Dodgers hot start or weak schedule?

[9RoyHobbsRF]

the Dodgers are off to a great start but their schedule has been mostly san diego (weakest team by far in nl west), houston (weakest team in a

nl?), and pirates (no winning season since early 90s), they did play milwaukee and were lucky to scrape one win out of the series

are they that good or just the benficiary of playing all cellar dwellars to start the season?

I say the latter

[Rich the Giants fan]

Somewhere in the middle. I think they'll finish 3rd with a record over .500. Water finds it's level in the end.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

You gotta admit they do have a nice core of players. Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley and Dee Gordan. I like the Giants pitching but the Dodgers seem to be a pretty balanced team. Nice speed, good power and good pitching. I'm not sure if the Giants have enough offense.

[UnderPressure]

The Dodgers were lucky scrape one out of the Mileaukee series? Both of those two losses could've gone the other way. If anything, they were unlucky in that series.

As for your question, of course it has something to do with their weak schedule. But you can only beat what's in front of you.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

^ they lost the first two and were trailing in the third

[jnakamura]

Meh.

We'll see in September who's the best team in the West.

Speculate all you want, Dodger haters.

[UnderPressure]

^ they lost the first two and were trailing in the third

Way to miss my point.

[KevinWI]

Dodgers are for real. I think they're a top notch team in the NL this year.

Brewers are off to a slow start, Weeks/Ramirez not hitting and pitching has been meh. Dodgers should have spanked them. Those games will be the outliers for LA, I think. All three games in the Brew-Dodgers series were very close and for the first two, I just think Ron Roenicke just out-managed Donnie Baseball. See the beautiful suicide squeeze by Norichika Aoki in Game 2.

Brewers GM Doug Melvin was on Brewers TV during Game 3 of the Dodgers series and he even said that among GM circles, word is the Dodgers will be good this year.

[UnderPressure]

It's a two-man show on offense for the Dodgers right now. Loney might start tearing it up again but he's no power hitter. The horrible supporting cast for Kemp and Ethier will cost us. I hope Sands and Federowicz will start hitting well in AAA so they can get called up ASAP. I hope they put Uribe on the 60-day DL.

[DownUnderDodger]

It's a two-man show on offense for the Dodgers right now. Loney might start tearing it up again but he's no power hitter. The horrible supporting cast for Kemp and Ethier will cost us. I hope Sands and Federowicz will start hitting well in AAA so they can get called up ASAP. I hope they put Uribe on the 60-day DL.

You said it for me. The rest of the offense need to stand up and be counted because Kemp & Ethier cannot carry them every game. The test will come this week when the Braves (10-5) and Nats (12-4) come to town.
Mind you, every win counts so it is a great start to the season.

[CokeMachineGlow]

Weak schedule.

[dominik]

the Dodgers are off to a great start but their schedule has been mostly san diego (weakest team by far in nl west), houston (weakest team in a

nl?), and pirates (no winning season since early 90s), they did play milwaukee and were lucky to scrape one win out of the series

are they that good or just the benficiary of playing all cellar dwellars to start the season?

I say the latter

the schedule was weak but still they got a hot start.
baseball is a game that is mostly played between .400 and .600. even the weakest teams win not much less than 40% of their games and even the strongest teams don't win much more than 60% of the games.

that means if a team wins 80% of their games they are off to a hot start no matter who they are playing. this is not sustainable of course.

[jnakamura]

Well here we are a month later....Dodgers are decimated by injuries and still swept the Cardinals.....Still the best record in baseball and the biggest divisional lead.

Kemp still at least 9 days from returning....Bills still a head case.

At this point, the Dodgers only have to go .500 to win 88....62-59 to win 90 or 67-54 to win 95....

Enough to win the West?

-

[RaysFan_98]

Just like the O's the Dodgers will cool off soon.

[jnakamura]

Just like the O's the Dodgers will cool off soon.

No doubt. But it's coming close to the point where all they have to do is play .500 for the rest of the season to win 90 games. Of course they could always tank and play horrible baseball....who knows...