Today is day 1 of 13 straight games for the Dodgers, A string of games that will include series against Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Seattle. Due to some scheduling luck for San Diego, who just swept the Pirates, they did not have to face Paul Skenes, while the Dodgers will have to play the presumptive NL ROY on Saturday. Luckily, the Dodgers are going to be able to combat that with a weekend starting rotation of Jack Flaherty, River Ryan, and Tyler Glasnow.

It’s important that the Dodgers win these games as their lead on the NL West has become close to 0 as San Diego sits 2.5 games out with a series against the lowly Miami Marlins coming up. It feels like we have been saying it all year, “once we’re healthy, we’ll be dominant”, but hiccups to players that have come back and been less than dominant have dampened those hopes a bit.

On top of that, the players that we have leaned on all season are starting to show some wear and tear with Ohtani slumping, Will Smith seemingly losing his ability to hit a ball, and Teoscar Hernandez flipping between hot and not.

But that’s baseball for you, anytime you focus in on a small sample size, it’s either going to seem like the most amazing time or the worst time, so it’s important to look at the aggregate. At least that’s what I’m telling myself as we feel the shadow of SD and AZ creeping closer and closer.

But in a weird way, maybe NOT winning the NL West will be good for us. There are those who say that winning the NL West means nothing and that we should lose it and shake up what has been a very disappointing 10 years of baseball with one bright spot in 2020. But I’m not necessarily a believer in that. Winning the division increases your margin for error. Start the series at home. Have a game 5 or 7 at home. All these things matter and I think the Dodgers should continue to push for NL West supremacy.

All that being said, it has been a very frustrating summer for the Dodgers and it’s important that we get hot in August like we did last year to set ourselves up for a good fall. I believe it starts tonight with Jack Flaherty looking to pick up his second win as a Dodger. Let’s get this money baby.