Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Do Dodgers have enough pitching for playoffs?


The Philadelphia Phillies added Cliff Lee to their pitching staff for the pennant drive.

The Los Angeles Dodgers added … Vicente Padilla and Jon Garland?

Can those two journeymen actually help the Dodgers make a dent in the playoffs?

Maybe so.

After all, on the season-long pitching staff, Randy Wolf could make a good argument as the Dodgers’ top starting pitcher.

And he’s no spring chicken, himself.

The Dodgers certainly were not going to win it all with their former starting staff of Wolf, Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and the injured Hiroki Kuroda.

With the addition of Padilla and Garland, they have two veterans possibly able to at least make a dent in the playoffs.

(Not to mention reliever George Sherrill acquired from the Baltimore Orioles, giving the Dodgers a sorely needed left-hander in the bullpen.)

The Dodgers actually have the best winning percentage in the NL, just ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals and Phillies.

Even so, it’s hard to believe they would have gone very far in the playoffs with their pitching staff the way it was.

Could Garland and/or Padilla make the difference?

We’ll see.

1 comment:

kareem said...

I think that Padilla and Garland will indeed help them. Padilla was doing a good job in Texas as far as pitching was concerned; he just did not want to buy into the program that Nolan Ryan had set up for his pitchers, which is coming in in better shape and working harder and pitching longer into games. He wanted to go his own way so the Rangers released him so he could. But he could help the Dodgers in the playoffs.