The Dodgers staved off elimination Wednesday, putting up six runs to keep St. Louis from celebrating for at least a couple of days.
We’ll see if the Cardinals can break the curse of the 3-1 lead on Friday when the National League Championship Series returns to the arch.
As nervous as Cardinals fans are now, knowing Friday is a must-win if they hope to avoid repeat of last year’s blunder against the Giants, LA is feeling mighty good about itself right now.
And that irritates me to no end.
It irritates (if that is too soft of a word, please insert your verb du jour and know it probably is what I actually want to say here) me not because of the Dodgers’ success, but because they shouldn’t even be in this position.
Los Angeles should be lost at sea with a broken sail, leaderless, Puig-less and Kershaw untying the lifeboat to find another ship.
Don Mattingly should have been fired and the Dodgers should have finished mired in the doldrums of the National League West.
Instead, the sure futility of the division allowed Los Angeles to never really lose hope.
Then the insane run where the Dodgers lost just 12 games between July and August and are now two improbable wins from going to their first World Series since 1988.
It’s Arizona’s fault for not taking advantage of a weak division and running away with it early.
But I don’t care too much for the Diamondbacks.
Really, you must look no further than the Giants.
That’s right, put on your orange and black and take a good, long look in the mirror for why the Dodgers are doing so well.
OK, let me get this out of the way now. Yes, the Dodgers have a high payroll and yes, they acquired the pieces and parts devoid of the Giants — as well they should — to put the best lineup on the field as they could.
That out of the way, that lineup would have been nothing if the Dodgers were 20 games out of first in the middle of June.
Mattingly would have been fired and that team would have slogged to the finish line.
The Giants are as much to blame for that as anyone else.
How, you ask? Simple, we didn’t have enough depth to make a serious run at the division.
The Giants gambled that their starting eight and five pitchers would be enough to carry them through a World Series title defense.
When those pieces started going down, there just weren’t enough people in the wings to step up.
Angel Pagan goes down and suddenly the outfield becomes a black hole and the lead off position never could get it going.
Marco Scutaro get’s hurt and second base becomes a question.
Pablo Sandoval gets hurt early on and we could never replace his power.
The starting pitching was bad from the get-go and we needed a strong lineup to bail it out. Matt Cain wasn’t the ace we expected him to be. Barry Zito fell off the planet. Tim Lincecum just hasn’t been right the last couple of years. Ryan Vogelsong gets hurt and the No. 5 spot just never got nailed down.
The point is every team has to deal with injury. The bad teams never recover from missing key players. The good teams have someone who can fill a roll and help them win until the starter gets back.
The Giants just never had it.
I hope as Brian Sabean is watching the NLCS and is as mad as I am. I hope he’s fuming that the Giants could have prevented all of this.
The Dodgers’ spending ability should scare him and make him lose sleep.
The Giants need the pieces and parts to make a serious run. The Giants need quality bench players who can fill in if a guy needs a day off or gets hurt. The Giants need a stronger line up and we need another arm on the mound.
The Giants could have laughed in LA’s face as it yet again missed out on another World Series.
Instead, San Francisco fans have to put up with the childish antics of Yasil Puig who pouts when he doesn’t get a hit and flips his bat when he breaks a 0-11 slump. Honestly, our Pony Baseball kids are taught to not do that. Our 7, 8, and 9 year olds are taught not to do that, but we have to watch it on TV and the Dodgers fans eat it up because they’re winning.
Hopefully, this is a kick in the pants for the Giants organization to get its act together and start putting in the pieces to make another World Series run.
