Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

Comparing Dodgers-Giants remaining schedules

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Dodgers at Phillies, 4:05 p.m.
Chase Utley, 2B
Corey Seager, SS
Justin Turner, 3B
Josh Reddick, RF
Adrián González, 1B
Yasmani Grandal, C
Joc Pederson, CF
Howie Kendrick, LF
Scott Kazmir, P

By Jon Weisman

In the words of “Evita,” “So what happens now?”

The flip side of the Dodgers’ 97-day climb from eight games out to first place in the National League West is their tenuous hold on the spot.

The Giants scored twice in the first inning of their game this afternoon against Pittsburgh and twice again in the third, putting them on track to pull back within a virtual tie with the Dodgers by the time Chase Utley steps up to bat for the first time tonight.

Update: Pittsburgh came back with six runs in the fifth inning and held on for a 6-5 victory, putting the Dodgers up by a game in the division heading into this evening.

If there’s an Olympic event that describes the remaining NL West pennant race, maybe it’s the 400-meter hurdles — two rivals running alongside each other, with their own individual roadblocks to surpass, but ultimately boiling down to a straight-up duel.

The morning of August 23, San Francisco and Los Angeles will each have 38 games remaining. Remarkably, nine of them — nearly 25 percent — will be against each other.

Six of those will be in Los Angeles, although the advantage for the first might be with the Giants, who will have an off day August 22 to make the short trip from the Bay Area, while the Dodgers can’t head home until after they finish a 9:35 a.m. PT game three time zones away in Cincinnati.

When you compare and contrast the remaining schedules for each team, you find the similarities are more pronounced than the differences …

Remaining schedule chart

  • The NL West slates are nearly identical, with the biggest gap being the two extra games the Dodgers have against Arizona.
  • Outside of the games against San Francisco, the Dodgers have only nine more games against winning teams.
  • Los Angeles gets the NL-leading Cubs at home, while the Giants have to go to Wrigley Field — and play an extra game there.
  • The Dodgers have a full-fledged East Coast trip remaining to play Miami and the Bronx (September 9-14), while San Francisco doesn’t go east of Chicago again this year, taking on the Mets and Cardinals at home.
  • In fact, the Giants don’t go east of Colorado after September 4.
  • The Giants play four more games against winning teams than the Dodgers, three of them on the road — namely, those three extra games in Los Angeles.

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4 Comments

  1. Pirates just tied it up in the 5th inning.
    In the end I see one of these teams having at best a 2 game lead heading into the last 3 games with each other, and the team that doesn’t win the division, gets at least the 2nd WC. The Giants are sure to turn it around, and Dodgers will keep that pace more than likely. I don’t see the Marlins holding a WC spot, and it’ll be the Cards or Pirates.

  2. Greetings from Argentina, Evita´s country. We are fans of Dodgers at more than 6000 miles from Dodgers Stadium

  3. oldbrooklynfan

    It’s going to be rough no matter what the schedule is. May the best team win.

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