Posted by Iroquois Plisken
First, a confession. After summarily dismissing West Coast teams from the playoffs, they made like the GEICO gecko and said, "'ay! This random, Intahnet bloggah ain't givin' us enough credit for our outstandin' seasons. This makes us angry; let's all win our series and go give him whatfor!" Mea culpa, Left Coast. Serenade the streets of L.A. and all that.
The pressure is on Philly to win back to back World Series since Joe Torre's Yankees did it from 1998-2000. (Where does Joe Torre sound so familiar again? Right, the Dodgers manager.) To be fair, they do stand a great chance of repeating a visit to the World Series. After all, Philly did take down the Dodgers in 5 last year and return virtually the same team, including the venerable Jamie Moyer, upset earlier in the season when he told Pedro Martinez to manicure his lawn or to get off. That probably isn't what he said, but he was upset and old, nonetheless.
That being said, there are some differences in the series from the prior year. The Dodgers have the homefield advantage this time around and their team is much improved. Matt Kemp has exploded onto the scene this year, replacing Manny Ramirez's production, who went on maternity leave. Russell Martin was conspicuously absent this year and is perhaps the only true liability in the lineup. The Dodgers pitching is notably strong, though with Vicente Padilla being a bit erratic in replacing Hiroki Kuroda, it may be somewhat less so.
These teams are about as even as can be. The Phillies scored, on average, 0.3 more runs and the Dodgers allow about 0.75 runs less than the Phils. Both have tremendous power in their lineups and pitching staffs who have been somewhat troubled by injury in the postseason (Kuroda, the Philly pen in general, J.A. Happ), though I may argue that the Phillies' overall power is better on the basis of their demigod status from the left side of the plate. The Dodgers bench is deep, though, and we could see a resurgence of postseason Manny anytime. This ought to be a pretty intense series.
On the basis of personal feelings, the desire to see a LAD/NYY series (with the spectre of Torre and the actuality of Torre being omnipresent on the series), and Ned Coletti's public service mustache,
DODGERS IN SIX.
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