{"id":7757,"date":"2010-07-15T13:36:08","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T20:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7757"},"modified":"2010-07-15T13:36:10","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T20:36:10","slug":"luke-warm-july-15-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7757","title":{"rendered":"Luke Warm: July 15, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Landestoy Luke<\/p><\/div>\n

By Landestoy Luke<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a Dodger fan, you gotta be feeling good about things these days. All things considered, being 10 games above .500 and only two games out of first behind the overachieving Padres is a great place to be. The Blue is on pace to win 91 games, which would definitely put them in contention for the division crown or a wild-card berth.<\/p>\n

Not so fast, Bum fans. Hate to break it to you, but the\u00a0Dodgers\u00a0just aren\u2019t going to get there. Why so little faith from the Luker? L-squared\u2019s personal baseball bible,\u00a0baseballprospectus.com<\/a>, gives the Dodgers only a 29% chance of making the playoffs and all it takes is one look at the schedule to figure out why. They have only 16 of their final 74 games are against teams with below .500 records. Only 6 of those games are going to be played at\u00a0Chavez Ravine. In other words, they\u2019re really really really going to have to earn it if they\u2019re going to the postseason.<\/p>\n

Then you have to ask, is this the type of team that can do that? The starting pitching is decent, with\u00a0Clayton Kershaw\u00a0emerging as an ace. Past that though, there are more question marks here than at a Riddler convention.\u00a0Chad Billingsleyalternates between great and ugly.\u00a0Vicente Padilla\u00a0has actually pitched well since coming off the DL, but how long can that last?\u00a0Hiroki Kuroda\u00a0has run hot and cold (do you realize he\u2019s making $15 mil this year?) and the bubble finally burst on 5th<\/sup> starter Jon Ely. Even if the Dodgers go out and acquire another pitcher, they\u2019re probably just treading water.<\/p>\n

Offensively, this team has issues too. SS\u00a0Rafael Furcal\u00a0has been a godsend, but he also has chronic injury issues and can\u2019t be relied upon. 1B\u00a0James Loney\u00a0has a lot of RBI, but has been generally underwhelming (.309\/.361\/.442\/.803) for a 1B. 2B Blake Dewitt is proving he\u2019s not an everyday player (.269\/.359\/.370\/.728). 3B\u00a0Casey Blake\u00a0is providing subpar production in spite of the perception he\u2019s having a good season (.259\/.339\/.427\/.766). The OF is alright, with Matt Kemp and\u00a0Andre Ethier\u00a0holding down the fort, but even they have had their issues.\u00a0Kemp\u00a0has to deal with a wrongly placed with the label of having a negative attitude and work ethic (can anyone name something this guy has done to deserve this?) and Ethier has struggled since returning from the DL. Speaking of the DL, LF\u00a0Manny Ramirez\u00a0is just returning from it, but he\u2019s 38 years old and guys that age don\u2019t bounce back well from injuries. He\u2019ll be a good hitter\u2026just not the type of hitter the Dodgers need him to be. That finally leaves us with\u00a0Russell Martin\u00a0(.244\/.346\/.332\/.679), who seems to be following the\u00a0Jason Kendall\u00a0career trajectory. It\u2019s quite possible that\u00a0Joe Torre\u00a0has worn Martin out to the point that his career may never recover.<\/p>\n

So Dodger fans can start making those October plans. Maybe start following USC’s trek to the Rose Bowl or tune in to a new season of\u00a0Lost.<\/p>\n

Landestoy Luke is a former semi-pro baseball player in the California-Nevada Independent League. He cites former major leaguer Aurelio Rodriguez as one of his greatest baseball influences. After spending some time as an advance scout in the Mexicali League, Luke now spends his time as a freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Landestoy Luke If you\u2019re a Dodger fan, you gotta be feeling good about things these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3278],"class_list":["post-7757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-landestoy-luke"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7759,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions\/7759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}