Zombie Defense Powers Activate!

So, Mr. Vamp receives free stuff at work now and then. I think the idea is companies send the free stuff thinking it will get promoted on the radio or on TV, thereby increasing sales. There are rules against stuff like that–you may have heard of Payola. But there isn’t any rule against employees making off with the freebies for their own personal use.

The good stuff goes fast. The ubiquitous stuff gets picked over.

Occasionally, they get something so strange no one wants to lay claim to it. That’s what happened last week.

One evening last week, Mr. Vamp came home from work and proudly presented me with a box. He knew I would like it, and he was absolutely right.

Rated E for "Everyone," not "Ewwwwww!"

First out of the box—“Plants vs. Zombies,” a computer game by Pop Cap. I think this may be the only zombie game out there rated “E for Everyone.” The disclaimer warns of “Animated Blood” and “Cartoon Violence.” A “silver medal” sticker on the box indicates “Game of the Year*.” Uh-oh: an asterisk—did the developer’s sister, Snooki, proclaim it the game of the year? I searched the box to find the asterisk reference, and I found it on the bottom of the box: “Voted Game of the Year by over 20 publications, including PC Gamer, USAToday.com, and Chicago Sun-Times.” I really have no idea if those are considered good endorsements in this day and age.

Mr. Vamp noted the resemblance of this game to Zombie Farm, which I’ve been playing on my iPad. (I think Zombie Farm is like Farmville with zombies, but I don’t do Farmville, so I don’t know for sure.) Plants vs. Zombies looks a little bit different though. The box warns that there’s a zombie on your lawn, and “Your only defense is an arsenal of plants….” I haven’t had a chance to play it as I’m writing this, but the screen captures on the box make me think of Super Mario Brothers with zombies.

*smack!* Little Vamp Welcomes Eileen to the Neighborhood

The best part of Plants vs. Zombies is that it comes with a cute little plastic zombie figure. He looks a little preppy for a zombie—not a speck of blood or evident flesh decay on him. He is missing a leg, though, so I think I’ll call him “Eileen.” Little Vamp likes Eileen very much. She kept searching for his leg, though: she thinks she lost it! (I let her go on believing she lost the leg: she was very naughty today, so she has it coming.)

The better part of this package is the other things in the box—the “Zombie Defence Team.” The “team” comprises three pieces of pottery, hand-made by Sam “Moose” Gueydan of Moose Studios Pottery. A photocopied sheet includes this information, as well as instructions on “How to use your Zombie defence team: Place sunflower, peashooter, and chomper in a strategic location and point towards oncoming zombies.” The instruction sheet also promises a “100% guarantee against Zombie attack.” Well, I certainly haven’t seen any zombies on our street since Mr. Vamp brought the box home, so I guess that’s a pretty solid guarantee. The instruction sheet also advises that these pieces are part of a limited edition of 300 numbered sets.

These Zombie Defence Team pieces are kind of awesome, really. I’m thinking, though, that if I’m being threatened by oncoming zombies, the last thing I’m going to think of is to strategically place three pieces of pottery. I mean, zombies are traditionally slow-moving, but I’m not going to stand around taking my chances.

I can totally see these gracing my garden or lawn at some point in the future—i.e., when I don’t have an anal-retentive homeowner’s association with which to contend.

In the meantime, the Zombie Defence Team will be going to work with me. My first thought was that I would position them carefully on the window sill, so no zombies can climb in through the window. Upon further consideration, though, I may try pointing them toward my office door, so a certain zombie-like coworker can’t come in. If the Zombie Defence Team wards off brain-sucking (and time-sucking) coworkers, there could be a real market for this! (I wonder if they would ward off anal-retentive homeowner’s association board members?)

And Eileen will make a good friend to my Corporate Zombies at work. It’s either that or he becomes the next guest of honor at one of Little Vamp’s princess tea parties.

So, thanks Pop Cap, for sending this stuff to my husband’s work. I’m sure a post on my blog that occasionally reaches double-digit circulation isn’t quite what you were hoping for, but I can tell you that you got more mileage out of your swag than the folks over at the Puyallup Fair get for theirs.

It's been said that the Dodgers are a Mickey Mouse operation; now we have the proof!

I love Disneyland. Always have. When I was growing up in Arizona, it was just a (long) car ride away. During the 1980s, I went almost every year with either family or friends. After I moved to Washington, it got a lot more expensive to go (and too far to drive), and my trips were very infrequent. I was at Disneyland at Christmas in 1993, at EuroDisney (aka, Disneyland Paris) in 1994, and Disneyland again in 1996. But after 1996, 10 years would pass before I again visited The Happiest Place on Earth.

A lot happened to Disneyland between 1996 and 2006—most notably the parking lot, formerly filled with cars, became California Adventure, occasionally filled with guests. I was pretty worried before our trip in 2006: would Disneyland still be Disneyland?

Yes, yes it is. We’ve been four times since 2006, and I still love Disneyland. My favorite thing about the new “Disneyland Resort”: ESPNZone in Downtown Disney. (Nothing like taking a break from the park to go guzzle some beer and munch some so-good-it’s-criminal cheesy bacon fries. Yeah, baby!)

On nearly every trip to Disneyland, I’ve come home with a new set of mouse ears, always with my name embroidered on the back. Yes, this tradition continues: I am THAT woman–the one who is clearly far too old to be wearing Mickey Mouse ears but who wears them anyway. (I’ve learned in recent years that the official Disney term for mouse ears is “Mickey Mouse earhat.” Hmm. Can’t spell “earhat” without “rat.” Just sayin’.)

I haven’t kept all of my mouse ears over the years, but I have a few. My favorite is from the 25^th anniversary celebration—black hat with translucent silver ears. (Truth be told, one of my excuses why we absolutely positively had to go in 2006 was to get a pair of the 50^th anniversary ears. Even Mr. Vamp was seduced by the oh-s0-shiny gold ears and got a pair. I have pictures.) I also have a pair from EuroDisney (yes, they say “EuroDisney”—I visited just as they were rebranding the park “Disneyland Paris”). The 6-foot-tall Santa Jack Skellington in our bedroom sports  a pair of Jack Skellington mouse ears, with “Jack” embroidered on the back, of course. And last October, I brought home a pair of the Halloween pumpkin mouse ears—I skipped getting my name on ‘em, though. Last year, Disneyland finally started charging you to have them embroidered (even with just the basic embroidery).  But more importantly, the line for embroidery was long, and Little Vamp was cranky.

(This is going somewhere, I promise.)

One of the things I wanted when we went to an Angels game during the period Disney owned the Angels was an Angels cap with Mickey Mouse ears. I never found such a thing. Marketing FAIL. (Of course, Disney’s ownership of the Angels was one big expensive marketing fail.)

Then, in July of this year, All-Star Mania came to Anaheim, as Angels Stadium hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. (You may have heard of it.) During the television coverage of the Home Run Derby and the pre-game parade down Main Street in Disneyland, I spied a few people in the crowd wearing mouse ears with the ASG logo. Hell-o!

Luckily, Disneyland has a telephone number specifically for ordering merchandise sold in the park—it’s even toll-free. I’ve ordered a few things from them in recent years, and I have to say that the customer service people are some of the nicest and most helpful I’ve talked to anywhere. (And they’re clearly not in India or Indonesia: bonus!)

So, the day after the All-Star Game, I called up to inquire about the availability of the ASG mouse ears. The very helpful woman on the other end of the line said they were getting low, but she thought they still had some—which kind would I like?

I paused: I didn’t know there would be choices. She helpfully added, “We have plain ones, Angels ones, and Dodgers ones.”

And right there, with the mention of Dodgers mouse ears, the price of my folly doubled. I asked for one plain AND one Dodgers. She put me on hold and returned a couple of minutes later, confirming that, yes, they had what I was looking for. I was already in their computer system, so very quickly, my wallet was a little lighter and my brand-new ASG mouse ears were on the way.

They showed up a few days later. Little Vamp was very excited to bring the box upstairs. (As I said previously, she knows Mommy gets cool sh*t in the mail.) I waited until after she’d gone to bed to open the box though. I didn’t want my new treasures carried off and stepped on before I even got to try ‘em on. (She has paraded around in them since, proclaiming herself “adorable.”)

The plain ASG ones are cool enough–basic black with a nice ASG logo on the front, and a baseball printed on one ear.

Hey now, you're an All-Star!

Dodger ears, rear view.

But, oh, the Dodgers mouse ears! Dodger blue cap with black ears, white Dodgers script logo embroidered on the front, classic LA logo printed on one ear, and ASG logo on the back. If not for my 25^th anniversary mouse ears, I’d have a new favorite.

As I was modeling my lovely Dodger mouse ears, Mr. Vamp astutely observed, “I know what you’re going to be wearing when we go to Disneyland in January.” I think he’s right.

But there’s no guarantee I won’t come home from the trip with another pair of ears if I find something cool.

"EVERYBODY SCORES!"

The month of August marks a series of anniversaries for the Seattle Mariners. It was 15 years ago this month that they came from as far as 13 games behind the California Angels (on August 2, 1995) to win the American League West for the first time in team history.

This date in 1995, August 24, was especially significant, as it marks the day the team really took off. On August 24, the Mariners were 11.5 games back of the division-leading Angels. From August 24 through September 6, the Mariners went an anemic 7-5. Yet they picked up six games on the Angels in that period. From August 24 on, the Mariners went 25-11; the Angels were 12-23 over the same time. The Mariners finished the 1995 season with a record of 79-66, 13 games over .500.

I witnessed the Mariners’ historic 1995 run. I attended a lot of games in 1995. I no longer recall exactly how many, but by the time the ALCS was done, it was somewhere north of 40 games. Back in those days, tickets were cheap: I could actually afford to go to 40-50 games a year. I was finishing my master’s thesis that summer: taking myself out to the ballgame was my reward for writing (that and going on the infamous Friday last-tour-of the-day at Redhook). I can’t tell you how many pages of my thesis were written in the third deck of the Kingdome. Ah, memories…

But I digress.

There were multiple factors at work in August and September of 1995. The Mariners not only went on a run of historic proportions, but equally as important, the Angels suffered a collapse of epic proportions. Moreover, folks in Seattle have forgotten about the Texas Rangers: on August 24, 1995, the Rangers (58-51) were also ahead of the Mariners. If not for the Rangers’ late-season fade, they could have been the beneficiaries of the Angels’ collapse.

If any one of these factors went the other way, would there still be baseball in Seattle? Would we have celebrated the 11^th anniversary of Safeco Field earlier this summer? Highly doubtful.

And now I return you to 2010. Ugh….

Sadly, on August 24, 2010, the Mariners are 49-76, 21.5 games behind the West-leading Texas Rangers. I will go out on a limb and say their season is over. It would take a run the likes of which has never been seen in major league baseball, and three teams would have to collapse simultaneously, for the Mariners to win the division. (And don’t even think about the Wild Card: they are 28 games back, behind literally everybody in the American League except the Orioles.) It’s not going to happen.

At the risk of being called a hater, I will state once and for all that it really is over for the Mets and Dodgers, too. (You may recall that I’ve previously declared the Dodgers dead.)

The Mets are not only 10.5 games behind Atlanta but also trail the surging Phillies. And whoever doesn’t win the NL East may not even win the wild card, as the Giants and Cardinals are also in that race. As much as I want the Mets to still be in it, they are not.

The Dodgers are in a similar situation, trailing the Padres by 12 games, with the Giants and the Rockies also in front of them. Again, too many teams in the mix for the Wild Card to be a possibility.

Yet there are apparently bloggers who think the Dodgers “still have a shot.”

On Saturday morning, I started seeing some odd tweets. They were odd because the source was saying things that were out of character. Suspecting alien abduction, I had to figure out what had happened. And that’s how I found the latest entry in the MLB.com blog, “Sarah’s Take.”

I admit that, though I was aware of this blog, it’s not one I usually read. Sarah is of course, entitled to her “take,” as are we all. A number of things in this post had my eyes rolling, but I don’t want to get mean. (The tweets I saw were quotes from the blog entry.)

The thing is, if you’re going to make a claim like “the Dodgers still have a shot,” you probably should be ready to back it up with something besides, “hey, it has happened before!” and “the Padres are young.” You might start by addressing the fact that the Giants and Rockies are also ahead of the Dodgers.

Putting my money where my mouth is, here’s the most basic reason why I say the Dodgers do not have a shot of making a run in 2010:

Run differential. (Let’s save some characters from here on and call it DIFF.)

(No, I’m not going all “Stathead” on you. Sabermetrics are fascinating, but I’m not good enough at math to be a stathead. Not “buying lottery tickets” bad-at-math, mind you, but math is not my strong suit. I’ve got other reasons I believe the Dodgers are out of it besides DIFF, but this is what I’m going with.)

DIFF is a very basic stat, and historically it has been a pretty good predictor. Since 2002, no American League teams and only two National League teams (2005 Padres and 2007 Diamondbacks) have had negative DIFFs and qualified for the postseason. It’s also very easy to calculate: it’s how many runs your team scores minus how many runs your opponents score against you. If your team is winning its games by a large margin, their DIFF is high.

DIFF is imperfect: you can have a negative run differential but have a record significantly better than expected. This happens when you’re winning a lot of one-run games. This happened to the Mariners in 2007 (-19) and 2009 (-52). In those years the M’s exceeded expectations by winning 88 games and 85 games respectively. But eventually a negative DIFF tends to catch up with you–for example, the Mariners in 2008 (61-101) and 2010.

But, as I said, DIFF is a good predictor. Here are the run differentials for the teams who made the post season in 2009:

Yankees (AL East)	+162
Twins (AL Central)	+52
Angels (AL West)	+122
Red Sox (AL WC)	+136
Phillies (NL East)	+111
Cardinals (NL Central)	+90
Dodgers (NL West)	+169
Rockies (NL WC)	+89

Now, here are the run differentials for the teams currently leading their divisions (and the wild card) as of August 24, 2010:

Yankees (AL East)	+167
Twins (AL Central)	+98
Rangers (AL West)	+91
Rays (AL WC)	+146
Braves (NL East)	+117
Reds (NL Central)	+90
Padres (NL West)	+123
Phillies (NL WC)	+70

Compare this with the Dodgers’ DIFF, through tonight’s game, of +5. Okay, it’s not a negative number. But also note that the teams between the Dodgers and the Padres–the Giants and Rockies–have DIFFs of +68 and +33.

[Going back to the 1995 Mariners. Their DIFF for the full season of 1995 was +88 (April-August: +43, September-October: +45).]

Does it look to you like the Dodgers really still have a shot?

But what’s wrong with having a positive outlook? What’s so wrong with Sarah saying that the Dodgers are still in it? “Ms. Vamp, why must you be sooooo negative?”

The problem is not with Sarah or any fan having a positive outlook: the problem is when the Dodgers’ front office has an unrealistic view of the team’s situation. In a perfect world, they would have recognized before July 31 that it was over for them, and not traded away youth for age–e.g, not traded Blake Dewitt for Ryan “TOOTBLAN” Theriot, and James McDonald and Andrew Lambo for Octavio “Don’t Ask” Dotel.

It’s too late for general manager Ned Colletti and the Dodgers to undo the deals that preceded the July 31 deadline.

But it’s not too late to deal some of the players who will be free agents at the end of the year and who might have value to other teams who are still in the hunt. They should start by “flipping” Ted Lilly and shipping out Manny Ramirez and Hiroki Kuroda. As good as Lilly has been for the Dodgers, it would be difficult with the way waiver deals work to get as much for Ted Lilly as they gave up a month ago. But they might get something decent back. It’s doubtful that anyone will give up a prospect for Manny, but they could save approximately $3 million in salary. And, given A.J. Burnett’s inconsistency and Andy Pettitte’s injury, it’s probable that the Yankees would have some interest in Kuroda (and sending him to the Yankees now wouldn’t preclude the Dodgers re-signing him in the off-season).

Any prospects that the Dodgers could net right now would help rebuild the very thin farm system and could help them in the future.

Unfortunately, I don’t own the Dodgers, and I don’t get a say in how they’re run. (If I did, watch out NL West, watch out world!) And I’m afraid that the front office doesn’t see that they’re out of it this year. Claiming Rod Barajas off waivers last Sunday implies that they might think they still have a chance. I can only sit around and hope that Ned Colletti et al come to their senses in the next week, acknowledge that 2010 is over, and do what they can to build for the future.

As always, I invite the Dodgers (or the Mets, for that matter) to PROVE ME WRONG. I’d love nothing more.

This was originally going to be one small part of a post on a slightly different topic. But as I did the research to flesh it out,
it took on a life of its own. Thanks for reading me!

Just win, baby!

I happened to be listening to ESPN Radio on Thursday, when someone (didn’t catch who it was) was talking about poorly run sports franchises. He declared that the reason that teams like the New York Mets and Oakland Raiders are perennial disasters is that they don’t have a mission statement like the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.

First of all, I find it ironic that someone is holding up the Phillies as a team to emulate, given that the Phillies have lost more games than any team in the history of major league baseball. If this guy had been running his mouth in about 2006, it would be interesting to see whom, besides the Yankees, he would hold up as a model franchise.

Secondly, a mission statement? Really? That will take your team over the top, huh?

Puh-leeze! To quote Homer Simpson, “That’s a load of rich creamery butter.”

Mission statements are a way to take the basic, common sense goals for success in any business venture and package them up to make a company’s officers feel good about themselves and their “management concept.” In the business world, a mission statement usually reads something like this:

Clients know that [insert company here] has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.

Okay, you caught me. This is, in fact, an actual mission statement. Can you guess whose name I replaced with “[insert company here]”?

If you guessed Bernard Madoff, go get yourself a cookie.

A professional* sports franchise’s core mission is pretty simple. It doesn’t get much more simple than “Just win, baby!” That would be the mission statement of the Oakland Raiders—one of the teams that supposedly doesn’t have a mission statement. (I would love to see someone try to tell Al Davis, owner of the Raiders, that his team doesn’t have a mission statement. That would make for some good reality TV. You thought there were a lot of F-bombs dropped in Hard Knocks?)

And lest you think “Just Win, Baby!” doesn’t count as a mission statement, consider the Yankees’ and Phillies’ vaunted mission statements.

The Yankees is “Win the World Series.”

The Phillies is a little more modest, “Make the playoffs and at least win the first series.”

Wow. Pure genius. How much did somebody get paid to come up with that?

The core mission—the “on-the-field mission,” if you will, of a professional sports team has to come down to this:

Win as many games as you possibly can.

To still be playing in late October (or January, for football) has to be the mission. Otherwise, why even try? In the words of the late Tug McGraw (Mets, 1973): “Ya gotta believe!”

If there’s a professional sports team out there that doesn’t start the season with the stated objective to make the post-season, they don’t really deserve to sell a single ticket to a single game. Moreover, any player who doesn’t start the season with a vision of helping his team get to the post-season should look for another line of work because he isn’t worth even major league (or in the NFL, rookie) minimum.

Unfortunately, in doing a little research on mission statements in sports, one of my very own beloved teams has made me look stupid. But they made the guy who was talking on ESPN radio look stupid, too.

It turns out, the Mets do have a mission statement.

Worst. Mission Statement. Ever.

The Mets 2010 mission statement, announced in spring training: “Prevention and Recovery.”

Translation: “Don’t get hurt, stupid!”

Apparently, Jason Bay missed the memo. Surely if he’d seen it, Bay wouldn’t have gone crashing face first into the padded wall at Dodger Stadium last month. (Next time, let the ball drop, Jason. Against the Dodgers or the Mariners, anyway. Repeat after me, “prevent and recover, pre-vent and recover”!) Actually, speaking of the Bay injury, maybe the Mets training staff missed the memo about the mission statement as well.

With a mission statement like “Prevention and Recovery,” though, it’s really no wonder the Mets suck this year. It’s utterly forgettable. Worse, it’s not a call to action,”prevention” is a call to INACTION—i.e., don’t do it if you might get hurt.

If that was the Mets’ front office’s response to their injury-plagued 2009 season, I can’t WAIT to see what the 2010 edition of the mission statement is.

Will they get right to the point with, “Don’t assault family members in the workplace”?

Too wordy? Maybe boil it down to “Duck and Cover”?

I’ll settle for “Just win, baby!”

*I’m strictly talking professional sports here. I recognize that, in college athletics, there would be a little more to the mission than merely getting a BCS bid, being one of the 64 teams in the NCAA basketball tournament, or making the College World Series. College athletes are ostensibly enrolled in school to do something besides win games.

Another post that is only tangentially related to baseball, but in which I reveal something that may be shocking. (It may also be a little test to see which of my friends and family don’t read my blog. Let’s have some fun, ‘kay?)

So, I’m currently entertaining the idea of getting a tattoo.

(Cue the dramatic chipmunk music: “Dunnh-dunnn-dunnnnnh!”)

If you know me, this is pretty shocking.

You are probably saying, “You DO know there are needles involved with tattoos, right?”

Yes, yes, I do.

“And, ummm…correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you hate needles?”

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.

(And if you’re reading this and saying, “Don’t be such a drama queen. If you want to get inked, go do it,” you clearly don’t know me at all. And to you I say, welcome, stranger! Thanks for checkin’ out my blog: I truly appreciate your time. In the words of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Ph.D., “Thank you! Come again!” Oh, and please consider following me on Twitter–@msdodgrblu. Thanks!)

I’ve said before that I would consider getting a tattoo when someone develops a permanent method that doesn’t involve needles.

But after my first real experience with bodily injury over the last few weeks, I’m thinking, hey, what’s a little more pain, right? And maybe, just maybe, willingly having needles poked into my skin will help me get over my aversion to blood draws, which is a leading reason why I don’t go to doctors more often. (Aside from all those sick people and nasty germs hanging around in a doctor’s office.) Getting over being such a baby about blood draws would probably be a very good thing, since my disinterest in visiting doctors will probably be the end of me at some point.

I’ve been thinking about the tattoo thing for a few weeks now. I hadn’t mentioned it to anybody until last week. Mr. Vamp and I were lying around in bed, doing the things that people with small children do late at night in bed: catching up on e-mail and surfing the Web. Mr. Vamp was deeply engrossed in his work e-mail when I sprung it on him: ”So, I’m thinking of getting a tattoo.”

To his credit, he was paying attention. He took this sudden announcement very well. His response was something like, “Wow. First, Facebook. Then, Twitter. Now a tattoo. This is pretty different for you.”

(Cue AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”)

We then talked about it for a while. He mentioned the needles, and I noted that maybe it would get me over my aversion to needles. To which he replied, “Or make it worse.” Yeah, thought of that, too.

And we talked about the big questions—what and where, the same questions I’ve been kicking around myself. Mr. Vamp’s first suggestion was pretty odd, but also pretty funny. “Hey, you could get David Wright tattooed on you’re a-…”. He got only as far as “a” before I stopped him, so I’m just going to ummm…assume he was going to say ANKLE. (Now, I ask you: how many husbands do you know who would suggest to his wife that she  get a tattoo of her favorite baseball player? His favorite, maybe, but hers? What a guy!)

Whatever I would get would have to be pretty small and simple, so it’s over quickly—you know, before the absinthe wears off. 

My ideas include a star, a baseball (would the stitches take too long?), a bat (like the flying creature—something cartoony like Icebat the Uglydoll), or the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon prism (probably too intricate). Sports team logos would be excellent (can you just see me with a badass Raiders tattoo?), but would probably be more intricate than I’m willing to go. Also, I have yet to research whether there are trademark infringement issues with tattoo art.

But Mr. Vamp’s suggestion got me thinking: what about a number tattoo?

It struck me as kind of a dumb idea at first. It reminds me too much of the story that John Kruk told on David Letterman (lo, these many years ago) about the number 28 and Mitch Williams. It went something like this: Mitch Williams came to the Phillies, and wanted to wear number 28, because his wife had a bunch of jewelry with that number. (Or maybe she had a tattoo of 28!) Kruk had the number 28 and ended up selling it to Williams for two cases of beer. Kruk’s punchline to the story was that Williams subsequently got divorced and he switched to the number 99, but the two cases of beer were already gone.

Thinking about it, a number might be an interesting way to go. Some possible choices:

13: I’ve long considered 13 my lucky number.

42: Good on a couple of levels. First, it’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything! How cool is that? It’s also Jackie Robinson’s number, retired now throughout major league baseball, so that’s pretty okey-dokey.

What about a baseball-related number? Hey, I could go with 762* (asterisk definitely intended). That’ll be relevant for a few more years, until A-rod replaces it with a new number equally deserving of an asterisk.

I could go with a variant of Mr. Vamp’s rebuffed David Wright suggestion, and get a 5. (And the number 5 has other significance in my life, wholly unrelated to baseball, but I’m not getting into that here.)

Ah, but tattoos are forever. How well would a tattoo based on a baseball player’s jersey number stand the test of time? It’s a valid question. So, I asked myself this: if I’d gotten a tattoo of 31 (Mike Piazza) or 11 (Edgar Martinez) 15 years ago, how would I feel about it today, now that they have retired from baseball?

Surprisingly, I’d still be pretty happy with 31 or 11. Piazza is a future hall of famer, and The Edgar should be. (But what if Piazza’s name had turned up in the Mitchell Report? Hmm. Next question.)

I could go with a whole equation of favorite players: 5 (Wright) + 11 (The Edgar) = 16 (Andre Ethier). Except 5  + 11 would result in something much greater than 16–some kind of super third baseman with extraordinary doubles‑hitting prowess and below-average defensive skills.

Okay, I’m getting off on a tangent here. And a number tattoo may be a little bland, though, so I’m not sold on it.

Moving on, there’s the ” where.” I’m disinclined to choose a site with too much bone, as I’ve heard that’s more painful. That’s a strike against my first choice (ankle) and probably also eliminates my shoulder. It goes almost without saying that I’m far too shy to go for any really personal areas. Tramp stamp? Puh-leeze: too ubiquitous. Not sure what that leaves.

Anyway, I’m putting way more thought into this than it deserves. I don’t often show off a lot of skin, so it’s very likely the only people who would ever see my tattoo (besides the tattoo artist) are Mr. Vamp and me. (But mention this blog entry, and I’ll show you if you ask nicely.)

At any rate, I’m unlikely to act on this anytime soon. I may be crazy, but I’m not that far gone (yet). It’s quite possible that once I’m able to leave the house at will, my brain will right itself, and this whole idea will pass into oblivion. I may look at this post in a couple of months; say, “Wow, did I write this? What the hell was I thinking?” There is precedent for that: it’s pretty much how I wrote my Master’s thesis. (Master of Arts in International Studies, University of Washington, 1995, if you must know. Go Huskies!)

The bottom line here is this: if it took me two weeks to mention this to anyone, you better believe I’m not going to do this on a whim.

After all, with apologies to John Kruk, “ Wives and beer come and go, but tattoos are forever.”

Thoughts? Suggestions? Leave me a comment. 1. Should I get a tattoo? 2. What should it be? 3. Where should I put it? I reserve the right to not approve any inappropriate comments.

Today, August 15, 2010, marks an unfortunate anniversary for fans of the New York Mets and/or David Wright.

On August 15, 2009, in the 4^th inning of the Giants-Mets game, Matt Cain hit David Wright in the head with a 95-MPH fastball.

I wasn’t watching the game when it happened. Mets-Giants was not the game that Fox dictated that I would get to see that day. Besides that, we were out celebrating Little Vamp’s 2^nd birthday. (As a mommy, I do have priorities higher than baseball. Sometimes.)

At the time of the incident, I was in a dark movie theater watching Ponyo. It’s hard to tell which was more painful: watching Ponyo or watching D-Dub get beaned. Kidding, of course. (Ponyo was much worse! Still kidding.) I’ve seen the video multiple times since, and watching Wright get hit in the head by that pitch makes my stomach turn.

One year later, I suspect Wright (and the Mets, and their fans) are still suffering from that fateful pitch.

David missed 15 games with the concussion resulting from the bean ball. He returned from the DL on September 1. He hit .239 (OBP .289) for the remainder of the season. Before August 15, he was hitting .324 (OBP .414). It’s relevant to the point I’m going to try to make that he struck out 35 times that last month, and walked only 9 times. He had never struck out more than 27 times or walked less than 9 times in any prior month of his career.

To be fair, even before getting hit, Wright was striking out a lot in 2009. He had logged 105 Ks before August 15. Strikeouts aren’t the end of the world, as long as you’re hitting for power. Except that Wright didn’t hit for power in 2009: he finished the year with a career-low 10 HRs on the year. Blame it on the cavernousness of Citi Field: in the new generation of ballparks, the Mets are the only team that didn’t build theirs to complement the abilities of their star player.

Wright’s power numbers have rebounded somewhat this year (17 home runs in 425 ABs), but he’s still striking out prodigiously (126 Ks so far). With 46 games left to play, he will undoubtedly shatter his personal record of 140 strikeouts. He has been incredibly inconsistent this year, with hot streaks that are positively torrid and slumps that are absolutely abysmal. And, here’s the worst part, there has been little in between.

Watching Wright lately has been driving me crazy (and not in a good way). His strikeouts are mounting at an alarming pace. I noticed a couple of weeks ago just how far away from the plate he’s standing. The pitcher is closer to home plate than Wright is. It’s no wonder he’s striking out when all opposing pitchers have to do is pitch him away, and there’s no way he can even reach the ball.

Ralph Kiner said nearly this exact same thing earlier this week. I’m proud that I said it first. Mr. Vamp can vouch for me: I’ve been ranting about this a lot lately. Yes, I have better things to do. No, I’m not doing them. Instead, I’m abusing my MLB.TV privileges by taking screen captures of David Wright’s at-bats. (It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.)

Here’s a shot from the first inning of the fateful game on August 15, 2009. (Note: I grabbed shots from the first inning of these games because the lines of the batter’s box are still well defined, making it easier to see just how far back DW has retreated.)

Now here’s one from July 5, 2010, the high-water mark of Wright’s season so far (.394 OBP).

Here’s a good one–July 17 at San Francisco, facing Matt Cain for the first time since getting beaned:

And finally, here’s one from August 11—the day Wright’s efforts earned him a Golden Sombrero:

Between the first one and the last one, the difference is drastic. There is probably a way to measure this exactly, but for all the exposure my blog gets, it’s not worth my time to figure out how to do it.

Things like this bug the crap out of me because, if I’ve noticed it, surely people who are paid to keep track of things like this should have noticed it and taken corrective action. (I’m looking at you, HoJo.) I’ve been searching the Web to see if there has been any explanation of why Wright is set up closer to the on-deck circle than home plate, but there hasn’t been anything out there other than the musings of assorted other observers who’ve noticed the problem. Then, a couple of days ago, Adam Rubin of ESPN mentioned it:

“Wright has been standing farther from the plate during the second half — perhaps because he was uncomfortable with being pitched inside so much. The staff is aware of it, but has been unable to convince Wright to adjust.“

Okay, so they do know about it. That’s something. (“Houston, we have a problem.”)

But they have been “unable to convince Wright to adjust”–whaaaaa?? Call me silly, but if you’re a major league ballplayer, it seems like if you’re doing something that fundamentally sabotages your ability to HIT THE DAMN BALL, you’d want to fix it.

And the more opposing pitchers work him outside, the more Wright is swinging wildly at pitches he can’t reach. He’s swinging at fastballs that have already gone by. He’s swinging at, well, everything: he has no plate discipline. He isn’t walking except when, not noticing that Wright is frigid, opposing teams intentionally walk him.

As a huge Wright fan (one of these days I’ll get into how I came to like him so much), watching him struggle is very distressing. Needless to say, since Wright is the key to the Mets’ offense, his extended slumps this year are not helping the team bridge the peaks and valleys that characterize every major league team’s season.

The telling line in the Rubin quote, and what has lead me to today’s blog entry: “perhaps because he was uncomfortable with being pitched inside so much.”

The “perhaps” means Rubin is speculating. David hasn’t said, “I’m afraid of getting hit in the head again.” (Nor should he say it: why give your opposing pitchers more ammunition than they already have?) But actions speak louder than words. Something has caused Wright to step away the plate. And my “enough credits for a minor in psychology” gives me just as much right to speculate as anybody else, so I’m going to assume that it’s that freakin’ Matt Cain fastball. (Curse you, Matt Cain, the right-handed pitcher!)

So, is this it? Is the David Wright we saw over the first five-plus years of his career gone forever? Can’t somebody fix this?

Wright isn’t the first player to get beaned. Some guys come back just fine: Mike Piazza rebounded after (professional a-hole) Roger Clemens hit him in the head with a fastball.

But some guys never make it all the way back. I remember, when I was growing up, Dickie Thon of the Astros got beaned. Thon played for another few years, but was never the same player after taking one to the head.

So, what’s it going to be, David—do you want to go down in baseball history like Mike Piazza or Dickie Thon? I know which one I remember more fondly (hint: it’s the one whose number 31 graces two of the jerseys and a couple of t-shirts in my closet).

Thinking about what I’m writing here, though, I’m probably not the best person to talk about climbing back on the horse and overcoming psychological trauma. After being in a head-on car accident, I’m pretty nervous when riding in a car—two-way left-turn lanes make me especially edgy. And now that I’m technically eligible to start driving, I find I’m not all that eager to do it. (I’ve also discovered that I’m unable to listen to Green Day’s “Murder City,” which happens to be the song that was playing at the time of the collision. Well, at least it wasn’t “Peacemaker.”)

I recognize, though, not driving is not a realistic option in Seattle. I have a job and two small children. My livelihood depends on driving more than David Wright’s depends on being able to handle major league pitching. (Major league contracts are guaranteed, and David Wright is a very wealthy young man, thanks in no small part to Vitamin Water. I have no contract, I’m not wealthy, and I do not even drink Vitamin Water.) I’m going to have to overcome this eventually.

Maybe I’ll get back behind the wheel when David Wright takes a step toward home plate. I hope for both of us this can happen sooner rather than later.

Today, as most everybody already knows by now, the Seattle Mariners fired manager, Don Wakamatsu; hitting coach, Ty Van Burkleo; and pitching coach, Rick Adair. (They also fired “mental” coach, Steve Hecht. I don’t know what a mental coach is, but of all the coaches who were shown the door, he probably deserved it most.) I learned the news on Twitter: thanks, Rob Neyer! (Mr. Vamp thanks you, too. My quick turnaround question to him—Wak got fired??—gave his posse a few minutes’ head start on tracking down the story.)

The firing itself didn’t come as a surprise, though the timing was. Why August 9, 2010, the day after the Mariners actually won a series? Did GM Jack Zduriencik look at his iPhone this morning, see the date 8-9-10, and take the sequential date as a sign that today was the day?

Eh, who knows? But it was pretty obvious the firing was coming. The final sign was the dugout fight between (the withered husk that used to be) Chone Figgins and Wakamatsu a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t the fight itself. It was the fact that a player got in a fight with the manager, and the team took no disciplinary action toward Figgins. The GM can pay all the lip service in the world to supporting the manager, but not disciplining a player who gets into a physical confrontation with the manager speaks louder than words.

Did Wak deserve to be fired? Probably not. He’s one of those managers who is talked about as a candidate for Manager of the Year when the team exceeds expectations, but who is vilified as the Worst Manager Ever in the History of Baseball the very next year when the team struggles. The same thing happened to Clint Hurdle in Colorado and Bob Melvin both in Seattle and Arizona. (I’ll go out on a limb and predict this same thing is going to happen to Bud Black in the next couple of years, when the Padres come back to Earth. Leading the division with a sub .250 batting average–really???)

Then again, based on media reports and various player comments (going back to before Griffey retired), it sure looked like Wakamatsu lost the team somewhere along the line, so maybe he wasn’t completely undeserving of being fired.

Whatever. The bottom line is this: managers who get fired are usually scapegoats. The manager gets fired because you can’t fire all 25 players on the team.

The real question is was there ever really any hope for Wakamatsu to keep his job? Can a manager survive when a team underperforms as severely as the Mariners have in 2010?

Well, some managers survive pretty big failures. The one that comes to mind in recent years is Jerry Manuel of the New York Mets.

Actually, I’ve never figured out how Manuel ever progressed beyond “interim manager” in New York. Manuel took over in the middle of 2008 when Willie Randolph got fired when the Mets underperformed (the nice way of saying “stunk up the joint” or “sucked ass”) during the first half. With Manuel at the helm as “interim manager,” for the second year in a row, the Mets suffered an epic collapse at the end of the 2008 season. The Amazin’s were less than amazing down the stretch and couldn’t hold the NL East division lead against the Phillies. Then they managed to lose even the NL Wild Card on the last day of 2008—in what became the final game at Shea Stadium (sniff).

Yet, in spite of the 2008 collapse, the Mets went on to take away the “interim” and hire Manuel as manager. Manuel survived the hugely disappointing 2009 campaign, when the Mets finished with a record of 70-92, 4^th in the NL East, 22 games out of first place, and ahead of only the Washington Nationals. (Thank God for teams like the Nationals and the Pirates, so your team doesn’t have to finish dead last, eh? Somewhere, some blogger is writing the same damn thing about the Mariners–*sigh*.) The Mets are again stumbling through the 2010 season, with little hope of making the post-season. Yet, Jerry Manuel still has a job. In a media market like New York City, I’m not sure how that’s possible. But there it is.

Maybe a better question is how the HELL Mets GM Omar Minaya still has a job after the epic collapses of 2007 and 2008, a thoroughly disappointing 2009, and a weakly mediocre 2010. It would seem like you can’t flaunt a payroll like the Mets have the last few years (2007: $120 million, 2008: $137 million, 2009: $149 million, 2010: $134 million), underperform (we’ve already gone over what that means) like the Mets have over that same period, and expect to retain your job. Well, you can’t, I can’t, but Omar Minaya apparently can.

So, clearly it does happen that managers and GMs survive lousy seasons—even in cities like New York where the members of the media are as vicious and omnivorous as a school of piranha. So, certainly it could happen in someplace like Seattle where the media treats sports figures and franchises with kid gloves.

But not this time, not in 2010.

So, how does Don Wakamatsu get fired while guys like Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya still have jobs?

Well, Mr. Vamp and I have a long-running joke about various players on the Mariners having photos of the manager/GM/Chuck Armstrong/Howard Lincoln in compromising positions with the Mariner Moose. (Our joke is so long-running that the legendary pictures have now passed through the hands of several players, at least one manager, and a couple of GMs.) Apparently Wak never got the pictures. Maybe Willie Bloomquist kept them.

Mets COO, Jeff Wilpon,...

on top of Mr. Met!

But perhaps something similar is going on in New York. Maybe Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya have pictures of Jeff Wilpon and … Mr. Met! (Don’t think about it. I mean it. Don’t! Just…don’t.)

You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?

Awful, isn’t it?

Yeah, I know….

Yes, it has come to this. I’ve put this off as long as I can. But after a week of watching the Dodgers stumble around in the dark looking for a spark (or a clue), I can avoid it no more.

Friends, family, strangers-who-have-so-much-time-on-their-hands-that-they-go-this-far-down-the-list-of-Google results: it’s time to discuss the color of the panic flag.

So, okay, what color should a panic flag be?

Panic buttons are usually red. But a red flag has a different meaning. To quote thestreet.com, “Investors may have missed one major red flag that could have tipped them off that something was amiss at Bernard Madoff’s now-infamous hedge fund: he acted as his own prime broker.”

Red flags also have historically been associated with revolution, notably in the 20th century, with Communist revolution. While I agree that the Dodgers’ recent play has been revolting, this is clearly not what we’re looking for, Tovarishchi.

What about green? No, a green flag has a different meaning as well: “Green signals the beginning or resumption of competition.” (From about.com, “The Flags of NASCAR.” Trust me, this will be the only time NASCAR comes up in this blog.) Since the Dodgers are much closer to ceasing competition than beginning or resuming it, obviously a green flag is not what we’re looking for.

So, red and green are both out. What about blue?

Ah, blue…the color of the Dodgers! The color of the sea! Speaking of the sea reminds me of a joke with a punchline I often quote. Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

Centuries ago, when men were men, sheep were scared, and pirates sailed the ocean blue, a captain and his crew were sailing the seas in search of adventure … or at least money to reunite Westley with his beloved Buttercup. Suddenly, a ship flying the Jolly Roger appeared on the horizon—pirates! The captain calmly asked a crewmember, “Bring me my red shirt!” When the crewmember brought the red shirt, the captain quickly put it on and bravely led the crew in defending the ship from the pirates’ landing party. The captain and crew fought valiantly and were able to repel the pirate landing party and continue on their journey.

A day or so later, two pirate ships appeared on the horizon. As the pirate ships sailed toward them, the crew began to panic, but the captain calmly said to his first officer, “Bring me my red shirt!” The first officer brought the red shirt, and the captain donned it. A fierce fight ensued, but the captain and his crew fought bravely, and both pirate landing parties were repelled.

As the captain and his crew recovered from the battle, the first officer asked the captain, “Sir, why is it that every time we encounter pirates, you ask for your red shirt?” The captain replied, “I wear my red shirt so that, should I be wounded in battle and start to bleed, the crew will not see the blood, panic, and bolt in fear.” The first officer and crew all agreed that this was an excellent strategy.

The next day, a fleet of ten pirate ships appeared on the horizon. The crew nervously looked at the captain, waiting for his usual request. And the captain stood tall and called, “ALL HANDS ON DECK, AND PREPARE FOR BATTLE! AND BRING ME MY BROWN PANTS!”

And there we go: the panic flag should be brown!

But I dithered so long over the color of the panic flag, I don’t think I need it after all. After the hated Giants swept the Dodgers in San Francisco this weekend, the time for the brown flag has passed. I’m ready to wave the white flag.

That’s right, I surrender. I am declaring the Dodgers dead. Time of death: approximately 7:56 PM PDT, August 1, 2010.

A moment of silence, please.  (And, wouldn’t you just know it, as always happens during a “moment of silence” at a sporting event, there’s that drunken dipshit in the upper deck yelling, “Woooooo! Boooooooobieeeees!”)

And as the public address announcer always say at the end of the moment of  “silence,” thank you.

Well, I’m at a loss for words. Or at a loss for a blog entry anyway.

After the Dodgers dropped the first two games at home to the hated Jints, I was preparing myself to write the post about the appropriate color for a panic flag.

But God bless Chad Billingsley and Casey “The Beard” Blake. Bills pitches a gem–his second-ever complete game shutout (first was also against the Gnats, a couple of years ago), and the Dodgers beat the Supreme Enemies 2-0 to avoid the sweep. Dodgers pick up a game on both San Francisco and Colorado, who also lost on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Padres won in extra innings (yet another reason for me to hate the Braves), so no ground gained there.

So, I’ll file my thoughts on the panic flag’s color for now. Seven of the Dodgers’ next 14 games are against the Padres, and 3 are against the Gnats. Each one of those games is very, very important. So I may be back to writing the dreaded post about the panic flag within a couple of weeks. (Especially if July 31 comes and goes without a trade.)

(Cool: I just referred to the team of evildoers from San Francisco several times without calling them by their real name AND without using any expletives. Woohoo!)

*  *  *  *  *  *

More baseball. I follow three teams: the Dodgers, the Mariners, and the Mets. Since the All-Star Break and through Tuesday night, these three teams were 2 and 16. WTF is up with that?

Wouldn’t you think that just by law of averages that three teams would be able to gin up more than 2 wins amongst themselves in 18 tries?

Okay, the Mariners suck this year–so much so that all the trees as far away as Idaho are bending west. It’s no surprise that the Mariners lost.

But the Mets and Dodgers are both in playoff contention. And the Mets played the Arizona Diamondbacks this week—the second worst team in the National League (third worst in all of baseball). (And they got swept!)

Something has to give now, though. The Mets come into Dodger Stadium for four games this weekend with both teams having only won once since the All-Star Break. Can you say “hungry”?

Dodgers should have the advantage on Thursday night, since the Mets played 14 innings in their losing effort against Arizona last night. After that, who knows?

*  *  *  *  *  *

One more thing about baseball, and this for the sake of clarification.

With the Mets visiting the Dodgers this weekend, you might be asking, “Gee, Ms. Vamp, for whom do you cheer when your teams go head to head?”

The Dodgers, of course! The Dodgers trump everybody. I’ve been a Dodgers fan for as long as I can remember. Sure, I was piiiiiiiiiiiissed when they traded away Mike Piazza. But I got over it (eventually). Blood is thicker than water, and I bleed blue.

And I will generally root for the Mariners over the Mets. I suppose in theory there could be a situation in which I would go for the Mets over the Mariners, but they play each other so rarely and interleague play is done so early in the season, it just hasn’t come up.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Okay, done with blathering about baseball for now, so you can breathe a sigh of relief.

I was going to talk about Facebook and Twitter next, but that was shaping up to be too long for potpourri, so I’ll save it for another entry.

*  *  *  *  *  *

I noticed in the news from ComicCon that Disney is going to do another Haunted Mansion movie. (Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Uhoh!”) It’s going to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, who promises it will not be a comedy (phew!). Perhaps Disney is finally doing the movie that I HOPED they were doing before they made that awful comedy starring Eddie Murphy. I like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (sue me), so I’ll be eager to see the Haunted Mansion movie when it comes out.

Speaking of Disney, I haven’t seen any news lately on the Maleficent movie that is rumored to be in the works. I’m looking forward to that one. Maleficent is one bad-ass fairy: easily the best Disney villain. I hope the movie has her transforming into the dragon. The Maleficent movie is probably going to be a must-see for Little Vamp: she loves and actively roots for the dragon in Sleeping Beauty.

I also discovered today that they’re making a movie out of Michael Lewis’s excellent book, Moneyball. This doesn’t seem very timely, as the Moneyball philosophy seems to have lost some of its luster since the book came out,  to Prince Fielder’s immense …ummmm…satisfaction. More surprising is the casting—Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Paul DePodesta. If I was Paul DePodesta, I would be a little insulted. (But if I was Paul DePodesta, I also would have made damn sure that Brad Penny was healthy and the Randy Johnson part of the trade was going down before I traded away Paul Lo Duca. Just sayin’.) But what I really want to know is, who will be playing Jeremy Brown, the “bad body” catcher?

(Oops! Sorry about that—I accidentally fell back into talking about baseball while I was gabbing about movies.)

*  *  *  *  *  *

My favorite Tweet of the day from Comic Con:

“ABSOLUTELY NONE WHATSOEVER: THE OFFICIAL DEODORANT OF SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON.”

And with that, Ms. Vamp is out.

Rafael Furcal and Andre Ethier after the Cardinals' four-game sweep of the Dodgers, 7/18/2010

If Dodger Stadium is “Blue Heaven,” Busch Stadium in St. Louis must be “Blue Hell.”

After the Cardinals’ four-game sweep this weekend, the Dodgers are 3-18 at new Busch Stadium (not counting the series-clincher in the 2009 Division Series).

Three wins, eighteen losses: that makes Dodger wins in St.  Louis roughly as rare as sober car trips by Lindsay Lohan.

Sunday’s game was a killer. The Dodgers had a four-run lead going into the eighth, and the bullpen couldn’t hold it. And there’s more than enough blame to go around, with enough left over for seconds (or lunch sometime this week).

Justin Miller and Travis Schlichting share the bullpen’s steaming plate of blame with Jonathan Broxton. The three combined for six hits and four walks in 2 2/3 innings. I’m never comfortable when the manager asks a closer to get more than three outs (no matter who the closer is). The heat and humidity in St. Louis made me extra nervous when Torre brought in Broxton to get the third out in the bottom of the eighth. But what else was Torre to do?

And the rest of the team doesn’t get a free pass. They had their chances, stranding another nine runners on base. They only managed to hang one earned run on Jeff Suppan—are you KIDDING me?

The whole weekend was ugly to an extreme. I was left pondering the best object to hurl at a TV that won’t break the TV. (I welcome suggestions.)

The picture above speaks volumes about the St. Louis massacre. I want to put a funny caption on it (some lame joke about fabric softener or something), but I don’t have the heart. It’s too … sad.

My confidence in the 2010 Dodgers’ “specialness” (for lack of a better word) is shaken. I’m not yet ready to wave the white flag or the panic flag (what color is that one?). But I’d been certain that the Dodgers would win the NL West again this year. They were credible (if inconsistent) in the first half, enduring some unfortunate injuries to key players, and they still managed to arrive at the All-Star break only two games behind the Padres (tied with the Rockies). Coming out of the All-Star break, it only seemed a matter of time before the Dodgers blazed through the West, grabbed the division lead, and took off running with it. I’d even been eyeing some frequent flier miles that are expiring this fall, and weighing whether the Dodgers are more likely to clinch the West while in Colorado at the end of September, or if the clincher will come the last weekend of the season at Dodger Stadium.

Four days later, I’m not so sure either of those late-season series are going to matter for the Dodgers.

But I am sure the series against the Giants in LA this week has taken on a new level of importance. I really want to see the Dodgers come out and take out their frustrations on the Giants. (Well, I ALWAYS want to see that.) Given the pitching match-ups (Bumgarner vs. McDonald, Lincecum vs. Kershaw, Zito vs. Billingsley), another sweep of the Giants is too much to ask. I’ll settle for taking two out of three. But I feel like Monday is a must-win.

And since I’m on the subject, there’s one other thing that’s shaking my confidence about the Dodgers’ chances of making the post-season. We’re now 12 days from the trading deadline: tick-tock, Ned Colletti. The Dodgers need a quality starter (well, who doesn’t, besides the Yankees?) and some bullpen help, now that Belisario’s off the wagon on the shelf. And if Manny isn’t going to be consistently able (and, given how he left Boston, willing) to play, they need somebody with some pop to put behind Ethier, so opposing pitchers will think twice before intentionally walking Ethier. Matt Kemp’s .774 OPS didn’t seem to be scaring anyone yesterday. I’ve been certain the Dodgers would fill one or more of those gaping holes. But with all the talk about the Dodgers’ financial situation and a farm system denuded of quality prospects, I’m nervous that August 1 will come and the roster won’t look any different.

Feh, I’ll worry about that more as July 31 draws closer. For now, it’s three against the Giants, and here’s hoping that the Dodgers magical powers over their NL West rivals are still working.

And if the worst should happen and the Dodgers get swept by the Giants, I’ll be back soliciting suggestions on colors and patterns for the panic flag.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson.