It is a phrase that is as old as the game of baseball itself – “Any team can beat any other team on any given day.” It is also a phrase that the Dodgers have been living and breathing with big time as they enter the final two weeks of the 2017 regular season.

Granted, Dave Roberts’ boys are already guaranteed a spot in the postseason, albeit as one of two NL Wild Card teams, but the Dodgers, who until their recent record-setting 1-17 skid, were poised to set or at least tie the best winning season in MLB history instead now find themselves with a magic number of five with 14 games remaining to win their fifth consecutive NL West title.

With his 38th home run on Saturday afternoon, Cody Bellinger tied Wally Berger (1930 Boston Braves) and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (1956 Cincinnati Reds) for the most home runs hit by a National League rookie, this in spite of not being called up to the Dodgers until April 25.
(Video capture courtesy of ESPN and Fox Sports – Click on image to view video)

Realistically, the chances of the NL West second-place Arizona Diamondbacks catching and passing the Dodgers for the division title lies somewhere between slim and none. Then again, “Any team can beat any other team on any given day,” and this includes the NL East Division champion Washington Nationals, whom the Dodgers face on Sunday evening on national television (ESPN) and the NL East last place Philadelphia Phillies and their MLB second-worst 58-90 record, whom the Dodgers face at Citizens Bank Park for a four-game series beginning on Monday.

With Dodger fans still reeling from their team’s horrific (and historic) 11-game losing streak and even more horrific 1-17 run, it is quite possible that they haven’t been paying much attention to the lowly Phillies, who recently called up top first base / outfield prospect Rhys Hoskins (pronounced “Reese”) from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. All Hoskins has done since his August 10 call-up is hit .298 with a .429 on-base percentage and .766 slugging percentage for a remarkable 1.195 OPS. But here’s the kicker – he has also hit 18 home runs in 38 games.

It’s probably fair to say that Philadelphia Phillies rookie sensation Rhys Hoskins would have surpassed Bellinger’s current 38 home runs had he been called up at the beginning of the 2017 season. The 24-year-old Sacramento, CA native has slugged 18 home runs in only 38 games.
(Photo credit – Rich Schultz)

But wait, there’s more!

Hoskins’ 18 home runs has him only three behind team leader Tommy Joseph and two behind Maikel Franco, who have played in 133 and 142 games respectively. In other words, there is an exceptionally good chance that Hoskins – whose Welsh-origin first name means “running” – could take over his team’s home run lead when the Dodgers are in town and while having been in the big leagues only slightly more than a month. (Sound familiar?).

The good news is that the Dodgers return home on Friday, September 22 to begin a three-game series with the aforementioned Giants, followed by three against the (current) 65-83 San Diego Padres. They then conclude the regular season with three against the (current) 82-67 Colorado Rockies at always-unpredictable Coors Field.

The bad news is that with the Giants and Padres having already been eliminated from postseason play, they have absolutely nothing to lose and would love nothing more than to rain on the Dodgers postseason parade. And even though the Rockies currently hold a 3.5-game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers and a 4.5-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals for the second NL Wild Card spot, they would immediately be bumped from postseason play should the Dodgers fail to win the NL West.

…but as we all know – “Any team can beat any other team on any given day.”