The Dodgers won 17 of their final 22 games heading into the All-Star break.
That was their cold part of the summer.
After going 17-5 from June 22-July 14, the Dodgers have followed up by going 19-3 from July 19 through today’s 5-0 shutout of Tampa Bay.
Since falling behind 6-0 after five innings on Friday, Los Angeles has outscored the Rays 12-0 over the following 13 innings. Unlike the Rays, they did not let an early lead get away.
Zack Greinke through 77 pitches through his first four innings, but he ended up with 6 1/3 shutout innings on 110 pitches, scattering six hits and a walk while striking out seven. J.P Howell and Chris Withrow combined to retire the remaining eight Rays.
Skip Schumaker went 4 for 4, while Nick Punto and Adrian Gonzalez each had two hits and two RBI. Juan Uribe also had two hits, while being caught off third base on a hidden-ball trick by the Rays – a moment commemorated by Yasiel Puig and the Dodgers after the game.
KT
Hanley Ramirez @HanleyRamirez59s
pic.twitter.com/BXundhTtyS
KT
I know some of you
don’t care about the #1 seed in the NL or think it’s too soon but here it is:
Dodgers solely in 4th place in the NL standings.
1 game behind the cards.
5 games behind the Bucs
5.5 games behind the Barves….very obtainable…Go BLUE!!!!
pic.twitter.com/R0s1kaupQq
Linkmeister
Juan Uribear hasn’t gotten to the point of seeing the humor in it yet, if that video is any indication.
KT
He’s ok dishing it out but not so good at receiving it
WBBsAs
Are we sure it wasn’t AGon receiving the base he stole, rather like Rickey Henderson?
KT
no they taped his foot to the bag
Spence
With the team being this hot, it feels like a playoff spot is already assured and its only August. These wins are almost becoming anti-climatic. Just stay consistent, stay healthy,and get to October. Have to think the Dodgers might be odds on favorites for the World Series at this point.
Go_Bears
They’ll have to get healthy before they can stay healthy.
Linkmeister
If I remember rightly the Dodgers had a long-running national TV game curse. Seems like they’ve won their last two or three nationally-televised games. I hope it keeps up for Kershaw tomorrow.
KT
they will be on fox not next week but the following 2 weeks
WBBsAs
Fox is even worse than ESPN.
KT
Los Angeles Dodgers @Dodgers31m
RECAP: Zack Greinke strikes out 7, @AdrianTitan23 goes deep as #Dodgers blank Rays, 5-0: http://atmlb.com/11V7ne2 pic.twitter.com/hko3AAaN0Z
KT
Eric Stephen @truebluela16s
In 22 games before All-Star break, Dodgers had win streaks of 6, 4 & 5. In 22 games since, they have had win streaks of 6, 4, 5 & 4
WBBsAs
I feel cheated. I went to three games in Denver, and the Dodgers only won two of them.
Bob_in_Vegas
Let’s hope the runs keeping coming for the Kid tomorrow!
ASW1
Cool article in my local paper, The Daily Breeze, this morning “Dodgers Rolling Right Along” :
“While the Dodgers were going 34-8, no other NL West team managed even a .500 record. In fact… only 4 NL teams have better than .500 records since June 22. That allowed the Dodgers to go from 5th place to first place in their division in the span of 17 games. “We were able to not only jump one or two teams, but four teams,” Cey said. “The odds of that happening? Microscopic in comparison to going on the winning streak.”
ASW1
Does anyone even remember the Dodgers starting the month of May with an 8-game losing streak?
Bob_in_Vegas
Yep. Those were the Dark Days of ’13,
But Annie was right — the sun came out in June, July, August so far . . .
Jon Weisman
From AP:
First baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who hit a two-run homer to support Zack Greinke’s
strong pitching, came over to Uribe’s locker and posed with a base that
had a shoe taped to it. Uribe offered a stern look, and took the prank
in stride.
“It’s a good play. They did a good job,” Uribe said. “I made a
mistake. Every day you see something different. I’ve never seen it
before. I got surprised.”
ASW1
The Dodgers have 14 shutout victories this season, tied with the Pirates for the most in the National League.
ASW1
Punto and Schumaker have been key to the Dodgers run and are turning out to be brilliant pick-ups by Colletti :
“Punto has filled in well at shortstop for Hanley Ramirez over the past week while Ramirez continues to nurse a sore right shoulder. Punto is hitting .500 (9-for-18) with three doubles and five RBIs over his past seven games.
Schumaker also has excelled in a reserve role and has three straight multihit games. He’s hitting .643 (9-for-14) with five RBIs over his past four games.
“The good thing about Skip and I, we love to play baseball,” Punto said. “We love to get here and see our name in the lineup. That’s not really our role to come here and be starters and play every day. But when we do see our name in the lineup, it’s why we still play and love the game.”
from game recap : http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_08_10_tbamlb_lanmlb_1&mode=recap_home&c_id=la
mike_tink
Talk about the soft tyranny of low expectations.
Punto is hitting 237 vs RHP which is 10 higher than before today’s game. Before the game his OPS+ vs RHP was 64. 100 is league average. sOPS+ vs LHP was 103 so he has a little use there but how many lefties are there. Baseball-reference gives him a lot of value for his fielding and for playing ss. Ned Colletti told us one of the reasons Uribe was a good signing was that he could play ss if Furcal got hurt. Which of them is better at ss, 3rd, or 2nd I don’t know. But to call picking up an average bench infielder who might have been forced on him and who is playing average, not even as well as he did for the Dodgers last year, brilliant is not brilliant.
Also, I don’t like his using I after and when me was correct as in “The good thing about Skip and I…”
Schumaker after his great game today is hitting 216 against LHP and 287 against RHP. His sOPS+’s were 59 and 89 before today. He got off to a terrible start and has been doing nicely since. His OPS was 440 on May 7; 737 since. Baseball-reference give him negative value because of his fielding. He is keeping SVS in AAA. All in all, not brilliant.
Please note not brilliant does not mean stupid.
KT
6-0 Eastlake (Neighborhood LL team) Cards lost 2 games behind, Reds Lost tied with us, Oak now as a worse record than us ATL and AZ losing
KT
Here are the lastest standings…Don’t freak out:
http://imgur.com/bTQLixo
Jon Weisman
On wild pitch in ninth inning,Atlanta loses, 1-0, ending 14-game winning streak. Dodgers are now 4 1/2 games back, pending Colorado-Pittsburgh result. http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings/_/group/9
KT
” Saturday’s Barves loss was the team’s first 1-0 loss in a game which the only run was scored on a wild pitch since 1946 vs the Dodgers.
It was the first 1-0 win in Marlins history in which the only run was scored on a wild pitch.” ESPN facts
dalegribel
Bandwagoners
WBBsAs
Why would anyone want such a thing?
John_from_Aus
Another great win!
mike_tink
During what hours do you sleep? 2 AM to 6 AM?
KT
I think he’s 8 hours behind west coast time but a day ahead
mike_tink
I don’t remember where John lives but Sydney is 14 hours ahead of me so 17 ahead of the West Coast.
I was asking him when he sleeps because he was up at 6 AM his time when the game started today.
John_from_Aus
I was up at 6.30. The dodgers is the first thing I check every day! The time here right now is 3.42pm Sunday
KT
Oh yea I forgot to figure DST so 7 hours behind and a day ahead…not as bad as being in Morocco or Bahrain where you are up at 2 or 4 in the morning
Jon Weisman
For those who care about such things, Puig passed Ethier in RF innings today. Ethier is 79 innings behind Kemp in CF. Ethier has most OF innings on Dodgers but doesn’t lead at any position.
mike_tink
I’m posting a reply to an ASW comment made earlier. It is one sentence in which he refers to the acquisitions of Punto and Schumaker as brilliant then a portion of today’s game article from dodgers.com:
Talk about the soft tyranny of low expectations.
Punto is hitting 237 vs RHP which is 10 higher than before today’s game. Before the game
his OPS+ vs RHP was 64. 100 is league average. sOPS+ vs LHP was 103 so he has a little use there but how many lefties are there. Baseball-reference gives him a lot of value for his fielding and for playing ss. Ned Colletti told us one of the reasons Uribe was a good signing was that he could play ss if Furcal got hurt. Which of Punto and Uribe is better at ss, 3rd, or 2nd I don’t know. But to call picking up an average bench infielder, who might have been forced on Colletti since the Dodger owners wanted Gonzalez very badly, and, who is playing average, not even as well as he did for the Dodgers last year, brilliant is not brilliant.
Also, I don’t like Punto’s using I after and when me was correct as in “The good thing about Skip and I…”
Schumaker after his great game today is hitting 216 against LHP and 287 against RHP. His sOPS+’s were 59 and 89 before today. He got off to a terrible start and has been doing nicely since. His OPS was 440 on May 7; 737 since. Baseball-reference give him negative value because of his fielding. He is keeping SVS in AAA. All in all, not brilliant.
John_from_Aus
Nice to see Colorado beat the Pirates and also the Mets beating the D-backs
mike_tink
If the practice of mentioning deaths here at DT, including non-baseball related deaths for any newer readers, is no longer being done I don’t wish to re-start the practice. But I will mention three who died in the last few days, Karen Black on Thursday, Johnny Logan on Friday, and Eydie Gorme’ today.
Here is a very fine article about Logan: http://tomahawktake.com/2013/08/10/former-braves-shortstop-johnny-logan-dies
It was hearing about Eydie Gorme’ on the radio tonight that led to this post. I checked her Wikipedia entry to discover “Gormé was born as Edith Garmezano in The Bronx, New York in 1928, the daughter of Fortuna and Nessim Garmezano. Her father was a tailor. She is a cousin of singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka. Her parents were Sephardic Jewish immigrants, her father from Sicily and her mother from Turkey.”
“time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail.” Virgil
thescrounger
I liked Eydie Gorme’. She had a better vocal range than Striesand and was the Producer’s choice for the big roles that made Barbara a star. But Eydie would not not break up her show business partnership with her husband, Steve Lawrence, to take the roles. His talent was far less than hers and kept her from being a star but they did have a long happy marriage, save for the death of their son, so I guess that was the will of God…
Bob_Hendley
Her boleros with Los Panchos are classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsNnF4z4jJg
Jon Weisman
I’ve tended to do this more on Twitter now. I did note both the passings of Karen and Eydie there.
Bumsrap
Hidden ball trick right in front of Dodger’s dugout–priceless.
foul tip
And right in front of a certain Dodger 3B coach a few feet away.
As for national media coverage of it, only question is if there are any who didn’t pick it up.
Which they all should have, much to Uribear’s chagrin.
WBBsAs
At least in a game that was already a semi-laugher.
foul tip
David Price’s getting dog treats from the Dodgers made the local Daily News Journal, his hometown paper. It’s the first part of this:
http://www.dnj.com/article/20130811/SPORTS/308110034/David-Price-greeted-treats-by-Dodgers
Hadn’t seen the tongue-in-cheek bit about the Dodgers asking him to take a bit off his FB in return and his joking reply that he wouldn’t do that for his mother or one-year old neice before.
KT
Dodgers Nation @DodgersNation4m
RT @THEREAL_DV: Matt Kemp is taking BP outside for the first time a few days. #Dodgers
KT
Dodgers lineup:
Crawford LF
M Ellis 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Puig RF
Ethier CF
AJ Ellis C
Uribe 3B
Gordon SS
Kershaw P
Jon Weisman
New post up top.