The Trolley Dodger

On September 18th this year, it will be the 5th anniversary of the famous 4+1 game, in which the Dodgers tied the score with four consecutive home runs, then beat the Padres in extra innings with a walk-off homer.

With Russell Martin no longer with the Dodgers, that means the five players (six if you count Kenny Lofton’s walk that represented one of the two runs in the 10th) involved in the 4+1 are gone.

1. Jeff Kent
2. JD Drew
3. Russell Martin
4. Marlon Anderson

and then Nomar Garciaparra. In fact, looking at the boxscore for that night, only Rafael Furcal, Jonathan Broxton, and Andre Ethier are still on the team.

Starting catcher for the Padres? Mike Piazza.

Analysis of the 2010 Dodgers season can get pretty snarky, fatalist, and needlessly complex. The truth of the matter is all-too simple: just check the standings.

NL WEST STANDINGS Through 8/15/10

    W   L    PCT  GB  RS  RA  DIFF
----------------------------------
SD  69  47  .595    - 508 395 +113
SF  67  52  .563  3.5 518 440  +78
COL 61  56  .521  8.5 558 517  +41
LAD 60  58  .508 10.0 516 517   -1
ARI 47  72  .395 23.5 540 648 -108

Colorado and Arizona have been scoring (RS) like crazy compared to the other teams — in the Rockies’ case, they’re keeping their opponents from scoring (RA) too many in return, while the Dbacks have a woeful -108 run deficit (DIFF).

Meanwhile on the top of the division, San Diego and San Francisco aren’t scoring very many runs, but their pitching and defense are keeping the opposition down — the Padres with a phenomenal +113 to the positive.

And then there’s the Dodgers. They have kept their opponents to a tepid 517 runs…and have scored one less than that themselves. This is a recipe for malaise.

Whether viewed from an NL (8th out of 16 teams) or overall NL+AL perspective (15th out of 30 teams), the Dodgers are in the middle of the pack. They are 6.5 games out of the wild card, 10 games away from the NL West pennant.

What can they do to save the 2010 season?

Score more runs. It’s not too complicated.

“She might have been glad to confide all these things to someone. But how to speak about so elusive a malaise, one that keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction like the wind? She could find no words; and hence neither occasion nor courage came to hand.” — Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary.

Jon Weisman celebrates the 9th birthday of Dodger Thoughts with a thorough and thought-provoking post this morning, Trade Deadline Inception, covering some of the possibilities and pitfalls of the impending July 31st deadline. Jon isn’t alone, either, with various media and bloggy outlets speculating on the potentiality of disassembling one of the lineups with the best potential in the majors.

Whatever the whys and wherefores of their lackluster 2010 season, the Dodgers are currently six games back of the NL West-leading Padres. Coincidentally, they just (surreally) lost their sixth game in a row.

Trolley Dodger has been pretty silent so far this season, relative to previous years. Most of that had to do with “real-life” events and the all-powerful to-do list (not to mention a month-long World Cup distraction; more on this later), but it is also wrapped up in the malaise of 2010.

From the ill-timed divorce announcement on the eve of the NLCS last October, and subsequent series loss, it has been a struggle to keep up the enthusiasm. And while I have watched a number of games, I haven’t gone to any this year (except for the Kershaw game at Angel Stadium: oof), including missing the recent Blogger Night.

Again, real life has been a big culprit, but it has been a tough sell for my fragmented attention to invest in the Dodger labors. When an activity that is normally an escape from the depressing parts of existence becomes itself depressing…well, what is there to write about? Especially if you’re not one to tear down your favorite team for the sake of talking about something. There’s a surfeit of commenters online, not to mention talk show hosts and callers, who like nothing more than to kvetch 24/7 about the smallest Dodger problems, never mind the major issues — they don’t need any help from me.

So, going outside for a walk has been a great coping mechanism I’ve latched onto this year, and despite the crazy heat here in Inland SoCal I’m trying to keep it up. And oxygen+endorphins certainly help your day more than worrying about a bunch of sports stuff every waking moment. Besides, the old baseball attitude of “don’t get too high, and don’t get too low” certainly applies to fandom as well.

That said, I’m looking forward to what happens between now and the deadline, as well as seeing if the Dodgers can stage an improbable comeback in 2010.

History is merely a list of surprises. … It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick.

This is actually from this past March, but I don’t remember having seen it.

ESPN’s Buster Olney sits down with Jake Peavy and Andre Ethier as they go over an at-bat between the two in 2009

Ethier comes in near the end of the game to pinch-hit.

What if the rumored Adrian Gonzalez/Heath Bell to the Dodgers trade was only Part 1? What if Part 2 is the Blue Jays wanting Broxton as part of a Roy Halladay deal? Might explain the George Sherrill deal as a backup plan. Or flipping Bell to Toronto in a 3-team deal?

Yikes. This last hour of the trade deadline is always nerve-wracking.

UPDATE: Well, much ado about nothing, as usual. :) Barring some August waiver-wire deals, this is it.