Can somebody please explain the collapse of the Dodgers? - Joe Chacon's Blog

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Joe Chacon's Blog

Can somebody please explain the collapse of the Dodgers? Stuck

Posted on September 25, 2012 at 03:56 AM.

(3)

I consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person. I'm not smarter than you or the person sitting next to you, but I can comprehend just about anything.

Except for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

How can a professional baseball team with a lineup such as the one the Dodgers have put together have trouble scoring runs and winning games?

I tried looking at the angle of the pitching staff getting rocked on a nightly basis, but that's not the case at all. The team still has the third best ERA in the National League with a 3.44 clip.

Since the Dodgers acquired Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, and Shane Victorino to go with Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, the team has become stagnant. No, scratch that. They have become horrible.

This was a team that played with passion. Perhaps they thrived with the notion that they were the underdogs. Perhaps Kemp enjoyed being the one big offensive star on the team and he's having a hard time coping with sharing the spotlight. Remember the talk about Kemp being the first 50/50 guy in the history of the sport? Well, he's barely hitting .300 now and has only seven home runs since the 30th of April. I'm starting to think he is dating Rihanna again behind the scenes.

You hear people in the media say the team needs time to gel and that their chemistry is a work in progress. This isn't basketball though. This isn't football, nor is it hockey. Baseball players don't rely on each other in the same way they do in other team sports. Yes, as a collective group they go out there and win ball games, but the notion that they need time to "gel" infuriates me.

When the Lakers take to the court with their new starting lineup that includes Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, I will expect them to take some time to get used to each other on the court. The same happened to the Miami Heat. It took them a while to work with each other but they finally got it right and won a championship.

When Kemp or Gonzalez come up to the plate, they just need to hit the ball. Their batting average isn't dependent upon the actions of the other guys sitting on the bench or on the base paths.

I reached out to our resident baseball expert, Gary Armida, and the Dodger debacle has stumped him as well. It's simply something I don't understand.

Now Los Angeles is out of the NL West race and find themselves 3.5 games out of the Wild Card race with nine games to go.

Perhaps the Dodgers expected wins to fall their way once the new additions were placed in the lineup. Maybe Don Mattingly doesn't have as good of a grasp on the team as he portrays.

Or maybe, just maybe, the Dodgers have become one of the most overrated and underachieving teams in the history of baseball.

Joe Chacon is a staff writer for Operation Sports and a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.

Comments

# 1 spacefunk @ Sep 25

The collapse of the Pirates is worse. According to Jayson Stark and the Elias Sports Bureau no team in baseball history has been 16 games over .500 after 108 games and finished with a losing record. Welp, unless the Pirates win 7 of their last 9, they'll be the first. But I guess since they play in Pittsburgh and not LA it's not as big of a story.

# 2 Gary Armida @ Sep 25

I'm definitely no expert as some posters around here will tell you

but the Dodgers' collapse is truly baffling. Bad luck? They overachieved early and came down to earth? Schedule? Really, I don't know.

@spacefunk the Pirates are a story for sure. I may just have a look at them. But, the Dodgers had the division well in hand and then brought in stars. There is a difference, at least I think so.

Nice job Joe, as usual.

# 3 onac22 @ Sep 25

It's a simple answer LA is not allowed to win at everything. The Kings just won the cup so the Dodgers can't win yet. The Lakers probably get to win this year. So I would bet next year is the dodgers year.