Dodgers Beginning to Slip?

Due to the HCG controversy, the seemingly outrageous contracts that stars get in baseball, and the fact that he’s only hit 4 home runs since the All-Star break, Manny Ramirez is receiving most of the blame for the recent “slide” in the Dodgers offense. Last night’s loss to the creeping Colorado Rockies is only adding a can of diesel to that flame. Starting at a base camp of 15 ½ games back of the NL West division leading Dodgers, the Rockies have almost reached Everest finding themselves only 2 ½ games back of the boys in blue. While Manny isn’t necessarily being Manny over the last month, the blame for slipping from their “best offensive team in baseball” status doesn’t necessarily lie with him.

Although his home runs haven’t quite been up to par, Ramirez is still hitting .306, by all accounts a quite respectable number. Last night, Manny was 2 of 4 at bats with a tying RBI. Not spectacular, but he did come up clutch in a major moment. Now let’s take a look at James Loney, Russell Martin, and Rafael Furcal: 0 for 5, 0 for 5, and 1 for 6 respectively, all with 0 RBIs. Russell Martin has been in a slump all year, making it one of his worst ever, so we leave him out of the equation. James Loney and Rafael Furcal have been almost non-existent on the offensive end for the last few months. Defensively, Furcal (SS) is still the leader and best player on the team, but that doesn’t make up for his lack of hitting when the Dodgers have needed it most. It also hasn’t made it any easier that he’s their lead-off hitter. When the lead man can’t do anything, it makes successful clean up batting (Ramirez) very difficult. Whoever wrote the article blaming Manny Ramirez for this “losing streak” needs to turn a watchful eye to these two players.

The Dodgers left 8 men on base last night, and there are no excuses for that, but since the beginning of the season the real problem has been that the Dodgers don’t really have an outstanding pitching staff. Maybe they didn’t do enough before the trade deadline, but who knew Cliff Lee would be this dominant for the Phillies? Regardless of any slump the Dodgers may be having right now, they’ll still probably make the post-season. But with an acceptable to mediocre pitching staff, it will be difficult to make it far in October without some astounding offense. A problem which the Dodgers need to solve. Quickly.