Sigh. It's a shame Kemp and Ethier are doing so well. There's just such a slim chance of the Dodgers remaining long term contenders. With a league appointee in charge they, they're not in a position to make the roster moves and trades that they'll need to. So those two are poised to have monster years on a team that's going nowhere.

I haven't been able to look it up: is Colletti still around? Even if he is, he will be too neutered to be able to do anything, I just hope they don't lose him.

I don't think the team is as horrible as some are making it. Even with all of the injuries, we are still playing better ball than I expected, with one glaring weakness right now - our bullpen. We'd easily have another five wins under our belt and probably be in first place if we had a healthy Kuo and Padilla and if, for the love of God, someone could figure out how to fix Broxton between the ears.

Still, even with all of the ownership turmoil and such, we're only 3 1/2 games out of first and we've had a grueling schedule against some pretty tough teams. And considering who we are getting ready to play, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Dodgers put together a pretty good win/loss record in the weeks to come.

You're right, the team is doing great , but it's all but innevitable that at some point in the season, to either make the playoffs or be real contenders in the playoffs will require some big roster moves. It's very very rare that any team that advances far does so without benefit of an important late season move. Whether it's a trade, grabbing someone off waivers, having the balls to send someone down even if they're out of options. All of which are far less likely to be done under league control. The league will be looking to just hold things together and ride out the storm. I'm happy they're doing well for now, but am not holding my breath.

Oh suuuuure, if you're going to bring realism into it...

My apologies to Mr. Ethier. Last night I said to CP that some time in mid June, approximately 26 games from now, I might (I did say might) be forced to attend a Dodger game.

So yeah, my fault.

While watching yesterday's Dodger game, even though they won and put up a lot of runs, I couldn't help but notice that, yet again, they followed up an inning in which they scored runs by immediately giving runs back in the very next half inning. I didn't have any proof, but I felt like the if anything summed up their season it was the frequency with which it seemed that was happening.

So being an entirely normal, not a all obsessive an geeky individual - I wrote a program to mine game results from mlb.com and see if my impression was right.

The Dodgers have scored in 83 innings this season. 25 times, their opponent scored in the very next half inning. That's 30.12 percent of the time, and they "lead" the National League. A close second is Arizona at 30% even (90 innings scored, 27 following innings scored against). Third place is the Cardinals at 26.67%. The NL average is 23.11%.

The Phillies, who have the best record in the NL, also have the 2nd lowest percentage at 18.82%. The clear winners in this category are the Giants at an impressive 13.33%.

So now that I have a database of teams' runs scored by inning for every game (at least in the NL, need to do the same for AL), anyone want to know anything?

When you win in the bottom of the Ninth, ain't much of a chance to give it back.

Good point. Doesn't happen often, so I don't expect significant change in the data, but I should rework my calculations.