Dodgers set the stage for a wild ending to 2021 season

The Dodgers went from abandoning all hope of winning the National League West championship to feeling pretty good about their chances of winning the National League West championship in a matter of hours on Thursday.

The Dodgers came into their game against the host Colorado Rockies trailing the surprising San Francisco Giants by two games in the National League West standings. The Dodgers went into the ninth inning against the Rockies trailing 5-4. Meanwhile, the Giants were beating those pesky San Diego Padres, 5-4, in the sixth inning.

It looked like the Dodgers were about to go down three games to the Giants with a little more than a week left in the season.

It looked like the Dodgers were going to have to play in the wild-card round to start the playoffs.

It looked like the Dodgers would have their playoff hopes hinge on a one-game shpowdown against the St. Louis Cardinals, the hottest team in baseball, a team that was in the midst of a 16-game winning streak.

But the Dodgers tied the score in the top of the ninth against the Rockies. Maybe there was hope after all. 

Meanwhile, the Padres hit back-to-back home runs and took the lead over the Giants, 6-5, in the sixth inning.

The Dodgers all of a sudden had a chance to cut the Giants’ lead in the NL West standings to one game. 

The Dodgers went into extra innings against the Rockies.

That was a good sign. 

The Giants scored a run in the top of the seventh inning to tie the score against the Padres, 6-6. 

That put a damper on the Dodgers rally. It gave the Giants new life. It put the wild card round back in play again for the Dodgers.

It was not going the way Dodgers fans wanted it to.

Max Muncy changed all that.

He hit a lead-off two-run home run in the top of the 10th inning to give the Dodgers a two-run lead, 7-5. The baseball gods were smiling on the Dodgers.

The Dodgers shut down the Rockies in the bottom of the 10th inning and completed the comeback. The Dodgers did their job.

Now it was up to the Padres to lend the Dodgers a hand.

The Giants and Padres game headed to extra innings. The Giants didn’t score in their half of the 10th inning. The Padres took advantage.

They scratched across a run in the bottom of the 10th inning and won the game. The Dodgers went from being three games out of first place to a game behind the Giants for the NL West lead.

Thursday was the most thrilling day of baseball in a while for Dodger fans. But it only set the stage for a desperate last week of the regular season.

The Dodgers shut out the lowly Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-0, on Sunday, but they are still in second place in the NL West standings. They are two games behind the Giants with six games to play.

At stake is avoiding playing the red hot Cardinals in a one-game, do or die playoff. Neither the Dodgers nor the Giants want that. Winning the NL West title could be the difference between celebrating a second World Series championship in a row or lamenting the season of missed opportunities and playing with a lack of urgency for the Dodgers.

The Dodger starting pitching power rankings.

1. Julio Urias
2. Max Scherzer
3. Walker Buehler
4. Tony Gonsolin
5. Clayton Kershaw

The Dodgers (100-56) finish the season at home, starting a three-game series against the Padres on Tuesday and ending with a weekend series against the Milwaukee Brewers starting on Friday. 

Trade winds favor Dodgers, perhaps for the first time ever

Trades don’t always pay dividends. Not immediately. Sometimes it takes a while for prospects to develop, for creating chemistry, for players to settle in to a new city, new teammates, new fans.

In the case of the Dodgers, they have a history of being on the wrong end of trades. 

One of the worst trades in Dodgers history, if not baseball history, was the Delino DeShields for Pedro Martinez deal. DeShields didn’t quite pan out and Martinez pitched the Red Sox to a World Series title and his way into the Hall of Fame.

The Dodgers traded Mike Piazza in one of the most ill-advised moves in sports history. The Dodgers gave away a future Hall of Famer, a fan favorite, one of Tommy Lasorda’s favorites, all because of money. 

The Dodgers spent years trying to recover from the Piazza trade, and the Frank McCourt era afterward. It was a dark time in Dodgers history.

But some trades work out well for the Dodgers. The Steve Finley trade comes to mind. His grand slam against the San Francisco Giants on Oct. 2, 2004, made him a Dodgers legend. It clinched the National League West championship in dramatic fashion against the hated Giants. The Dodgers were a force of a team in 2004. Finley made them a playoff force that year, even though the Dodgers weren’t quite a World Series force.

The Manny Ramirez trade from the Boston Red Sox in 2008 might be one of the greatest moves by the Dodgers. Ramirez came to the Dodgers and made them playoff contenders for a few years. The Ramirez trade didn’t produce a World Series title either but it did generate plenty of excitement.

A few years later, the Dodgers and Red Sox made another deal in 2012. This time the Red Sox sent Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford to the Dodgers for a package of players that included James Loney. It served the Dodgers well again, providing plenty of playoff talent, but again, did not produce a World Series.

The latest Dodger deal, the one that brought Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Washington Nationals, might be the best of them all.

Turner has already become an offensive spark plug for a Dodgers team that has struggled to score runs this year. He is in contention for a batting title and in the mix for National League MVP. There is no doubt Turner has been a valuable addition to the Dodgers.

But Scherzer is on another level.

He has quickly become the ace of a Dodgers staff that had four aces when the season started. Clayton Kershaw has the credentials to be a No. 1 starter on most teams. Julio Urias has emerged as an automatic win in 2021. Walker Buehler is among the National League leaders in ERA and WHIP. And then there’s Trevor Bauer, talented pitcher, but questionable decision-making skills.

Out of those four pitchers, Scherzer has outshined all of them.

In addition to having one of the best ERAs in the National League, Scherzer has quietly put together a string of scoreless innings. It is at 36⅔ innings after his start on Saturday on the road against the Cincinnati Reds, a game the Dodgers won 5-1 after Scherzer pitched seven shutout innings. He is creeping into Dodgers legendary territory, joining Orel Hershiser and Don Drysdale with the longest scoreless innings streaks in major league history. Hershiser had a 59 scoreless inning streak in 1988, breaking Drysdale's record of 58⅔ innings in 1968.

Granted, Scherzer has a way to go before being mentioned in the same breath as Hershiser and Drysdale. But Scherzer has become the pitcher Dodger fans want to see on the mound in a one-game playoff, in a game the Dodgers need to win to stay alive in the playoffs. 

The way it is playing out in the National League, it looks like the Dodgers will need to have to win a one-game playoff to keep their playoff hopes and World Series hopes alive. If it comes down to that, Scherzer is the pitcher who needs to start that game.

Dodgers starting pitching power rankings:

1. Max Scherzer
2. Juilo Urias
3. Walker Buehler
4. Clayton Kershaw
5. Tony Gonsolin

The Dodgers (96-54)  head to Colorado to start a three-game series against the Rockies on Tuesday. They finish out the week in Arizona for a weekend series against the Diamondbacks starting on Friday. The Dodgers trail the surprising first-place Giants by one game in the NL West standings with 12 games to play. 

Cy Young Award race as tight as the National League West standings

The race for the National League Cy Young Award is as tight as the race for the National League West title.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants are not only battling for the NL West championship, but the best record in baseball. Since September started, the Dodgers and Giants have been in a virtual deadlock for the lead in the NL West.

After Sunday’s games, the surprising Giants had a 2.5 game lead over the Dodgers with 18 games to play in the regular season. The Giants are 9-2 in September and won their seventh game in a row, 6-5 over the Chicago Cubs, on Sunday.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, are 7-4 in September after beating the slumping San Diego Padres, 8-0, on Sunday.

The Dodgers briefly took the lead in the NL West standings at the start of the month. But the Giants found some breathing room after sweeping the Colorado Rockies and Cubs last week.

The race for the NL West pennant is going to be tight.

But maybe not as tight as the race for the National League Cy Young Award.

The Dodgers have three pitchers who can make a case for the NL Cy Young Award. If not for Julio Urias, Walker Buehler and Max Scherzer, the Dodgers might not be in the conversation for winning the NL West Division, let alone making the playoffs.

But who is the favorite among the three to win the Cy Young Award? 

Urias leads the National League in wins with 17. He has a 2.98 ERA and 175 strikeouts. Those numbers are undoubtedly impressive. But they are almost identical to St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright, who is not exactly in the Cy Young conversation. Wainwright is 15-7 with a 2.98 ERA. He has 163 strikeouts, 12 behind Urias. But both Urias and Wainwright have identical WHIPs at 1.03.

Buehler is tied for third in the National League in wins with 14. He is third in the NL with a 2.32 ERA and third in the NL in WHIP at 0.98. That makes him, at best, the third best pitcher in the National League.

Scherzer might be the favorite of the Dodgers trio to win the Cy Young Award. He took a perfect game into the eighth inning against the San Diego Padres on Sunday and won his 14th game of the season. 

His record is the worst of the three, at 14-4. But he leads the NL with a 2.17 ERA and is tied for fourth in the NL in strikeouts with 219. His 0.82 WHIP is the best in the National League.

Scherzer will have the most competition from Kevin Gausman of the Giants and Corbin Burnes of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Gausman is not only the ace of the team with the best record in baseball, he is fifth in the NL with a 2.65 ERA. His strikeout numbers, 201, are among the best in the National League to boot.

Burnes almost pitched a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians on Saturday night. He didn’t give up a hit in eight innings and won his 10th game of the season.

His win total is not that impressive, but he is second in the National League with a 2.25 ERA and 0.91 WHIP.

Scherzer has emerged as the ace of the Dodgers rotation. But will it be enough to win the Cy Young Award?

Leading the Dodgers to the National League West championship will only help Scherzer’s argument for the Cy Young Award.

Dodger starting pitching power rankings:

1. Julio Urias
2. Max Scherzer
3. Walker Buehler
4. Tony Gonsolin
5. Mitch White

The Dodgers (91-53) host the lowly Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium for a three-game series starting on Monday. The Dodgers end the week with a series on the road against the suddenly inspired Cincinnati Reds starting on Friday.

The Dodgers and Giants are fit to be tied

The Dodgers entered their weekend series against the surprising San Francisco Giants tied for first place in the National League West standings. They had identical 85-49 records. Even head to head, they were 8-8 against each other. The two teams could not have been more evenly matched.

It should come as no surprise that the first game of the series on Friday night at Oracle Park in San Francisco went into extra innings. The Dodgers and Giants were tied 1-1 after nine innings. They were tied 2-2 after 10 innings. The Giants finally won the game, 3-2, in the 11th inning, breaking the tie for first place if only for a night.

The Dodgers bounced back in Game 2 of the series. Julio Urias won his 16th game of the season, giving up one run in 5 ⅔ innings, while striking out eight and walking none. Urias entered the conversation for Cy Young Award. He and teammate Walker Buehler, who entered Sunday night’s game against the Giants leading the National League and the Majors with a 2.05 ERA, have been the two best pitchers in the National League since the All Star break. 

Urias is 16-3 with a 3.11 ERA and 168 strikeouts. Buehler is 13-3 with 184 strikeouts.

The Dodgers haven’t had quite a 1-2 punch like this since the days of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.

Although Buehler had a very un-Buehler-like outing on Sunday, giving up six runs on seven hits in three innings and saw his ERA climb to 2.33. 

As good as Urias and Buehler have been, it hasn’t been enough to pass the Giants in the standings.

The Dodgers did creep ahead by a half-game after beating the visiting Atlanta Braves on Wednesday. But the Giants pulled even with the Dodgers after beating the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.

The Dodgers gave the lead right back, losing on Sunday night to the Giants, 6-4. The Giants have a one-game lead in the standings with 25 games left to play. 

With Clayton Kershaw looking like he’s ready to return to the rotation and Max Scherzer coming through in big games lately, the Dodgers have a significant advantage over the Giants over the last 25 games of the season.

Another good sign is Tony Gonsolin made a rehab start for Rancho Cucamonga over the weekend. Another healthy arm is exactly the shot in the arm the Dodgers need. 

However, just when it looked like the Dodgers could give struggling Cody Bellinger a little break before playoffs started, AJ Pollock injured his hamstring and could be out for three weeks. 

The Dodgers outfield looked set for the playoff push in September. Mookie Betts was healthy and back in right field. Chris Taylor was in a bit of an unexpected slump, but starting in center field. Pollock was delivering clutch hits and playing a stellar left field, robbing home runs in Petco Park and making plays that had Dodger fans cheering for days afterward.

But with Pollock out, it means more of Bellinger in center. He is the weak spot in the lineup for a team that has trouble scoring runs at times.

That is why winning the NL West is so important. In a one-game, wild-card playoff game, anything can happen. Most Dodger fans would rather see Pollock than Bellinger at the plate in the eighth inning of a tie game, especially a wild-card playoff game. The best way to avoid that scene is to avoid the wild-card round of the playoffs altogether.

But that means building a lead over those pesky Giants.

These next four weeks of baseball will not be for the faint of heart.

Dodger starting pitchers power rankings:

1. Julio Urias
2. Walker Buehler
3. Max Scherzer
4. Cory Knebel

The Dodgers (86-51) start a four-game series against the Cardinals in St. Louis on Monday and return home for a weekend series against those slumping San Diego Padres on Friday.