and turned the playoffs into an anyone-can-win lottery by letting 10 teams into them. The three division winners in each league, plus two wild cards for each league, qualify for the playoffs.
Back in the day, if you won the regular season, like the Dodgers and Yankees usually did, you were automatically in the World Series and had a 50 percent chance of being crowned world champs.
Today a team like the Diamondbacks, which won only 84 games in the regular season, can win the wild card game and bring that momentum into the divisional series. Meanwhile, the division winner sits out for five days and loses all rhythm and momentum.
This is not just theoretical. As a result of that unfair dynamic, the following wild card teams have won the World Series: the Florida Marlins, in 1997 and 2003; the Anaheim Angels, in 2002; the Boston Red Sox, in 2004; the St. Louis Cardinals, in 2011; the San Francisco Giants, in 2014; and the Washington Nationals, in 2019.
So go ahead and hate on Mookie and Freddie and Doc and Clayton and Andrew all you want. But understand the new math: even when they make the playoffs, they have only a 10 percent chance of winning the World Series.
One world series title in 11 trips to the playoffs: that’s just about what the odds say they should win.
That’s better odds than winning the Power ball lottery — but not a whole lot better.
Mira Costa: Victory at Last
Start spreading the news: the Mira Costa football team finally won a game.
And it’s mainly because they finally found a ground game to complement the passing of Nico De La Cruz, and the receiving of senior star Reese Leonard.
Senior running back Mattie Miller finished with a pair of touchdowns and 129 rushing yards while junior quarterback De La Cruz completed 12 of 18 passes in the Mustangs’ 28-21 victory over Santa Monica in a Bay League game Friday night.
The road win gives the Mustangs a 1-7 overall record on the season and 1-2 in the Bay League.
“They’ve gotten up off the floor seven times in a row,” Mira Costa coach Don Morrow said about his team’s rough start to the season. “Pretty cool to see something positive happen for them.”
Freshman running back A.J. McBean added two scores for Mira Costa while senior wide receiver Griffin Seals did the same for the Vikings.
Mira Costa started the scoring on its first drive after just three plays. De La Cruz found senior wide receiver Leonard for six yards and then a 19-yard pass before Miller scored from the 10 on his first carry.
On the Vikings’ next possession, the Brown and Seals connection got to work with 67 yards on three completions. The pair capped it off with a 31-yard touchdown to tie the game at 7-7.
Santa Monica went up 14-7, but the lead was short-lived after Miller scored on an 8-yard run to tie the game again.
“We got the running game going pretty good there for a while,” Morrow said. “Mattie Miller ran hard and the offensive line did well up front.”
Miller’s 81 second-half yards propelled the Mustangs to a 28-14 lead early in the fourth quarter as the defense held the Vikings’ senior running back Caden McCallum to 30 total yards. McCallum eventually ran for a touchdown with five minutes remaining to cut the Mustangs lead to 28-21, but the Costa defense held from there and they finally had their first win of the season.
Next week, Mira Costa heads up to Peninsula for an afternoon game Friday and Santa Monica travels to Redondo.
And speaking of Redondo, the less said about its trip up the hill to play Palos Verdes the better. The Sea Hawks were trounced 42-0, as PV remained undefeated and seized control of the Bay League title race with an 8-0 record and 3-0 in the league.
Freshman sensation Ryan Rakowski completed 9 of 15 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns with an interception and added a 16-yard rushing score for Palos Verdes.
Redondo, meanwhile, was without several key players, including starting quarterback Niko London (concussion), wide receiver Nate Stiveson (back), defensive back Carter Burns (shoulder) and offensive/defensive lineman Mikey Ricardo (knee).
Redondo coach Keith Ellison refused to make excuses for a team that was forced to start junior running back Ethan Maleman at quarterback.
“That team is very good,” Ellison said. “They played an outstanding game and they whipped our butts up and down this field.”
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER