That the Angels are to open the 2013 season on the road against the Cincinnati Reds wasn't the most head-scratching news to come out of baseball on Wednesday.
It was that the Los Angeles Dodgers ended the night just one game out of the second wild card spot and are locked in a race with the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that's 4-11 in its last 15, having been outscored 91-47 over that stretch.
Apparently four wins will be distributed when the two above-average teams meet for a long weekend series, beginning Thursday night at Dodger Stadium (7 p.m., Prime Ticket).
Though Bud Selig has long championed his wild card touch on the structure of baseball's postseason — "It's produced, when you think back, some of the great moments in baseball history," he said at an offseason convention in Chicago, as reported by the Northwest Indiana Times — all the second wild card will produce is a National League team with leaky postseason credentials.
Yes, it adds a comfier cushion for divisional winners, one of whom will be less likely to face the ace of the staff that comes out of the charred wasteland of the one-game wild card series. The Atlanta Braves, six games up on St. Louis and seven games up on Los Angeles but eight games behind the NL East-leading Washington Nationals, will be in the playoffs barring any dramatic late-season collapse.
But why should the Braves have to face a challenge from teams that through 143 games have proven themselves to be inferior?
The need for a wild card is entirely plausible, and considering the postseason magic stirred up by the 1997 Florida Marlins, 2002 Anaheim Angels and 2004 Boston Red Sox — three of the five wild card teams to have won a World Series — Selig isn't off base when he highlights banner moments of postseason baseball that have included teams that didn't win their division.
But imagine if the 1997 Marlins had to fend off either the Mets or Dodgers, the two teams who tied for the best record of non-playoff teams in the NL, in a one-game playoff.
How would the 1997 NL West race have been affected had both Los Angeles and San Francisco known that they had a second wild card spot as a fallback? Though it was an outcome sorely lamented by Dodger fans and those disdainful of Barry Bonds' first baseline choreography, without the tension of needing to finish above hated rivals, the impact from seminal Dodgers-Giants moments such as Bonds' and Brian Johnson's home runs would have been diminished, exactly the opposite of what Selig is trying to create with the second wild card.
Los Angeles lost by one run for the second straight night on Thursday and ended its season series against Arizona with a 6-12 record. Since June 1, they're 12-28 against the National League West.
Leading 2-0 courtesy of a first-inning, two-run double by Adrian Gonzalez, the Dodgers surrendered a run on a Justin Upton sacrifice fly in the second before the Diamondbacks struck for two runs against Aaron Harang (9-9) and Randy Choate in the bottom of the sixth. With two outs and nobody on base, Harang walked Paul Goldschmidt and Miguel Montero before Upton singled to left to tie the game at two. Gerardo Parra's single off Choate served as the game-winning RBI.
"I thought [Harang] was pretty good up until that point," manager Don Mattingly said to Prime Ticket after the game.
"There were two outs, and the next thing you know, we're down."
As for the Los Angeles offense, Arizona pitchers retired the final 16 Dodgers batters, including Matt Kemp, Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez in the top of the ninth inning. Trevor Cahill (11-11), who improved to 3-0 against L.A. in 2012, struck out seven through seven strong innings for the win.
Los Angeles, St. Louis and Pittsburgh are a combined 15-34 since games played on August 26. The Pirates have lost six in a row, while the Cardinals were swept by San Diego for the first time since 1995. Because of the tepid second-half play by the three teams that opened the post-All-Star Break slate in a similar position with Atlanta while jockeying for postseason position, the door has opened for several teams to sneak into the playoffs as the second wild card teams despite their discouraging play for most of the season.
The Philadelphia Phillies, 14 games under .500 on July 13, have won seven in a row and with a record of 72-71 are only three games out of the second wild card. Ditto for the Milwaukee Brewers, who moved above .500 for the first time since April 12 with an 8-2 win over the Braves on Wednesday. Arizona improved to four games out of a playoff berth, buoyed heavily by its second half dominance over the Dodgers.
That any of those teams could play in the postseason makes 2011 UCLA football blush.
Though the Los Angeles Kings' Stanley Cup victory as an eight seed gives underdogs universal hope, the Kings were 9-2-3 in their final 14 games and had improved their offense substantially after the acquisition of forward Jeff Carter.
The Dodgers, with Adrian Gonzalez? Seven wins, eleven losses. They've been shutout four times since the major trade with Boston and haven't scored more than three runs in a game in over a week.
Of course, they're only one game out of the second wild card, and opportunity is in the eye of the downtrodden. The Dodgers are 5-9 in their last 14 games, actually gaining 1.5 games on St. Louis over that span.
"I don't really want to feel fortunate like that," Mattingly said to Prime Ticket of the team's predicament. "I'd rather feel fortunate that we're winning and winning and winning and keeping ourselves in the hunt. I say it all the time, and I'm sure people are getting tired of hearing me say it, but we've got to turn the page. At the end of the day and at the beginning of the day tomorrow, we're going to play that game tomorrow night and be a game back."
NOTES: The preliminary 2013 Dodgers schedule was released Wednesday. It includes interleague visits from the Los Angeles Angels (May 27-28), New York Yankees (July 30-31), Tampa Bay Rays (August 9-11) and the Boston Red Sox (August 23-25), while the Dodgers will visit the Baltimore Orioles (April 19-21), the Los Angeles Angels (May 29-30), the New York Yankees (June 18-19) and Toronto Blue Jays (July 22-24). The June 18-19 series marks the first time the Dodgers have played at Yankee Stadium since Game 6 of the 1981 World Series. The August 9-11 series marks the first time Tampa Bay has ever played at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers will open the season at home against the San Francisco Giants from April 1-3. … Because of the Houston Astros' move to the American League, two 15-team leagues will necessitate interleague play throughout the entire season. … According to a report by the LA Times' Bill Shaikin, Dodger Stadium will once again sell Cool-A-Coo ice cream sandwiches – vanilla ice cream in between oatmeal cookies and dipped in chocolate – beginning with Thursday's game against St. Louis. Cool-A-Coos have not been sold at Dodger Stadium in 14 years.
