Slasher Flick

The Dodgers starting rotation has now officially fallen apart. Penny and Nomo are done for the year, Lima and Alvarez are hurt, Ishii has been demoted and promoted so many times he must be dizzy by now, and Edwin Jackson is an untested rookie who's had a spotty year at best. Only Perez and Weaver have provided any semblance of normalcy, and both of them have had their own problems this month. Has any division-leading team in September had this degree of pitching problems before?

And despite a starting rotation that's being held together with spit and glue, the Dodgers still have a chance to make the playoffs. That chance doesn't look quite as good as it did a week and a half ago, but you just knew the Giants weren't going to go away quietly. Their entire team is hitting the ball right now, and all of a sudden their pitching staff decided to throw the ball with authority. (What the hell has got into Brett Tomko anyway?) Like a bad horror movie with a plot so predictable you can anticipate in advance everything that happens, the Giants started winning and winning, and the Dodgers, faithfully sticking to the script, started losing and losing.

The Giants had won 9 of their last 10 and the Dodgers had lost 7 of their last 10 going into last night's game, evaporating that impressive six game lead they had in the division. The Astros, who Dodger fans were counting on to slow the Giant juggernaut, had rolled over in their first two games against S.F. The Padres, who had done a lot of smack-talking about the Dodgers in the press, promptly went out and backed it up, beating the Dodgers for the fifth time in their last six tries. It was a very bleak state of affairs that unfolded on Thursday.

But whoever's directing this awful picture decided to throw one little plot twist into the mix before the final act of the movie. The Dodgers finally jumped out to an early lead and held on to it for the entire game, something they haven't done in more than a month. And the Giants dropped a heartbreaker, blowing a 3-run lead and losing in the ninth inning. The ship is righted, but only slightly.

And now we entire the weekend that might possibly determine the fate of Western civilization. Or at least the fate of the Western division. The battered Dodgers, boosted by a morale-inflating win over the Padres, taking on the surging Giants, slowed a bit by a crushing loss to the Astros. We'll try and forget the fact that the Dodgers just went 2-5 against the Padres the past week and a half and focus on what's in front of us.

Odalis Perez will make the biggest start of his career tonight against Kirk Rueter. The Dodgers need someone who can boost the confidence in the shell-shocked starting rotation, and dare I say, Perez is just the man to do it. Mr. No-Decision will need some help from the offense though. If they can just get an early lead off of Rueter and allow Perez to fall into a rhythm... ahhh, who am I kidding? The offense will make Rueter look like Juan Marichal, Perez will have one shaky inning, and every run the Dodgers fall behind by will seem like 10. (I can't help it. The past ten days have conditioned me to expect the worst.)

Lima apparently feels healthy enough to start on Saturday, which really doesn't make me feel any better, and Weaver will try and recover from his last shaky outing against the amazing Mr. Tomko on Sunday. I'm not exactly thrilled that Jim Tracy ran Brazoban and Gagne out for two inning apiece yesterday, wearing them out a bit right on the eve of the San Francisco series, but there it is. Winning just one of the three games this weekend would allow the Dodgers to return to L.A. still in first place, while the Giants hit the road for the final week. I can't wait until this movie is over, one way or the other.