The Los Angeles Dodgers have picked a terrible time to start losing games. They have lost six of their last eight and are falling further behind the red-hot San Francisco Giants by the day. The Dodgers lost two out of three at home against the Chicago White Sox in their most recent series, scoring just seven runs in the three games. Don Mattingly has little explanation.
“Basically, we’re sh—y ,” Mattingly said Wednesday night, via Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times. “We’re just not that good.”
LA has a record of 13-19 at Dodger Stadium, which is particularly alarming.
“Home, away, whatever,” Mattingly added. “I don’t know what that has to do with it.”
The Dodgers started off slow in 2013 and ended up dominating the second half of the season. According to Mattingly, that team played as a collective group, not a collection of individuals. After telling reporters they should talk to the players because he is tired of answering the same questions, Mattingly quoted Dodgers legend Tommy Lasorda.
“Tommy says it all the time, and it seems corny at times, but he says, ‘We all have to get on one end of the rope,'” Mattingly said. “When that group gets going in one direction and that focus is purely to win a game no matter who gets the attention or who gets this or who gets that, I think it’s always better.
“… We haven’t felt that as a team, and I think it’s the one area that we’re missing. To be absolutely honest with you, I think that’s the one thing we’re missing at this point, a collective group fighting and pulling in one direction trying to win a game, without any concept of this guy or that guy or this guy.”
The problems Mattingly insists the Dodgers are having sound a lot like the same ones the Boston Red Sox had before they traded Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett to LA a couple of years ago. Mattingly seems to be growing tired of dealing with big personalities like Yasiel Puig and the rest of his $240 million payroll. You almost get the feeling he wont be in LA long regardless of how his team performs.
