Games 129-131 Thread: August 23-25 vs. Rays

Mookie Betts, 2020 WS Game 6.

8.23 7p: Bobby Miller vs. Tyler Alexander
8.24 6p: Clayton Kershaw vs. Taj Bradley
8.25 1p: Gavin Stone vs. Shane Baz

It's a rare off-year for the Rays, the small-market team that always overperforms in the AL East. But they're 10.5 games off the divisional lead, and seven games out of the third wild card slot (needing to vault over Boston as well). Such is the craziness of the expanded playoff structure: there's a lot of teams right in the middle, not yet out of it but probably not in the race.

That said, the Rays did just sweep the Diamondbacks last week. So let's not expect this to be a cakewalk.

The Dodgers' recent 10-3 streak, punctuated by a sweep over the Mariners at home, now has us not only clear of the Diamondbacks and Padres by 4.0 and 4.5 games, but also wielding the best record in all of baseball. No surprise that our recent improved performance is tied to the return of some key players (Mookie Betts, Max Muncy) and the sudden upswings from players named Gavin (Lux and Stone).

But we'll still need to see Will Smith and Shohei Ohtani start to bat with some better consistency.

And then there's that Chris Taylor issue: recently activated at the high cost of DFAing Jason Heyward. I am still shaking my head over that one.