Dodgers Face Stiff Competition in National League West
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00:00This is not the Dodgers running away with the National League West like they do every year in the last like 12 years, with the one exception was I think two or three years ago, the Giants had like some crazy ass run and they won I want to say like 107 games and the Giants and the Dodgers were battling till the very end to see who was going to win the division and the Giants ultimately took it.
00:25Other than that, in the last 10 or 12 years, I can't remember another time when anybody else other than the Dodgers won the National League West, the Dodgers have been to the National League West, what the Patriots were to the to the AFC East East all those years, you know, where and Buffalo and everybody else was just playing for second place, you know, and so that's how great the Dodgers have been for this long.
00:52And to see now, Arizona and San Diego creeping up every day, win, win, win, get to just now it's two and a half games.
00:59All right, Alex, walk us through where San Diego and Arizona is in comparison to the Dodgers.
01:04Sure, both 69 and 53 the Padres the second half of the season 19 and for their last 30 games 20 and 10. The Diamondbacks second half of the season 20 and five their last 3024 and six both two and a half games back from the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks.
01:18I know if you're not paying attention, which I'm sure a lot of our audience isn't. They've just been on fire offensively.
01:25No, they're 20 and five. That's the best record in the second half. They have a team average of 290, which is the most they scored the most runs and their pitching hasn't been very good. It's been all offense. So it is a real chase my friends.
01:37Well, and and this is why yesterday when I was talking to Jeff passing from ESPN on my ESPN show in LA. He's like the Dodgers will get healthy and the Dodgers will run away with it.
01:46And I said, but why would you say that and he said because Arizona and San Diego are not going to play 800 baseball for the rest of the season.
01:53So Mark Loretta said, yeah, and that is what Mark Loretta said, but do you need to play but do you need to play a hundred baseball now that you're two and a half games back?
02:00No, you don't because that means the Dodgers are going to go play 700 baseball. Are they know because they haven't they haven't been a better team than like a couple games over 500 for like three months now.
02:12So and you can say that they're not yet. They don't have to play a hundred baseball anymore Jeff because they've already closed the gap.
02:18Well, and you look at what the Dodgers did yesterday. The Dodgers got Walker Bueller back. I did not realize that Walker Bueller was one in four on the season going into yesterday's game because I didn't realize he pitched five games turns out he'd actually started eight games.
02:29I forgot the guy hadn't pitched since May Walker Bueller yesterday in his return against Milwaukee three and three and one third four runs one was earned gave up three hits did have three strikeouts had four walks.
02:43Listen, I didn't expect Walker Bueller to show up and pitch a no-hitter and I would expect Walker Bueller to do the exact same thing Clayton Kershaw is doing just get a little bit better with every single start.
02:54But I think that's what makes Joe Musgroves return more impressive, right? Like he had a long layoff to he's had a bunch of injuries. He's been dealing with for the past two years.
03:02And that's what why that outing gave Padres fans even more hope because he didn't come and walk for guys and give up three runs and he came in and basically shut the pirates out.
03:14So I mean that's the difference between a Walker Bueller returning and a Joe Musgrove returning. I don't think there's a lot of confidence in the Dodger fan base.
03:21That's like yeah, Walker Bueller is going to go back to being a Cy Young type pitcher. Whereas I do think that we are expecting Joe Musgrove to be pay that man Joe Musgrove again this season.