The Dodgers beat the Giants 4-2 Friday night to clinch the NL West title. Cody Bellinger provided the winning margin with a three-run home run, his 39th of the season. That set a new NL record for home runs by a rookie. He has an excellent chance of becoming the first NL rookie to hit 40 home runs in a season.
Sometimes you win a division in September, and sometimes you win it in June. The Dodgers lost a game on June 6th, which left them in second place, two games back in the division. It was their third loss in a row. The went 19-3 the rest of the month to end 3 1/2 games up in first place. They would not lose three games in a row again until Aug. 26 through Aug. 29, by which point they were up over 20 games. The Dodgers certainly came back to earth since then, but their 56-11 run meant they could afford to cruise through the end of the season.
The Dodgers are the reason, I believe, that pundits are reading too much into the Indians winning streak. Neither of these teams are unbeatable. They are very good teams that went on a hot streak. In the playoffs, they might come across a team that is very good at negating their positives, and then the great records go out the window. The Indians are not as good as they look right now, just as the Dodgers were not as good as they looked for two and a half months.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2fI4hH9
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