[GPK]

Originally Posted by SCUDSBROTHER

On what basis? Record? Dodgers are lazy. They play a lot better when forced to. They had a lot of motivation to win last night. So, they were all over that pitcher in the 1st inning. They knew the Cards were ahead by a couple runs. They knew the DBACKS were under pressure to come back in that game. They wanted THE DBACKS to see that big Dodger lead. The DBacks are a very momentum -based team. When they are feeling it they score easily. You can see that if you watch their games. They wanted to kill that momentum. They did it. Their best hitter(Drew) struck out to end the game. I don't think he would of done that if he didn't feel the pressure of that big early Dodger lead. Like I said, the Dodgers are lazy. They had a tough loss on Sunday. They had 2 days to get ready to face this pitcher. They had a plan to make him look like he needed a diaper. They've faced him before. They won those 2 games, but didn't do anything to him early in those games(lazy.) They had a need. So, all I am saying is it's tough to know how many games that certain lazy teams would have won if they had to win them. We do know the Yanks had a need to win a lot of games, and couldn't. It does make me respect the management of teams that drew off (Angels, Cubs, and the Rays...as far as a playoff position goes, the Rays did draw off.) It's no coincidence that Joe Madden was Scioscia's bench coach before taking the Rays top spot. All year, I felt like Torre was trying to save his pitchers for the post. Look at the last 3 weeks. Maddux has been horrible, but Joe never tried to change the rotation. He pretty much wrote those games off in order to save the other starters arms for the post. He is basically writing off tomorrow night's game against the Padres(Maddux against Peavy.) I guess that's his way of telling his team he is confident in going to the post. He certainly is not using up all his horse to make the post.

I think his biggest gripe was how much stronger the AL East is vs. divisions like the NL West. I think the fact that it is Torres team pisses him off even that much more...which makes it all the sweeter to me