If you are a bottom-line type, the bottom line is that the Dodgers are in first place in the National League West with a MLB third-best 93-52 record and a resounding 17.5-game lead over the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks, and will, in all likelihood, clinch their seventh consecutive NL West title as early as Tuesday evening and definitely within the next couple of days.

However, if you are a cliché-type, you are very well aware that ‘It’s not how you start, but how you finish,’ and with only 17 games remaining in the 2019 regular season, the Dodgers are 5-5 in their last 10 games and 10-10 in their last 20. In other words, and to use yet another cliché, ‘What have you done for me lately?’

While the Dodgers are mired in .500 baseball, they are dangerously close to losing their once all-but-guaranteed home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, with the NL East first-place Atlanta Braves breathing down their necks with a 90-55 record, having won seven of their last 10 games and (gulp) 17 of their last 20, proving that it is indeed ‘not how you start, but how you finish.’

To compound matters, whereas the Dodgers offense that has carried the team through a once-struggling Dodgers bullpen and now a seriously struggling starting rotation, that very same Dodgers offense has gone missing in action. We’re talking a combined 83-for-332 (.250) over their last 10 games. And while a .250 batting average is considered … average and is slightly better than the combined .245 (76-for 310) batting average of the Braves over their last 10 games, it is a far cry from the combined .290 (105-for-362) batting average of the likely World Series-bound Houston Astros over their last 10 games.

After Monday’s (very) much needed day off, the Dodgers open a three-game interleague series with the American League East last place (46-97) Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. They will send 25-year-old right-hander Walker Buehler to the mound opposite 28-year-old Orioles left-hander Ty Blach, against whom the Dodgers crushed on April 30 of this season when he was with the San Francisco Giants before being traded to Baltimore at the July 31 trade deadline. In that game, Bloch appeared in relief, allowing seven runs on seven hits – including home runs by Kiké Hernandez and Justin Turner. Bloch suffered the loss in that 10-3 blowout and his then 18.90 ERA landed him back at Triple-A Sacramento after only two major league appearances, both in relief.

That Buehler thing is rather significant. If you recall (and what Dodger fan doesn’t), Buehler is the last Dodgers starter to make it past the sixth inning, having done so on August 21 against the Toronto Blue Jays at Dodger Stadium when he went 7.0 innings. He did not, however, get the win in that exciting 10-inning 2-1 Dodgers walk-off win, their 11th walk-off of the season. Dodgers right-hander Pedro Baez was credited with that win on Max Muncy‘s 33rd – and last – home run before landing on the 10-day injured list after being hit by a pitch on August 28 that fractured his right wrist.

Amazingly, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said this past weekend that Muncy is expected to be activated from the IL and play on Friday, when the Dodgers open a three-game series with the suddenly-hot New York Mets at Citi Field.

The Dodgers are hoping that Buehler will begin a trend of Dodgers starters once again going deep into games; something that Hyun-Jin Ryu, Kenta Maeda, or even staff ace and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw have been unable to do in over a month.

It is, after all, ‘not how you start, but how you finish.’

Play Ball!

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