Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
….aaand I’m back.
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Dodgers
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D’Backs
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6:40 p.m.
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Phoenix, Az.
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LF
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Ruggiano
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CF
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Pollock
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2B
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Peraza
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LF
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Inciarte
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3B
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Turner
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1B
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Goldschmidt
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1B
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Gonzalez
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C
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Castillo
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RF
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Van Slyke
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3B
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Gosselin
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SS
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Seager
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2B
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Owings
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C
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Ellis
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RF
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Tomas
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CF
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Heisey
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SS
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Ahmed
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P
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Wood (L)
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P
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Ray (L)
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For happy reasons that many of you know, I haven’t really been paying much attention to baseball for the last week or so. And now.. oh wow, the pennant race is over, isn’t it? I mean, an 8.5 game lead and a 99.7 percent chance of taking the NL West. Sure, the Giants could mount a comeback. The Earth could crash into the sun. You could be elected pope. Lots of things could happen. Not this, though. This is fun.
It’s fun, really, because look at that lineup. No Yasiel Puig or Yasmani Grandal or Chase Utley or Jimmy Rollins or Howie Kendrick or Joc Pederson or Andre Ethier or Carl Crawford, in the second week of September. That’s eight names; if you had Ethier fake it at first base and push Utley to third, that’s a real actual lineup that would be pretty impressive. Not a single one is playing, either due to injury or rest.
Instead, you get Justin Ruggiano and Chris Heisey and Scott Van Slyke — that’s an outfield! — and Jose Peraza and Corey Seager in the middle infield, which is the first time the Dodgers have had a middle infield that young since 1947.
If you’d known all that in March, you’d be cautiously optimistic that things were going unthinkably well, while worrying about just what a disaster would be in the future. This is the best possible timeline. This is more than you could have hoped for.
As for the injured: Grandal, yay!
Yasmani Grandal, taking BP left-handed, looks perfectly healthy. Several over the fence, including one that just splashed down in the pool.
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) September 12, 2015
Kendrick, still uncertain!
#Dodgers:
Howie Kendrick took live BP again and ran the bases. Mattingly: "Still feel like we're not quite there yet. But getting closer."— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 11, 2015
Puig, well, that could sound better.
#Dodgers:
Yasiel Puig (hamstring) not doing any outside work/baseball activities yet. Mattingly: "Still has some tightness, some tenderness"— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 11, 2015
