Top Five Friday: The Second Half

The second half of the season [officially if not technically] begins tonight for the Dodgers as they find themselves in decent position. Because of the pathetic state of the NL West where they've become the Eastern Conference of Major League Baseball, they start the second half in second place and within reach of the playoffs - which of course is all you have to do before anything can happen.

With this burst of optimism and the score tied at 7 in the Top of the 7th, let's take a look at the Top Five Reasons The Dodgers Had A Bad First Half...

5. No power
The Dodgers have no power. Period. When your team leader in HRs has 11 at the break, you know there's a problem. But the real issue is not just the lack of home runs - as Larry Bowa said recently, they're not hitting for extra bases period. Dodger Stadium is notorious for being a doubles park and they're not taking advantage of that. It's hard to put runs on the board when you're going station to station. This is when the coaching staff needs to put more plays on - hit and runs, double steals, squeezes, etc.

4. No timely hitting
I'm far too lazy to look it up but I have to imagine the Dodgers are near the bottom of the heap in average with Runners In Scoring Position [RISP.] So, not only are they only hitting singles but when they do manage to get someone in position to score, they even stop hitting singles.

3. Big money = no reward
Not that this is necessarily anyone's fault but the last two big money free agent signings have been total busts so far. Everyone wants to blame Ned Coletti for it and that's an easy thing to do however I don't think there's a single soul who could have predicted that either Schmidt or Jones would struggle this much so far. Hindsight in this case is serving people far too well, IMO.

2. Patience At The Plate
Joe Torre has been preaching patience at the plate all season - trying to get his players to wait for their pitch, drawing out counts, and wearing down starting pitching to get to the weak part of almost every MLB staff - the bullpen. Torre seems to be very frustrated - and rightfully so - at his inability to get his message sunk into the heads of his players especially the kids. Here's hoping Don Mattingly stepping in as pitching coach will change that. If not, YOU HAVE HALL OF FAMERS AS COACHES - FUCKING LISTEN TO THEM, DICKHOLES! Ahem. Pardon me.

1. Injuries, Injuries, Injuries
In most seasons, losing three starting pitchers, the starting shortstop, the starting third baseman, two starting outfielders, and your closer to injuries for some part of the first half of the season would have you saying "Wait til next year." But in this bizarre season, the Dodgers are still in it - not bad, huh?

So, with all that in mind, the Dodgers are still in reach and there's reason to feel optimistic about the second half of the season. The season is a marathon, not a sprint, right? Considering all the adversity the team has faced so far, there's really just one thing left to do.

Win the whole fucking thing.