Dodgers Diaries

Joe Torre was saying before the game that they're not very familiar with the teams they play in interleague. Um, excuse me, Joe, but didn’t you manage in the American League for 12 years before coming to the Dodgers? Aren’t you even a little bit familiar with a team called the Red Sox? Didn’t you get tired of losing to the Angels year in and year out, regardless of the players you put on the field? Don’t you know a little something about the team you managed for those 12 years, a team I think is called the Yankees?

Moreover, the Dodgers play the Angels six times every year, or almost as often as they play the Reds, Pirates, Brewers, Cardinals, Braves, Mets and every other team not in the NL West. The Angels play in the same media market as the Dodgers; their ups and downs appear in the same newspaper and television accounts of the games; and their games are covered by the same sports cable network. If the Dodgers are unfamiliar with the Angels, it’s because they’ve been making googly eyes at some mail-order bride while ignoring the girl next door.

Unfamiliarity is not why the Dodgers lost Wednesday night’s game. Poor baserunning all around is -- by Matt Kemp getting picked off, by Russell Martin straying too far from the base and by Reed Johnson not hustling home at top speed. But I’m a little tired of Torre acting like interleague play is some kind of exhibition that doesn’t count. The games count as much as any game against the Marlins, and they’re a pretty good barometer of how the Dodgers might fare if they should manage to get to the World Series (looking like a longer and longer longshot right now). Will Joe consider that merely an exhibition?

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL