April: Nobody is playing well except for Matt Kemp
September: Everybody is playing well except for Matt Kemp.
How's that for a season turnaround??
This Dodgers team, while great, and a borderline playoff contender, is...just plain weird. I mean, Max Muncy, a guy who no one had heard of until May, is leading the team in home runs, and has more than Cody Bellinger, Matt Kemp and Yasmani Grandal. Ross Stripling, a guy who wasn't even a thought to be a starter for the Dodgers this year, is leading the rotation in wins. No one has more than 10 wins right now, or more than 200 strikeouts. Even Clayton Kershaw. And yet, they're off and running.
This team has not only embraced weirdness, but they've embraced the fact that lineups change over time, and injuries happened. This is a team that rebounded after Ryu, Kershaw, Hill and Buehler all wound up on the DL. This is a team that didn't die after losing Corey Seager, instead picking up Manny Machado and becoming even stronger. This is a team that didn't even have Justin Turner until June, at which point he promptly returned to the flat-out dominance he'd be dealing out on any other year.
Right now, the Dodgers are barely below the Rockies for the NL West, and are capable of catching up. Still, the Cardinals and Brewers are, at the moment, so far ahead of the rest of the pack (by 2 games), that winning the NL West may be the most feasible option for LA. I think they can do it, though this team may not be as all-out strong as last year's. Still, that's not exactly a dooming aspect.
Coming Tomorrow- First he pitched for my team. Then, he wound up as a deadly pitcher that kept having to face my Yankees. Then he got traded and that last bit didn't change at all.
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