April 20 pregame: Playing the elements

By Jon Weisman

In 18 games so far this season, Dodger starting pitching has held opponents to one run or less 14 times (while going at least five innings). Which is pretty cool.

Los Angeles is 10-4 in those games. The four losses were:

• March 30, when an ailing Brian Wilson allowed three eighth-inning runs after Hyun-Jin Ryu had pitched seven shutout innings in San Diego.
• April 15, when Josh Beckett through five shutout innings and the Dodgers led, 2-1, in the ninth inning before San Francisco tied the game off Kenley Jansen and then outlasted the Dodgers in 12.
• April 16, when Paul Maholm allowed one run in six innings but San Francisco scratched a game-winning run off J.P. Howell in the seventh.
• April 18, when Zack Greinke allowed one run in six innings and the Dodgers twice rallied from one-run deficits, only to lose in 12 innings.

Each of these games is a what-might-have been-a-win, but note that the bullpen never a lead of more than one run to protect – and twice had no lead at all. Those are slim margins, indeed. Some, if not all, of those bullpen losses are really losses you could pin on the offense – not that the offense wasn’t challenged by playing at San Francisco.

Baseball today in a sense boils down to four elements: starting pitching, relief pitching, offense and fielding. (You could say two elements if you combined everything but offense into defense, but work with me.) If you have at least three of those elements working for you in a game, your chances of winning will be excellent. The Dodgers are a pretty good bet almost every day out.