What lies ahead for the Dodgers?

The post-season is over and there are some roster decisions to be made by the management regarding next year. Here are the most of important of them (in no particular order):

(1) Is Brad Penny a top-three starter, or do the Dodgers go after Matsuzaka (sp?) or Barry Zito?

(2) Should we extend Nomar Garciaparra and if so, will putting him at third with a one-year contract do?

(3) Is JD Drew better off at center field while Matt Kemp gets some time at RF?

(4) Why would Takeshi Saito want to go back to Japan and what to do about it?

(5) Can the Dodgers qualify and go far into the playoffs without a bone fide power hitter? If not who's the answer (Alfonzo Soriano? Carlos Lee? Adam Dunn?)

(6) Whatever happened to Andre Either in the second half of the season and which Ethier did we finally get for Bradley?

We will take our time as the developments unfold and start answering these questions pretty soon for you. In the meantime, please feel free to comment.

NLDS Game 3: Mets @ Dodgers 5:9

Former Dodger Shawn Green glided toward the right-field foul line to make the final catch, just as he envisioned.

Green and the Mets hitters started fast, Billy Wagner closed it out quickly and the New York Mets completed their first postseason sweep since 1969, beating the Dodgers 9-5 in Game 3 Saturday night.

After rolling in the first round, the Mets will open the NLCS at Shea Stadium on Wednesday against the San Diego-St. Louis winner. The Cardinals lead 2-1 in that best-of-five series.

"We played all kind of ball," Mets manager Willie Randolph said. "We played long ball, small ball. Whatever it takes to get it done."
Green had three hits and two RBIs in a game decided by the bullpens after starters Steve Trachsel and Greg Maddux made early exits.

Wagner got the final out in all three games, retiring pinch-hitter Ramon Martinez on a fly ball
to Green to finish the series.

"The irony of this is crazy, to be celebrating in the visiting clubhouse," said Green, who played for the Dodgers from 2000-04 and was acquired by the Mets from Arizona on Aug. 22.

"It's a little weird, after doing this in '04 on the other side of the field," he said. "I was actually out there hoping that the last ball came to me, and it did. It feels incredible."

Another former Dodger and current Mets catcher Pual Lo Duca was moved to tears when he was traded by the Dodgers to Florida in July 2004. Sent to the Mets last offseason, he has no regrets now.

"There's a lot of guys in here who want to prove something," he said. "It's a good feeling to get it done," he said.

It was a familiar ending for the Dodgers, who are 1-12 in postseason games since 1988, when they beat the Mets in the NLCS and the Oakland Athletics in the World Series.

Jeff Kent had four hits, including a two-run homer, for Los Angeles.

"We just got outplayed -- pitching, hitting, defense -- but there's no sense in being specific," Kent said. "It doesn't really matter. We got beat by a team that was playing better baseball than us.

And a team that had a manager making much better calls.

"We got, what, 16 hits and scored five runs? That's one you shake your head at and wonder why. They got two less hits than we did and scored almost twice as many runs."

"When El Duque and Pedro went down, we bounced back," Lo Duca said. "I didn't get to pop the champagne here in 2004. I did in 2006. It's a happy day."

And Paul, as much as I love the Dodgers, I was glad to see you get to celebrate. If the Dodgers couldn't at least a well deserving person could.

Sad but true:

Rafael Furcal and Kenny Lofton, who bat 1-2 in the Dodgers' lineup, went a combined 3-of-24 in the series. They hit .300 and stole 59 bases between them during the regular season. Talk about sucking under pressure.

NLDS Game 2: Dodgers @ Mets 1:4

All of a sudden, the Dodgers find themselves facing elimination once again from the first round of the playoffs.

The Mets, in their first postseason appearance since 2000, find themselves one victory away from going tot he league championship series.

The Mets will go for the sweep Saturday in Los Angeles against Greg Maddux, who has 333 career wins.

"We're in a tight spot," Dodgers manager Grady Little said. "We've got to come out ready to win three in a row."

The Dodgers dropped to 1-11 in the postseason since winning the 1988 World Series.

They also lost Nomar Garciaparra in the sixth inning because of a leg injury -- he hobbled across first on an infield hit in the fourth. The All-Star first baseman has been playing with a strained left quadriceps. His status for Game 3 was uncertain.

Hong-Chih Kuo shut out the Mets for six innings on Sept. 8 at Shea in his only big league victory. That was one reason he got the start in this one. The Dodgers also figured a lefty might have success against New York's lineup -- the Mets struggled down the stretch vs. left-handed starters.

But this time, New York fouled off many of Kuo's tough pitches and chased him in the fifth.
"He was tough again," Randolph said. "We just made him pitch a little bit. We had some at-bats where we taxed him a little bit."

The good teams adapt. The Dodgers didn't adapt.

Glavine was at his deceptive best -- changing speeds, nipping the corners and escaping jams. With runners at first and third in the fifth, he got Kenny Lofton on an inning-ending grounder, then calmly handed Lofton's shattered stick to a Dodgers bat boy.

"It was the wrong guy for us to face," Dodgers slugger Jeff Kent said. "A lot of pitches just off the plate, and you get frustrated."

Glavine, who beat Los Angeles twice during the regular season, gave up only four hits in his first playoff win since 2001 with Atlanta. After making the playoffs year after year with the Braves, he improved to 13-15 in the postseason with a 3.34 ERA.

Wilson Betemit homered for the Dodgers in the eighth.

Mets manager, Willie Randolph mentioned before the game that the Mets needed to have a more patient approach against Kuo this time, and they forced him to throw 51 pitches in the second and third innings alone.

Garciaparra's infield single with one out in the fourth was the first hit off Glavine. Garciaparra didn't even run out a grounder in the sixth, and was removed before the bottom half.

Why he was even left in is beyond me. Yes, he's a gamer. But this was a playoff game, and once again Little showed that he didn't have any balls.

NLDS Game 1: Los Angeles @ New York Mets 5:6

Well, we are back in the post season after missing it for a year. Expectations are high, like always. And, as this game unfolded, I realized why my grandparents used to refer to the Dodgers as dem bums.

The Mets were short two top starters and were still able to walk away with a victory in Game One of the National League Division Series. A major reason for their walking away with it was their capitalization on a wild baserunning blunder by the Los Angeles Dodgers and a perfectly respectable performance from emergency replacement John Maine Wednesday.

After crawling back into the game, Nomar Garciaparra came up to bat in the top of the ninth with the potential tying run on second base. Garciaparra then proceeded to strike out, ending the game.

"A lot of guys have been waiting for this time in their life, and I think everybody stepped up today," said 34-year-old catcher Paul Lo Duca, another newcomer to the playoffs.

The Dodgers now face a must-win game Thursday night, with rookie left-hander Hong-Chich Kuo on the mound for the Dodgers against 290-game winner but fading Tom Glavine. Kuo pitched six shutout innings at Shea Stadium on Sept. 8 for his first major league win.

"We haven't quit all season long, especially these last couple months," Los Angeles manager Grady Little said. "We'll keep coming at you."

But hopefully a little less enthusiastically than Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew, whom were the victims in getting thrown out at home on the same play, by the same throw.

With two on and none out, rookie Russell Martin hit an opposite-field drive off the base of the right-field wall. But Jeff Kent hesitated at second base, apparently thinking the ball might be caught, and got an extremely late jump.

That left J.D. Drew, who was on first, practically running up Kent's back as coach Rich Donnelly waved one -- or both -- around third. A quick, accurate relay from right fielder Shawn Green to second baseman Jose Valentin to Lo Duca nailed Kent, who attempted a headfirst dive into the plate.

"If I hold him, we've got two guys at third base," Donnelly said. "I was hoping they'd throw the ball away. I didn't really want to send Jeff. J.D. was right behind him, and I thought, one's going to be out and one's going to be safe."
Drew was left in no-man's land, trapped about halfway between third and home. Yet Lo Duca, who got spun around on the play at the plate, didn't realize that at first as he struggled to his feet.

With Lo Duca unaware for a moment, Drew tried to sneak his way in. But the catcher turned his head, suddenly noticed Drew bearing down on him and applied a second tag as Drew also tried a headfirst dive.

"We've been in L.A. all season long. We know about traffic jams. We certainly had one again right there," Little said. "That's a trick play we work on in spring training."

So, we screw up and the manager makes jokes??? I've been to spring training in the past, and have never seen any team work on this supposed trick play. Grady Little needs to grow some balls. I've supported him all year, but this is pure stupidity on his part.

It was the kind of sequence you often see in a Hollywood movie, but rarely on a major league field. Ironically, all three New York Mets that were involved were all recent ex-Dodgers.

"We got two for the price of one," Valentin said.

To add insult to injury, Marlon Anderson followed with an RBI double for a 1-0 lead, but that was all the Dodgers got after running themselves out of a potentially big inning.

In a managerial blunder that Boston Red Sox fans warned us about, and with the score tied at 4, Little brought starter Brad Penny out of the bullpen in the seventh. Penny, bothered by a bad back and 3-10 lifetime against the Mets with a 6.16 ERA, walked two of his first three batters.
Delgado put the Mets ahead with an opposite-field single, then gave a huge fist pump after rounding first.

Not even taking into consideration about Penny's injury, which was the reason he wasn't starting game one in the first place, one can't seriously expect a starter to do such a different role.

And Brad Penny, of all his choices, seemed the worse choice. Of late, he had been having a pretty bad first inning. Over the course of several innings, he would normally have time to settle down and make up for it. But in a relief role this is not only unrealistic, but also unfair.

The Dodgers tied it at 4-all with three runs in the seventh against reliever Guillermo Mota.
Anderson got the rally going with a bunt single, and a throwing error by second baseman Valentin helped Los Angeles. Rafael Furcal's RBI single made it 4-2, and Garciaparra's two-out, two-run double tied it.

Random Note:

Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax watched the game from a box with Mets owner Fred Wilpon. The two were high school teammates growing up in Brooklyn.
Updated on Wednesday

Game 162: Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants 4:2

The regular season has just ended on the right side of the sweep. And a sweet one, while we're at it. Any time you could take'em'all from the Giants in SanFran to complete the season with seven straight wins, should put a smile on every Dodger fan worldwide.

As we knew in case of the tie in the standings:

The Dodgers and Padres finished tied at 88-74, but because
both clubs were assured of advancing to the postseason,
the National League West title was decided by
a head-to-head series tiebreaker
(San Diego dominated, 13-5) instead of a playoff
elimination game.

Due to the above, both teams fielded rather second-tier lineups, but the Dodgers still had the upper hand.

The Dodgers will play the New York Mets in the NLDS, starting Wednesday afternoon in Big Apple, where Derek Lowe takes on John Maine. Game 2 will also be in NY with lefthanded Met-killer Hong-Chih Kuo facing veteran lefty Tom Glavine.

Game 161: Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants 4:2

That's what I longed to say for the entire season - the 2006 Los Angeles Dodgers have clinched a playoff birth! Congratulations to the team, coaches and management. Now, the wild ride begins as anything is possible during baseball playoffs.

It was very fitting, that the post-season was clinched on another excellent performance by the latest Dodger acquisition Greg Maddux.

"I think the job he's done speaks for itself," Little said. "It's not just
what he does on the mound, it's what he means around the ballclub.
Today, he took the bull by the horns. He said he was just
about done after six. I said, 'No, you've got one more.'
He was outstanding."

Other key contributors were veterans we have all been expecting to show up more prominently come playoff time: Kenny Lofton, Rafael Furcal, JD Drew and Jeff Kent. They went combined 8-for-16 with all 4 RBIs, two doubles and a triple.