Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
This is how you draw it up, you know, you just never expect it to actually happen.
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Giants
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Dodgers
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7:10 p.m.
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Los Angeles
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RF
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Pence
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2B
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Gordon
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2B
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Panik
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CF
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Puig
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1B
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Posey
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1B
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Gonzalez
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3B
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Sandoval
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RF
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Kemp
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C
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Susac
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SS
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Ramirez
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LF
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Dominguez
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LF
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Crawford
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SS
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Arias
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3B
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Uribe
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CF
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Blanco
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C
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Ellis
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P
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Hudson (R)
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P
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Kershaw (L)
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In the final game of the year against your oldest rival, the only team that’s given you any competition in the NL West all season long, ahead of a day off and a series against the long-dead Colorado Rockies, with the best pitcher in the world on the mound, one who’s looking to wrap up his MVP case, the Dodgers have their fate in their own hands. Win tonight, celebrate in front of the home fans, and the final three games are a party. Lose, and either have an anticlimactic day off division win tomorrow if the Giants lose to the Padres, or else actually need to put some effort in against the Rockies.
If they do lose tonight, they’re still going to win the division. Sorry if that’s presumptuous, but they just are. The FanGraphs NL West odds are at 100% for the Dodgers right now, and that’s not even theoretically possible. What that means is that in however many thousands of scenarios that fuel those odds, there’s not a single one — not even one — that ends with the Dodgers losing this game and all three against the Rockies along with the Giants winning this game and all four against the Padres.
So no, it’s not the end of the world if Clayton Kershaw and friends aren’t enough to beat Tim Hudson and the Giants. It just means that gratification will be delayed until tomorrow or the next day. It’ll just be an opportunity lost, is all, and if you think some late-season #narrative is what will fuel Kershaw’s MVP run, having him in the middle of a championship pile would certainly go a long way.
This game, like last night’s will be simulcast on KDOC, and it’ll also be a nationwide broadcast on ESPN. I’m guessing you’re going to want to hear Vin Scully on this one. It should be fun. This is what we’ve watched six months of baseball for.
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