Dodger manager Don Mattingly finds his team a season-worst 13 games under .500, in last place, 11 games behind division-leading San Francisco. Not even that can deflate the rookie skipper.
“I’ll say the word, ‘deflated,’ after a game, but you can’t be that way the next day when you wake up,” Mattingly said today before the Dodgers took the field.
Only three teams in the Major Leagues have a worse winning percentage than the Dodgers, but Mattingly still believes in his club.
“In this division, you’ve got to know you’re capable of making a run,” he said. “You’ve got to have that belief that anything can happen. You’ve got to keep striving.”
Mattingly believes that the team could get hot, string together a few wins and create a different feeling.
“Momentum changes and all of a sudden, you can’t stop it,” he said.
Even if that never happens, it’s the approach that Mattingly preaches. He doesn’t get caught up in results as long as the preparation and thought process is right.
“To me there’s only one way to play. Every decision we’re making, we’re trying to win a championship, no matter where we are in the race.
"We’re the Dodgers, we’re got a lot to uphold. Right now, it may not look like it, but we’re going somewhere. We just have to figure out who’s going with us.”
That kind of optimism is great, especially if it’s contagious and the Dodgers make a run. But with the trade deadline approaching, shouldn’t the Dodgers be sellers? Four teams are ahead of the them and they’re three games in back of San Diego just to get out of the basement.
Mattingly doesn’t think in those terms. He maintains the last place team with more problems off the field than on will take flight someday soon.
“Maybe it’s a little dark right now,” Mattingly explains, “but we've got to know where the light is, then we have to figure out who’s going with us.”
How does this philosophy translate to the trade deadline?
“I’m sure there will be some kind of activity (at the deadline), but right now, we’re just trying to win games,” Mattingly said.
“We’re always evaluating. When Dee Gordon is up here, we’re evaluating. When Jerry Sands is up here we’re evaluating. Now with Rubby (De La Rosa), we’re looking at him too.”
Mattingly compared the current Dodger team to the Yankee teams of the early 1990s. As the decade opened, New York posted three consecutive losing seasons before finishing second in 1993, fourteen games above .500.
From there, the Yankees continued to build around a core of young and talented players. By Mattingly’s last year as a player in 1995, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte, were with the club and all 23 or younger. Mix in the elder statesman of the kiddie corps, their 25-year old closer Mariano Rivera, and the foundation for the championship years was forged.
Mattingly believes the same phenomena could take place here.
“(Clayton) Kershaw, (Chad) Billingsley, Rubby, that’s a foundation right there,” Mattingly said, exuding confidence.
With the three pitchers, along with outfielders Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, the Dodgers could have the young and talented players to turn it around.
If you believe Mattingly, it’s only a matter of time.
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