A Competitive Edge

There’s just something different about this newly acquainted dodgers team.  Not a bad different but most certainly a good different.  For a team that is breathing down rival San Francisco for the NL West pennant, they seem pretty calm.  Could it be just plain and simple, confidence?  Could it be the new acquisitions(Ramirez, Victorino, Blanton, Choate, and League)?  Could it just be purely be having a good time?  I think it’s a little of everything because in theory they all correspond with one another.  When Hanley arrived in LA it had a Manny Ramirez like atmosphere…winning and having fun.  If you add that mentality to a team that has Matt Kemp, Dee Gordon, and Clayton Kershaw it’s a recipe for success.  Not to mention ownership thats willing to do whatever it take($$$) to bring a world series to LA again.  Entering August, the Dodgers have found a long lost sense of Swag that they have been missing for the past few years.  Every other MLB team out there should be scared of the Dodgers because they are on the brink of taking off and not looking back.

                    

Superman is injured, recuperating from his last encounter with “the villain” and the town slowly begins to fall from being held to a very high standard.  The police force goes down.  Next the fire department.  The merchants are evaporating out of thin air, leaving no food to be bought.  The town self destructed faster than anything I have ever seen.

The good news is that this is only a story so stop worrying, but the bad news is that this is very similar to the LA Dodgers coincidentally.  The Dodgers and Matt Kemp start the season on a tear gaining as large as a 7.5 game lead in the NL West standings.  Mind you this was only the first two months of the seasons…

Strike 1

Matt Kemp’s first stint on the DL was a blow nonetheless, but LA was able to survive.  Andre Ethier and company picked up Matty and reassured him that they got this.  They got contribution from, Dee, Dre, Rivera, [A.J.]Ellis and much more.  This was really pumping up LA fans confidence, showing what they really have this season, something quite special.

Strike 2

Matt Kemp’s second day back from the first stint on the DL ends terribly, something no Dodger fan ever wanted to see…He re-injured the same hamstring forcing him back to the DL for round 2.  With LA’s boosted confidence from his first stint, they remained calm about the whole thing, even though in the back of every Dodgers fans mind they were skeptical on whether or not history could repeat itself.  Unfortunately I wouldn’t be writing this piece if the Dodgers hadn’t slumped, but they slumped hard.  Let’s just say they had a 33 inning scoring drought, 2 runs in a total of 58 innings, not to mention losing 11 of 12 games scoring a total of 15 run…Just plain dismal.  To say that their bats disappeared is an understatement.  Loney went ice cold, Ethier slumped, Ellis slumped, Uribe slumped.  The only two people who managed to somewhat hit the ball was Juan Rivera and Jerry Hairston Jr.  

June gloom in LA for sure.  But its a new month and they have won 2 of 3 producing some runs and things are looking up…I think every Dodgers fan is saying “just get to the all-star break already”, “get Kemp back”…But in all honesty, Dodgers nation is not worried, better to slump now than later..am I right?