August 12th, 2012 at 7:09 am 
by Ron Cervenka After Saturday night’s painful 7-3 loss to the Miami Marlins, I happened to catch the final segment of the DodgerTalk post-game show with Keven Kennedy and David Vassegh. During the segment, Vassegh asked Kennedy the $64,000 Question – Can the Dodgers still win the NL West? Without hesitation, Kennedy answered “Absolutely, but they will have to play .600 ball from here on out. They have to win series… take two out of three, three out of four with an occasional sweep.”
KLAC DodgerTalk co-hosts Kevin Kennedy and David Vassegh both believe that the Dodgers can win the NL West but will have to win 30 of their final 50 games to do it.
Vassegh agreed with his co-host and said that is usually takes 90 wins to capture the NL West title. He added that the Dodgers were 60-52 with 50 games remaining. As such, the Dodgers must go 30-20 in their 50 remaining games (which just so happens to be .600 ball) to get to 90 wins. After Saturday night’s loss, the Dodgers are 1-1 in their monumental task of trying to go 30-20.
This .600 number is a rather interesting number. Around the middle of the 2011 season, several ThinkBlueLA forum regulars began discussing what it would take for the Dodgers to win the 2011 NL West title and the consensus was that the Dodgers would have to play at least .600 for the remainder of the season to win the division. Obviously they did not and finished only 3 games above .500 and in third place in the division with a dismal 82-79 record. Even the eventual NL West winning Arizona Diamondbacks finished below .600 (.580 to be exact), but they managed a 94-68 record.
The point here is that the Dodgers do not need to finish the 2012 season with a .600 winning percentage (which would require a 97-65 record), but they absolutely positively must play .600 ball (30-20) in their final 50 games to get to 90 wins – something that both Kevin Kennedy and David Vassegh believe is do-able.
I sure wish I had their optimism.
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I think it will depend on how well the Giants and D’backs play. I think the team that does the best will win it.
It could be close especially with the Dodgers and Giants down to the wire. I find it hard to predict how many wins it would take to clinch the Division.
Ya think?
It’s not a matter of predicting, it’s a matter of knowing the history of the NL West. Since 1994 (which is when the NL Central was added and not counting the strike-shortened 1995 season), the average number of wins needed to win the NL West is 92 games, however the division is playing weak this season (again). As such, Kevin Kennedy’s and David Vassegh’s (and my) belief that it will take 90 wins is probably pretty accurate (plus or minus a game or two).
Oh, where did I put that darn duck??? Nevermind…