April 25th, 2013 at 6:22 am 
by Ron Cervenka No sense writing about the Dodgers meltdown in Wednesday night’s ugly 7-3 loss to the Mets at Citi Field – lord knows everybody else already has.
It ain’t coming back so we might as well move on.
(Video capture courtesy of SYN)
Instead I’ll write about the huge, and I mean humongous need for the Dodgers to win the series finale against the Mets in a couple of hours.
Why, you ask?
Because even though a win today will only guarantee the Dodgers a .500 road trip, it will at least be a .500 road trip – and that’s a hell of a lot better than a .333 road trip.
Don’t get me wrong, in no way am I suggesting that a .500 road record (for the season) is acceptable, it absolutely is not. History has shown that there have been very few division winners with a sub .500 road record. And if the Dodgers can play no better than .500 ball on the road, they would have to play .700 ball at home to have any chance of winning the NL West, and quite frankly, that ain’t gonna happen. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time that the Dodgers played .700 ball at home – perhaps they never have. (Where’s Eric Stephen when I need him?).
The point here is that the Dodgers do not need to play .700 ball at home if the can play .600 ball on the road. This would require them to win (roughly) two out of every three series on the road, which is very do-able for this Dodger team. They would then only have to match that at home (with an occasional series sweep) to win approximately 98 games which, in all likelihood, will be good enough to win the NL West. As I have said several times before, I do not believe that either NL Wild Card will come out of the West this season. As such, the only way for the Dodgers to make it into the post-season is by winning the NL West – period.
In spite of Wednesday’s painful loss, the Dodgers again showed signs of life and are slowly convincing me that when they finally return to full strength, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to play .600 baseball both at home and away. Here again, .600 baseball on the year will give them approximately 98 wins.
As tough as Wednesday night’s loss was, it is history… it’s over… it’s done, and there isn’t anything that the Dodgers or anybody else can do about it except to move on.
Of course, should the Dodgers miss the playoffs by only one game, this will be the one that comes back to haunt them, and that sucks.
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It’s a new day and all you can do is move forward. I agree with the need to win on the road !! But more then anything I think we have to win in our division !! To me that’s where the difference will be made !! The overall record means a lot and it may take 98 wins to win the West but if we can control the West, then that 98 doesn’t have to be !!
98 wins, regardless of who they are against, will most likely win the West.
Numbers and winning percentages. An interesting concept.
A .700 winning percentage on a team’s home field is a rare occurence these days. When Seattle won 116 games in 2001, they barely eclipsed that mark with a .704 home winning percentage. No Los Angeles Dodgers team has ever had a .700 home winning percentage. The ’74 team with 102 wins was .642 at home. The ’62 team (102 wins) was .651 at home. The best L.A. Dodger team home record was the ’66 pennant winner that had a .654 winning percentage.
Two Brooklyn teams eclipsed the .700 mark. Chuck Dressen’s ’53 club that won 105 games had an amazing .779 winning percentage at home. I haven’t looked it up, but that may be the best ever in National League history. (The ’32 and ’61 Yankees each broke the .800 mark in home winning percentage). The ’55 World Champions are the other Dodger team to break .700 as they went .727 at home.
So with that historical footnote let me just say that there is no way the Dodgers will reach the .700 home record. It’s nearly impossible. Also, I think it’s safe to say that by playing .635 at home (difficult, but doable) and .500 on the road, they have a legitimate shot at winning the division. By doing that they would end up with a 92 win season. I think we’d all take that.
BTW, a .700 home record combined with a .500 road record is a 98 win season.
Oops, sorry…you already said that about 98 wins… (smashing palm against forehead!!!) I don’t see the Giants or any NL West team winning that many games. Too much parity. Too many interdivision games in which they’ll be beating up on one another. 92-93 wins probably takes the division I believe.
Umm… so is a .600 and .600 record which, as I said, I believe is do-able. My point about playing .700 ball at home was merely to point out that if the Dodgers play at or below .500 on the road, this is what it would take for them to win 98 games. As I noted, I don’t recall a Dodger team ever doing so, but you have shown that it has in fact happened, but is extremely rare.
And I disagree about the NL West – I think 95 wins takes it.
Sweep the season series with Giants and AZ and you can do it with 90 wins !!
Not if either team has 95+ wins. And do you honestly believe that the Dodgers will “sweep the season series” with either? If so, I want some of what you’re smoking.
As far as beating the Giants & AZ, as Ron Cey himself told me-beating teams in your division doesn’t mean a thing these days with the wild-card and interleague play. Remember when the Rockies were 4-14 versus the Dodgers and still made the playoffs? It is all about quantity of wins, not necessarily those “quality” wins over a rival.
Yes, that loss the other night was painful. All I kept thinking about was the game was in the hands of a closer who couldn’t even make it with Seattle…freakin” Seattle. I mean, a franchise going downhill quickly determined the man wasn’t worth keeping. With such a thin staff, League worries me.