This is great. Arizona has been cleared and the dust has settled with a 1.5 game lead. There is another long road trip coming but things are looking up.

Its a road trip to San Diego, Denver, and Pittsburgh. 10 games, and hopefully the Dodgers can win seven of them. I doubt we can go 2-8 on a road trip again and survive this race.

I can't stop grinning. I must look like a fool, but I really don't care.

2 - I'll settle for 5 or 6 wins, but seven would be nice.

2 - Any other scenarios besides 7-3 or 2-8? :)

I predict 6-4. Two out of three in SD, one out of three in Colorado, and three out of four in Pittsburgh. We'll come home in first place.

What a weekend. Go Blue!

For those scoping out fourth place in the NL East, Washington has moved to within six games of Atlanta!

Manuel of the Phillies is looking to get thrown out.

And there you go. There is only one out of the bottom of the first.

Over their past 16 games, the Dodgers have just been a .500 team. Meh.

I'm predicting that trend will continue, and LA will go 5-5 on the road trip.

This whole winning after losing thing is becoming old hat for the Dodgers.

In 2006, the Dodgers immediately followed an 8 game losing streak (which ended a 1-13 stretch) with an 11-game winning streak and a nice 17-1 stretch.

7 You LAT'd yourself?

Agree wholeheartedly on Broxton.

Nitpicking, but do you really think Jackson's hit would have been a 2 run double? It was pretty far to the right of Nomar, I figure Ethier would have been there long before it would have made it to the wall, maybe even hit directly to Ethier.

Whoops, LAT'd.

Hey, Jon, you just got a pretty nice shout-out on the postgame/Sunday night AM 790 show!

(in reference to your post on Kent's Dodger stats)

12

No telling, but it was sure exciting. It's amazing how many times Nomar has had big walkoff plays for the Dodgers.

If not for Nomar (reaching across his body mind you), I had that pegged as a one-run single, runners at the corners.

11 - Twice today, believe it or not.

10.
If we go 17-1 following that losing streak that seems so long ago, I think we'll be in pretty good shape.

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!

18 9-1 roadtrip?

6- Given their last road trip-I will accept a 6-4 trip given their troubles in Denver especially. This team is really Jekyll and Hyde as far as Home and Road performance, so while it was a great homestand, I don't want to get too excited until I see how they come out of this road trip.

However, - in light of Jon's column, I want to congratulate the Dodgers on some great play the last 8-9 days. Great job Team!! Ethier was a monster the last week. Bills and Lowe pitched outstanding this weekend and we did enough to sweep the homestand!!

The Dodgers have more Character™ when they play at home.

Dodgers are a monster.

They become even more of a monster with Saito and Penny joining the bullpen. With furcal back in the lineup, we really don't have a hole.

Now eight games into the needed 20 game win streak. Since 2006 seems to have our number how about another 11 game winning streak.

I'm not sure when I've seen a bigger turnaround in late Aug/Sept. 8 game winning streak, possible returns of Furcal/Penny/Saito, our black hole SS suddenly shows some offense, our Solution at 3rd base in Spring becomes the Solution at 2nd in late summer, and somehow someway we have two of the best hitting outfielders in baseball blazing away.

The worm may turn again but for 8 days this team has given us plenty to cheer about, and if you can't enjoy this then maybe the team is not the problem.

Get Furcal some late innings in some games and a few at bats to get him back in some type of rhythm. Penny some innings out of the bullpen along with Saito to be ready for October.

Playoff lineup:

Furcal
Ethier
Manny
Loney
Martin
Blake
Kemp
DeWitt

Bills
Lowe
Kuroda (at home)

Saito
Brox
Wade
Beimal
Tron
Park
Penny

Doubt we would use Penny or Park much in the playoffs, maybe Penny.

Pierre of the bench. Nomar - can't deny his clutchness factor.... heck I will even say Berroa is a good option right now off the bench...Kent maybe as a pinch hitter...I wouldn't start Kent because of defense.

Anybody agree with me?

and anybody giddy with me reading that?

27
I'd be even more giddy if Kuo made the playoff roster! :)

haha dang it I knew I was forgetting a stud ahaha. Wow our PEN is STACKED if Saito comes back.

Carlos Delgado's 2nd HR this evening was the 249,996th HR in baseball history. Looks like #250,000 will come tomorrow.

RIP, Don Haskins

I just got the most elaborate wedding invitation ever in the mail (I forgot to check the mail yesterday). It has a scroll and everything.

Playoff roster

Starters:

Martin
Ethier
Manny
Loney
Kemp
Blake
DeWitt
Berroa/Furcal

bench: Berroa/Furcal, D. Young, Hu, Adroin, Sweeney, Nomar

Starting rotation:

Bills
Lowe
Kuroda
Maddux

bullpen: Broxton, Wade, Kuo, Park, TronTron, Beimel, Elbert.

Kershaw gets left out to innings pitched. Elbert takes place of Kershaw's spot for an extra LOOGY, freeing up Beimel to pitch a regular one or more innings. Park's the worst guy in the bullpen and even he's not that bad.

33
Not buying the Saito comeback?

19 is the magic number. A combination of 19 wins and loses earns us the division. Woooooooooooooo

34 I'll believe it when I see it. If he does comes back, pull him in Elbert's spot, and everyone moves down a spot.

I left off JP and Jones off the playoff roster. A slap in the face, but I can live with it.

If Wright was in the NCAA, that move would have been a 15-yard penalty.

The three game sweep is wasted if Arizona wakes up and LA relaxes. It will be interesting to see who plays in the last ten games. Based on health and rustiness, Nomar, Kent, and Furcal could get more time than merited.

39
Nomar & Furcal would only be replacing Berroa, so what's the big deal with that?

If Kent comes back, he'll only do pinch hitting duties. He'd take Sweeney's place, not DeWitt.

Tom Brady and Vince Young with potential year ending injuries. Should have decided to be pitchers guys.

I agree 100%. I'm going into this road trip with guarded optimism. No matter how great they played at home (and they played GRRRREAT!), it's been two months time since the Dodgers had a winning road trip.

So I go in and hope for the best! The Padres series alone is going to be really tough, if only for psychological reasons.

---

Chicago/Indy on Sunday Night Football: I still cannot believe what I am seeing.

I came here expecting to see D4P in euphoria after Brady's injury.

Ethier went 2-3 with a RBI, and a run. Really, it should be 1-2, and a reach on an error, but he'll take it.

45
That would be 1-3

JP is a much better player off the bench than Berroa or Sweeney.

I came here expecting to see D4P in euphoria after Brady's injury

I pretty much hate the NFL these days, so I'm kind of "blah" about anything that happens.

No more Super Bowls for that pretty boy.

So no one is alarmed that aliens have seemingly stole the bodies of the Chicago Bears?

I'm willing to bet money that Kershaw is on the Playoff roster. I'd also probably lay odds that he'd get a start at home in the play offs.

50 - they do this about three times a year, play way over their heads on offense, and their defense is what it always was.

Victory! Hooray!

48

I always thought if there was a league to out and out hate, it begins and ends with MLB, but I never let the politics get to me.

Same with the NFL... its too interesting for me to hate really.

The NFL is an enigma, all right, and yet, I'm looking more forward to tomorrow's Dodgers/Padres game than either of the football games. Go figure.

Playoff rosters? Now, hubris has set in.

My Colts have taken the sacrifice from my other blue-and-white team. This is a hard sports day.

This Gates/Sienfeld Microsoft commercial is off putting, to say the least.

UCLA went from 23rd in the AP poll to 26th.

I think this is an indictment of Rick Neuheisel's ability to lead his team to productive wins over traditional tough opponent BYE.

Amazing that UCLA plays BYE and then BYU in consecutive weeks!

59
They just did not want it enough.

Rick helicoptering around to high school games makes it look like UCLA spends money on football.

56 Let us dream.

Baseball should have the inactive list for the playoffs like they have with basketball. It'll get abused as all heck if only because managers will switch out starters and bullpen guys regularly but it'll be fun!

What a beautiful day at the ballpark today!
Dodger Stadium on a sunny afternoon.
Home Plate ump Bucknor starts the game off with a tea cup sized strike zone.
The Dodgers come through with a fine team win.
When Jackson came up for his last at bat I made sure that I was sitting squarely on the edge of my seat ... just for luck.

One game at a time now as all eyes will be on the scoreboard between pitches for the rest of the season.
Anything can happen now. That's what makes this so much fun.

First Place today by a game and a half!

http://proxy.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=3574904

Jerry Crasnick writes about the Dodgers 8 game losing streak and the 8 game winning streak.

True Blood was fun! (We watched the east coast HBO version earlier tonight.) I like Anna Paquin, too. There are a few things that annoyed me greatly about it, but overall, cool enough for me to want to watch the next one, at least.

Oh, and Huzzah! to the Dodgers! I was excited to check out the rest of the game when I came home tonight. Jon's post says it all. And things can turn just as quickly sour as we all know, but I like the way the team is playing and coming together. Hopefully they can go above 500 on the road trip for once and maybe even earn a little distance from AZ before it's over.

Oh, and bummer! about Tom Brady. I loathe the Patriots but like Brady and feel really bad about his injury.

65 - Episode 3 has me wondering whether to keep watching.

65
I saw the original pilot and the girl that played Tara in that was much better. They also changed a couple other characters and scenes I saw.

I actually liked original version better.

A week ago, Manny was so excited to face Arizona's Dan Haren he told Torre on his way to the batter's box, "If he comes inside on me, they're going to have to get a new baseball."

When he hit an inside fastball into the left-field bleachers, Ramirez arrived back at the dugout gushing, "Get a new baseball!"

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AnFSudYMvbnYbZuVT7xkTPwRvLYF?slug=ti-nlwest090708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I agree about Broxton. He's gotten the job done, but I guess it's been accomplished in a seemingly discomforted manner that makes it slightly difficult to swallow sometimes. Flirting with disaster, but pulling it out. I was definitely one to question the resolve of this squad during the string of losses -- maybe like Bowa, I was really focused on the pathetic energy that they were evoking. Getting so close to the end, these are emotional times. They've done a great job to pull themselves out of the hole, now let's hope they can sustain this positive streak and get us to the NLDS!!

AZSnakepit's review of today's game:

http://www.azsnakepit.com/2008/9/7/609485/diamondbacks-3-dodgers-5-w

66 Uh oh.

67 Interesting. Tara was one of the characters that annoyed me. My g/f was also a fan of the books and remarked that in the books she's pretty different and not African-American, for what it's worth. There's just something a little caricatured about her. Well, I'll take it week to week.

15 minutes to Mad Men!

Btw, as wonderful as Saito has been, he's had a few nervewracking games of his own this season, and even blown a game once or twice to show he's human. Nobody's perfect, but as relievers, Broxton and Saito are both about as good as it gets.

66 Were you a fan of Six Feet Under? I have no HBO so I'm stuck to DVD's on this thing, but 6FU may be my favorite TV show of all time, so I am very curious about True Blood.

72 - I was a fan of Six Feet Under, and True Blood isn't that.

I would be happy with a 5-5 road trip, given our troubles away from DS this year. While their starting situation isn't the best right now, I don't expect the Snakes to roll over and they may gain a game or two on us during that time, facing SF and CIN at home in the latter part. Seems to me that the Rockies could be big players in this. At 6.5 back, their recent surge may not be enough, but with 3 games against us and 6 against the Snakes, how well they play should be a decisive factor in the race. Sweeping us would make the race far more interesting than I think I can stand.

I generally like what Alan Ball does, but this is a very different show so it's not even worth comparing, apples and oranges (or two different kind of coffins?)

I think they should've done a Sopranos with vampires, mob-bloodsuckers, I'd watch that for sure.

75 Good to hear--I suppose I'll wait for a full review and ignore my Alan Ball love's connections with it.

Bad Show/Guilty pleasure or not, I am excited for the Heroes return. The first season on DVD got me through a very rough week of my life, so I think I have an odd connection to it.

70 Jim does a great job over at the SnakePit (I've been a reader since Shawn Green was traded) but that column demonstrates the difference between DT and nearly every other baseball blog. Jon would never post a RIP until the Dodgers were mathematically eliminated (even then he would look for something constructive from the elimination). With 19 games left, the division is still wide open and just as Jon reminded us not too get too down 10 days ago he correctly reminds us not to get too jacked up now. While I hope Jim's premature pronouncement of the D'Backs demise is accurate I doubt it is and he of all people should not be giving up the ship. But his post reminds us that its good to have a steady hand at the helm of DT. Thanks JW.

P.S. Did I mention that last Fri (Sept 5) was the last day to get your post season deposit down? Kinda glad that I did now.

Just saw Nomar's catch to end the game. What a great play. That may turn out to be [one of] the defining play[s] of the season.

58. I just saw that commercial. I didn't even understand it. Leave it Sienfeld to make one of the most influential men in history look like an idiot.

Who would of thought that after Nomar's adventures at SS on August 29th, he makes the biggest walk-off with a glove of the year.

Arizona's Record When This Pitcher Starts

Webb 20-10
Haren 17-12
Johnson 12-14
Davis 9-13
Petit 3-4
Scherzer 0-4

Dodger's Record When This Pitcher Starts

Billingsley 14-15
Lowe 17-13
Kuroda 12-15
Kershaw 10-8
Maddux 1-2

You know what Microsoft should have done? Get the Dell guy.

"DUDE, YOU'RE GETTING WINDOWS VISTA."

79 Lowe's at 17-13? A good 3 or 4 games must have been games where we took the lead in late innings after Lowe left.

Pitching Matchups for the upcoming week.

Dodgers @ Padres
Maddux vs. Baek
Kuroda vs. LeBlanc
Lowe vs. Estes

Dodgers @ Rockies
Billingsley vs. Francis
Kershaw vs. De La Rosa
Maddux vs. Cook

Diamondbacks @ Giants
Petit v. Lincecum
Davis v. Zito
Haren v. Correia

Reds @ Diamondbacks
Cueto v. Webb
Harang v. Johnson
Volquez v. Petit

Rockies @ Braves
Cook v. Campillo
Hernandez v. Parr
Jimenez v. Jurrjens

Petit certainly has the toughest assignments this week facing both Lincecum and Volquez, I wonder if Scherzer will take his turn on Sunday, I guess that depends on Johnson's health.

After a long day of covering football. I can finally get on here and say:

"OMG! AMAZING! YES!" (Smacks hands with everybody around me)

Probables are available for San Diego and Colorado:
Maddux vs. Baek
Kuroda vs. LeBlanc (L)
Lowe vs. Estes (L)
Billingsley vs. Francis (L)
Kershaw vs. De La Rosa (L)
Maddux vs. Cook

That's four left handers in a row.

23 seconds! Nice!

82 - Estes! Blast from the past?

Maddux @ Coors has me very, very afraid.

I am amazed that Shawn Estes is still pitching somewhere.

Tim Brown on the Dodgers:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ti-nlwest090708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

86 - They can choose to swap Kuroda and Maddux with the off day Thursday.

88 I don't understand the point of that article. Is excitement unwarranted unless a division is firmly in place? I don't see a single quote that says the team feels secure and happy. A "don't rest on your laurels" note is fine, but he seems almost upset that the team is happy.

Tough story about Eric Scoggins and ALS.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-crowe8-2008sep08,0,3888363.column?track=rss

77
You can still pay using your on-line account. I've found those dates to be suggestions. I'm late with everything and no one has ever turned down my payment.

92 How does McDonald look in the bullpen?

86
Maybe Holliday will continue his prolonged slump.

Earlier today Bob posted the Padre lineup and mentioned how pathetic it was. Then they go out and score 10 runs. I stopped betting on baseball because of games like that.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/notebook?page=bbtn

ESPN has the Dodgers leading the Dodgers by 1.5 games in the NL West. Apparently, the D'Backs don't exist now.

I'm as happy as anybody about the win today. And I admit that Broxton has gotten the job done up until now. The test he's not passing is the swingers test.

He's like the guy in the PG-13 movie we're all really hoping gets it done. He's not the guy in the Rated R movie that we're not sure where he's coming from yet.

Until he becomes that guy or, as Mikey ultimately does, settles in and finds his own comfort zone I say Saito can't come back quick enough.

Ask yourselves how confident you were when he was facing Conor Jackson today that he was going to get the save. Scale of 1-10, ask yourselves that.

92
Bored

He's getting yelled at by locals who went to Wilson. He just laughs at them but he does have a deer in the headlight look about him.

With the increase in the the bullpen about 5 of them have to sit outside. On Saturday they were spread out but by the 5th inning they were all gathered like moths around the Chilling machine.

96
I paused it. Waited 5 minutes then fast forwarded it to see what the damage was. After I saw celebration I went back and watched the a bat. Does that answer your question?

96 I got lost in your metaphor. Broxton did pretty well, though.

92

Saito's situation reminds me of Terry Forster.
I'm not counting on Saito. His elbow is probably cooked.
He may get the opportunity to blow it up on the mound before the end of this season.
All I can say is ouch.

100 is for 96

Really? I assummed they sold your seats to others after that. Sheez I would have preferred to hold on