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LOS ANGELES – Should the Dodgers have pushed harder for homefield advantage last week?

Going into their Tuesday game at AT&T Park, they trailed the Atlanta Braves by two games and the St. Louis Cardinals by one. The Dodgers went 2-4 from that point. They weren’t going to catch the Cardinals, who won all five of their remaining games. And they weren’t going to catch Atlanta, which went 3-2, but held the tiebreaker over the Dodgers.

So, the answer to that question is a fairly definitive, “no,” unless you think that by half-stepping in the final two series, the Dodgers lost their edge heading into the playoffs. That could well be true, but it didn't feel that way. We'll find out if the Dodgers can flip the switch again Thursday.

Overall, it was a pretty bad week and a continuation of the Dodgers’ lackluster September, but you could also argue, who cares?

SCORING

Here’s where the worriers might have some justification. The Dodgers’ lineup didn’t look dangerous last week, scoring an average of 3.5 runs per game and batting .222. Yasiel Puig (.167, five strikeouts in six games) struggled badly. One of the few Dodgers swinging a hot bat in San Francisco, Matt Kemp, was shut down for the entire postseason with an inflamed ankle.

And it won’t get any easier Thursday, when the Dodgers face Braves right-hander Kris Medlen, who is 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA against the Dodgers.

Of course, the counterargument to the worriers is that manager Don Mattingly continued to give his frontline players revolving days off. Beginning Thursday, barring a setback, Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Puig will all be in the lineup for every game.

While the loss of Kemp and, probably, Andre Ethier, will sap the lineup of some depth, the Dodgers have the names and resumes to do damage once again. If they can only find the spark they’ve been missing.

Grade: D+

DEFENSE

Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke finished up their regular seasons exactly as you would want them to, by dominating. Kershaw put a ribbon on his Cy Young-bound season Friday and Greinke pitched nearly as well the following day while, somehow, picking up the loss.

Hyun-Jin Ryu had another one of those starts where he gives up a bunch of hits, but generally pitches out of trouble. Ricky Nolasco’s slump is something of a concern, but if the Dodgers’ top three starters pitch to form, maybe they won’t have to worry about a Game 4, who knows?

It was that kind of week for Dodgers pitching, which lost four games while pitching to a 1.92 ERA.

Most of the key relievers seem to be sharp heading into the playoffs, Kenley Jansen has been unhittable, Brian Wilson continues to go strong and J.P. Howell has pitched well. Paco Rodriguez has been struggling, but Mattingly said he feels fine about his young lefty heading into the playoffs.

Grade: A-

DECISION-MAKING

Mattingly needs to keep his day job, because he would make a terrible psychic. All season, he has been asked to assess the severity of Dodgers injuries and, all season long, he has started out being as optimistic and conservative in his estimates as he can be.

Pretty much every time, the injury proved to be more serious than first hoped.
Last weekend, Mattingly thought Ethier was healthy enough to pinch hit, so he gave him an at-bat in San Diego. Ethier hasn’t been seen since. Going into Sunday’s game, Mattingly thought Kemp would be ready to go by Thursday. Four hours later, the Dodgers team doctor shut down Kemp for the remainder of 2013.

So, we have to assume that some of the aches and pains the Dodgers hitters have been dealing with are a bit more severe than the team has indicated. In that case, Mattingly was perfectly justified in fielding some watered-down lineups after the Dodgers clinched.

Grade: B

CHEMISTRY TEST

Kershaw is a good example of how players’ attitudes can affect the team’s performance. The Dodgers have provided Kershaw with awful run support all season, which means that his charmed season -- becoming just the second L.A. Dodger to finish with a sub-2.00 ERA -- only netted him 16 wins.

Now, whenever anyone glances casually at Kershaw’s baseball card, they’ll skim right over 2013 rather than recognize his brilliance this season.

All season, Kershaw has held his tongue when he was given an opportunity to criticize Dodgers hitters. Many a pitcher has admitted to frustration under similar circumstances.

People tend to focus on the big personalities -- players like Puig, Brian Wilson and Juan Uribe -- when talking about team chemistry, but a player such as Kershaw or Mark Ellis can contribute just as much by staying quiet sometimes.

Grade: A-

STATE OF CONTENTION

The Dodgers are in the playoffs and they don’t have to bother with a wild-card game.
That’s about as good as you can hope for right about now.

Grade: A

LOS ANGELES -- Matt Kemp wasn’t there the day Yasiel Puig arrived from Chattanooga, Tenn. In fact, had Kemp not gotten hurt, Puig might have spent the season in the minor leagues, or at least had his rocket ship of a rookie season stalled on the launching pad for a while.

Kemp was in the lineup for only 11 of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 42 wins from June 22 to Aug. 7, when their pace was the best 50-game snippet the National League had seen in almost 70 years.

He got there in time to celebrate in the pool and clubhouse during the Dodgers’ NL West-clinching party in Arizona, but just barely. It was his fourth game back after missing two months.

So, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly is perfectly correct to say the Dodgers can not only win without Kemp, they have won without Kemp.

But the timing isn't ideal.

News that Kemp is lost for the postseason came at an awkward moment. The Dodgers were on the field whipping up fan frenzy for their first playoff appearance in four seasons Sunday at the exact moment Kemp, inside the Dodgers' clubhouse, was informing reporters he’d been shut down for the rest of the season.

Not exactly some happy news to go sailing with into October.

But the real reason Sunday’s news left such a mark was that Andre Ethier’s availability for the first round of the playoffs hangs by a thread. Ethier might not have been an impact offensive player this season, but he was a solid contributor to the offense and a reliable glove in center field. As long as other hitters were providing the power around him, Ethier kept the Dodgers’ lineup humming along.

Ethier hasn’t run since the Dodgers shut down his running program last week in San Francisco. If he makes the roster for the Dodgers’ series in Atlanta, it figures to be as a pinch hitter.

So, yeah, Kemp’s injury might have just reduced the Dodgers’ chances of advancing to the National League Championship Series by a few percentage points or so, depending on how healthy some of the other nicked-up Dodgers are.

“It’s not going to be easy. He does big things, but, at the same time, we just have to play as a team,” Hanley Ramirez said. “Everybody knows that Matt Kemp is a great player.”

In 2013, Kemp wasn’t a great player, actually. He was an average player, maybe slightly below average for an outfielder. In Kemp’s most recent stint on the disabled list, for the ankle, the Dodgers went 36-17 without him.

But his threat gave the Dodgers’ offense more length. Pitchers have reason to fear Kemp and, to some extent, Ethier.

Now, they’ll see either Skip Schumaker, who is virtually devoid of power, or someone such as Scott Van Slyke, whom they probably have never heard of. Plus, the Dodgers’ bench gets a little worse whenever Schumaker is inserted in the starting lineup.

The Dodgers, however, are far from doomed. If Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw pitch to their capabilities, you and I could probably take up a couple lineup spots and the Dodgers could survive.

Schumaker started in center field in Games 5, 6 and 7 of the 2011 World Series, and it didn’t seem to hurt the St. Louis Cardinals much. They were world champions. If the Dodgers can get by Atlanta, Ethier should be healthy enough to play in the next round.

At times, Kemp showed glimpses of his MVP-caliber 2011 and April of 2012, when he was, arguably, the best all-around player in the game. He batted .314 with three doubles and a home run in his last 11 games, but there were also troubling signs, even in the good times. In those 11 games, Kemp struck out seven times, three more times than he walked.

He would have been particularly useful against the Braves, who could use two left-handed starting pitchers against the Dodgers in Mike Minor and Paul Maholm. The other team the Dodgers could have played, the St. Louis Cardinals, have no left-handed starters.

Before Sunday’s game, Mattingly -- a onetime batting champion and longtime hitting coach -- talked about what he saw in Kemp’s swing over the past two weeks.

“It still looks, to me, like a spring training, because you’ll see bad days then good days, good days then bad days,” Mattingly said. “To me, that’s what the early season is. You see guys who one day look like they’re getting there and the next day are out of sorts again. We haven’t seen that locked-in look like what Matt had at the end of ’11 and beginning of ’12.

“But he definitely looked more like the beginning of ’12 than the beginning of this season.”

So, the Dodgers might have seen Kemp’s comeback forestalled. And, who knows, had his ankle held up, he might have been the one leading them to World Series glory. It just seems a tad ill-informed to suggest he was the only one capable of doing it.

LOS ANGELES -- Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies began to take on a spring training feel, with starting pitchers piggy-backing each other's outings, with Triple-A players all over the field in the final innings and nobody seeming too worked up about the result.

When you can afford to play like that in Game 162, you’re usually in pretty good shape.

The meaningful action came in the middle of the game, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs to sew up the National League’s top seed, locking in the Dodgers’ first-round playoff opponent: the Atlanta Braves.

The Dodgers went 2-5 against the Braves this season. They got swept in a three-game series in Atlanta and split a four-game series at home, but both of those series came during the Dodgers’ dark days, when they were beset with injuries, and only die-hard Dodger fans had ever heard of Yasiel Puig.

One of the things the Dodgers will begin to find out Thursday, when they open the National League Division Series at Turner Field, will be whether their sluggish September will impact their hopes of playing deep into October.

The season ended with a whimper, with the Dodgers scoring two runs the past two games against the team with the worst ERA in the National League.

That reflected a longer-term slowdown. The Dodgers were the hottest team in baseball until they got swept in a three-game series in Cincinnati. After Sept. 5, the Dodgers went 9-14 to end their season. In many of those games, manager Don Mattingly rested more than one of his everyday position players, cognizant of a big division lead and the fragility of his team’s health.

Hyun-Jin Ryu allowed two runs Sunday, somehow working around eight hits, in four innings and finished his rookie season with an even 3.00 ERA. He will pitch Game 3 of the Dodgers’ first-round playoff series at Dodger Stadium next Sunday.

Much of Sunday was about auditions and brush-up work. Ricky Nolasco, who figures to be the Dodgers' Game 4 starter, if they need one, pitched a scoreless inning. So did Chris Capuano, who is bidding to latch onto a job as a reliever coming off a groin injury.

It was a good season for the Dodgers' box office. Sunday was the 29th sellout, the team announced, the most at Dodger Stadium since 1983. They drew 3,743,527 fans on the season, best in baseball.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers will take it down to the wire before deciding whether outfielder Andre Ethier will be healthy enough to make their first-round playoff roster.

Ethier will work out Tuesday morning at Dodger Stadium, where he will be evaluated for whether he’s sound enough to play in the National League Division Series. He has been dealing with soreness in his left shin for more than two weeks and has had just one at-bat since Sept. 13, a pinch-hitting appearance in which he struck out.

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said he is open to the possibility of carrying Ethier strictly as a pinch hitter, but not if he can’t run the bases.

“I would rather lean toward letting him play, but I could lean either way and it doesn’t really matter,” Mattingly said. “We have to see what he can do.”

Matt Kemp also missed his second straight game with ankle soreness, but Mattingly said he is confident Kemp will be able to play Thursday.

* Reliever Paco Rodriguez traveled to Arizona for the birth of his first child, but will be back in plenty of time for the Dodgers’ Tuesday charter flight to whichever city they begin the playoffs.

* Two pitchers who figure to get work Sunday: Chris Capuano and Kenley Jansen. The Dodgers are contemplating keeping Capuano on the roster as a third left-handed reliever. Jansen hasn’t pitched since Tuesday.

Here are lineups for Sunday’s season finale, also the last career game for Todd Helton, who has announced his retirement:

Rockies

1. Charlie Blackmon CF
2. Josh Rutledge 2B
3. Todd Helton 1B
4. Troy Tulowitzki SS
5. Michael Cuddyer RF
6. Nolan Arenado 3B
7. Charlie Culberson LF
8. Jordan Pacheco C
9. Jeff Francis LHP

Dodgers

1. Yasiel Puig RF
2. Carl Crawford LF
3. Michael Young SS
4. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
5. Mark Ellis 2B
6. Juan Uribe 3B
7. A.J. Ellis C
8. Skip Schumaker CF
9. Hyun-Jin Ryu LHP

LOS ANGELES -- The book closed Saturday on another stellar regular season for Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Zack Greinke.

He was the tough-luck loser in a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the visiting Colorado Rockies, but Greinke still finished with a 15-4 record and 2.63 ERA for the NL West champions.

What lies ahead is his second career trip into the postseason. Greinke said he’s satisfied with how he’s pitching.

“It could be worse, that’s for sure,” he said.

Greinke said the only thing that separated this regular season from his AL Cy Young year of 2009 was his consistency. He went 16-8 that year with a 2.16 ERA for a Kansas City Royals team that finished last in the AL Central with a 65-97 record.

“I was more consistent that year and didn’t have any spots where I pitched bad,” he said. “Like this year, there was about a month where it was ugly.”

Greinke then gestured to his left, to the locker stall belonging to left-hander Clayton Kershaw, who is likely to win the NL Cy Young after leading the majors with a 1.83 ERA and the NL with 232 strikeouts.

“Kersh had no bad stretches,” Greinke said. “That’s what you’ve got to do to have a good year like that.”

Despite the late-season injuries that have popped up among his positional players, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said he feels confident heading into Thursday’s opener of the NL Division Series -- at the St. Louis Cardinals or Atlanta Braves -- knowing he has the 1-2 punch that can wreak havoc in a playoff series.

“When those guys take the ball, you feel like you’re going to win,” Mattingly said. “It’s pretty much quality start after quality start.”

LOS ANGELES -- Seems the Los Angeles Dodgers can’t even make it through pregame warm-ups without losing a key player to injury.

Matt Kemp was a late scratch Saturday evening against the visiting Colorado Rockies after feeling soreness in his left ankle. The Dodgers could have used his bat, as they were shut down by Rockies starter Juan Nicasio and a trail of relievers in a 1-0 loss in the penultimate game of the regular season.

Kemp returned Sept. 16 after missing two months with an injury to the same ankle and a hamstring strain that also popped up late in his rehabilitation. He's been hitting .314 since his return, though he’s hitless in his past nine plate appearances.

Kemp was penciled in to bat fifth and play center and was even announced on the scoreboard about 10 minutes before the first pitch, but it was Skip Schumaker who jogged out to center in the top of the first, with Nick Buss entering the starting lineup in right field.

Juan Uribe moved up one spot to No. 5 in the batting order and came up with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning. He fouled out to the catcher before left fielder Scott Van Slyke hit an inning-ending fly out to right. The Dodgers, who will open the NL Division Series on Thursday at either the St. Louis Cardinals or Atlanta Braves, remain the worst-hitting team in the majors with the bases loaded this season (.194).

Buss ended another Dodgers scoring threat by grounding out to first with runners on second and third and two outs in the second inning.

The loss prevented Dodgers starter Zack Greinke (15-4) from winning his eighth consecutive decision and matching his career-high win total. Greinke allowed one earned run on four hits and struck out seven without walking a batter. He lowered his ERA to 2.63, the second-lowest mark of his career after his AL Cy Young season of 2009 (2.16).

Greinke’s only miscue came against Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado with two outs in the fourth and Troy Tulowitzki on second base. Greinke left a 1-2 pitch over the plate and the Orange County native lined it into left-center field, where it fell just out of the reach of a diving Van Slyke.

Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was held out of the starting lineup for precautionary reasons after twice fouling pitches off his lower left leg in Friday’s victory. He pinch-hit with two outs in the seventh inning and struck out on three pitches.

LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles Dodgers first-base coach Davey Lopes was taking part in a word association game with a film crew prior to Saturday’s game against the visiting Colorado Rockies when Yasiel Puig’s name came up.

Without hesitation, Lopes answered, “Unpredictable.”

Puig has been with the Dodgers for nearly four months. In that time, they’ve climbed from as far back as 9 ½ games in the NL West standings to division champions. They won 53 of 66 games during their summer surge, including a franchise-record 15 consecutive road games.

Puig has his fingerprints all over one of the great turnarounds in franchise history, hitting .322 since his arrival with 19 home runs among his 42 extra-base hits.

Still, from listening to Dodgers manager Don Mattingly and his coaching staff, it's clear Puig still has a lot to learn.

“We see a guy with just a load of talent, but also you see the young player in him at times,” Mattingly said.

During the Dodgers’ previous homestand, Mattingly spoke of Puig’s lack of control in the outfield. His tendency to overthrow the cutoff man has been well documented, but on this night Mattingly was discussing Puig’s unbridled aggression when chasing down fly balls, saying his teammates don’t trust that he won’t run them over in pursuit.

His baserunning has been just as just as erratic. He’s stolen 11 bases but has been caught eight times. Even more disturbing, he has been picked off, doubled up and run through stop signs to record a number of other outs on the basepaths.

Puig also seems reluctant to take the advice of others. Against the Rockies on Friday night, he fouled a ball of his lower left leg in his first at-bat and hobbled around before eventually grounding out. Mattingly said he brushed off a recommendation to wear a shin guard and later fouled another pitch off the same area in the fifth inning, ultimately causing him to leave the game.

"I would think he would want to wear one, but ...," Mattingly said before just shrugging his shoulders.

Puig took batting practice Saturday and Mattingly said he would be available to play if needed, but is holding him out for precautionary reasons.

A more difficult decision looms Thursday. Who will be the starting outfielders when the Dodgers open the NL Division Series, either at the St. Louis Cardinals or Atlanta Braves? Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford appear healthy and ready, and another veteran outfielder, Andre Ethier, is wrapping up his rehab from an injured lower left leg at the team’s spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.

With the Dodgers' playoff positioning set, Mattingly was asked if he planned to let the players manage the team in the final two games. Mattingly said he hadn’t thought about that possibility, but then asked reporters who they considered good candidates.

When it was suggested Puig could coach third base, Mattingly answered, “It would probably do him some good.”

Saturday's lineups:
Rockies
1. Charlie Blackmon RF
2. Charlie Culberson LF
3. Corey Dickerson CF
4. Troy Tulowitzki SS
5. Todd Helton 1B
6. Nolan Arenado 3B
7. Jordan Pacheco C
8. Jonathan Herrera 2B
9. Juan Nicasio P

Dodgers
1. Skip Schumaker RF
2. A.J. Ellis C
3. Hanley Ramirez SS
4. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
5. Matt Kemp CF
6. Juan Uribe 3B
7. Michael Young 2B
8. Scott Van Slyke LF
9. Zack Greinke P

Clayton Kershaw finished off an incredible 2013 season with six scoreless innings.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that this is Kershaw’s seventh start of six or more innings this season with no runs allowed and at least eight strikeouts, tying a personal best for a single season in his career (he also had seven starts of this type in 2011). Four other pitchers have accomplished this in a single season in the past 30 years: Tim Lincecum in 2009 (7), Pedro Martinez in 2000 (8) and 2002 (7), Randy Johnson in 2001 (7), and Dwight Gooden in 1985 (8).

Friday’s start lowered Kershaw’s ERA to 1.83 for the season.

The last left-handed starter to post a sub-2.00 ERA was John Tudor of the St. Louis Cardinals back in 1985. In the divisional era (since 1969), there are now six lefties to break that barrier, and three of the previous five ended up taking home Cy Young honors. The exceptions were Tudor, who had the best season of his career during Gooden’s sensational sophomore season and Wilbur Wood, who was beaten out for the award by another lefty with a sub-2.00 ERA in the 1971 season: Vida Blue.

Lefties have a harder time posting consistently low ERAs compared with righties. More information on that can be found here.

Kershaw also becomes just the third pitcher in National League history to win three straight ERA titles. The others are Greg Maddux, 1993-95, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' own Sandy Koufax, who did it five straight seasons from 1962 to 1966.

LOS ANGELES -- When Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw takes the mound for his next start Thursday in the opening round of the NL Division Series, he’ll have that same youthful-looking appearance.

He’ll just be a completely different-looking pitcher.

Kershaw has evolved into one of the top hurlers in baseball, proving so once again Friday night while throwing six shutout innings in an 11-0 victory against the visiting Colorado Rockies.

Kershaw improved to 16-9, but the stat that’ll likely stand out for years to come is his ERA. He dropped that mark to 1.83, the lowest in the major leagues since Pedro Martinez posted a 1.74 as a member of the Boston Red Sox in 2000, and the lowest by a southpaw since Ron Guidry of the New York Yankees in 1978 (1.74).

Kershaw also became the first pitcher since Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves (1993-95) to lead the majors in ERA for three consecutive seasons and just the second member of the Dodgers to finish with a sub-2.00 ERA. Sandy Koufax accomplished that feat three times in the 1960s.

The Dodgers made things easy on Kershaw by scoring four runs in the first, another in the third and three more in the fourth on Carl Crawford’s three-run blast. Kershaw had a hand in that, too, singling with one out before Crawford launched his sixth home run of the season.

Adrian Gonzalez and A.J. Ellis also homered for the Dodgers, and Juan Uribe had three hits and two RBIs.

Kershaw showed he was on his game right from the start, striking out Charlie Blackmon on three pitches to open the game. He twice struck out soon-to-be-retired first baseman Todd Helton. Kershaw allowed four hits among his 82 pitches, struck out eight and didn’t walk a batter.

Of course, the Dodgers can’t seem to take two steps forward without taking one back this season. Yasiel Puig left the game in the top of the sixth after fouling a pitch off his left foot for the second time in the game. He returned to the batter’s box and hit the next pitch in the air to right field, limping noticeably as he jogged to first.

The injury brought back memories of the last weekend series at Dodger Stadium, when the hosts lost Puig, fellow outfielders Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford and shortstop Hanley Ramirez to injuries. Ethier remains sidelined with a lower left leg injury.

The other downside Friday night was the St. Louis Cardinals' beating the Chicago Cubs, assuring the Dodgers of a road game Thursday when they open the playoffs against either the Cardinals or Atlanta Braves.

But on this night, once again, it was all about Kershaw.

“He’s still the same kid who was tough and worked hard and was hard-headed, in a sense, with his stuff, but he’s come so far from the standpoint of his willingness to get better,” said Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, who played five seasons with Guidry in New York.

Kershaw didn’t hold runners on base very well when he first joined the Dodgers. Now he does. He had only two pitches in his arsenal, a fastball and a curve, but has since added a slider and changeup. He dominated just one side of the plate. Now he owns both corners. He’s even become a better hitter.

“He has just evolved,” Mattingly said. “He’s a total different matchup for you as a hitter than he used to be. This is obviously the same guy, the same person, but you probably wouldn’t recognize him if you looked at the games he pitched then versus now.”

Kershaw was a wide-eyed 20-year-old when he made his first postseason appearance five years ago, pitching two innings of relief in a five-game loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship Series. He returned to the postseason the following year and made three starts before the Dodgers were again cut down in the NLCS.

Four years later, Kershaw gets another shot at winning a World Series. Just getting to the playoffs is no longer good enough.

“Nobody remembers second place,” Kershaw said. “Nobody remembers who won the American League or who won the National League, they remember who won the World Series. So getting to the playoffs is nice, it’s definitely a huge accomplishment, but at the end of the day, unless you win the whole thing, no one remembers.”

ESPN baseball insider Jim Bowden joined Max & Marcellus to discuss the Dodgers' postseason chances, including which teams they should fear.

Click here to hear the full interview.

And what is up with Brian Wilson chewing out the Giants CEO? Ramona Shelburne and Marcellus Wiley weigh in as well.

LOS ANGELES -- With the start of the postseason less than a week away, getting all the Los Angeles Dodgers in a row continues to be management's primary focus.

Most of the Dodgers lined up for the team picture Friday at Dodger Stadium and then prepped for their series opener against the visiting Colorado Rockies, but injured outfielder Andre Ethier was at the team’s spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.

Ethier, who’s been sidelined the last two weeks with shin splits near his left ankle, took 15 at-bats during a simulated game earlier in the day, manager Don Mattingly said. The Dodgers sent Ethier to Camelback Ranch to keep his timing sharp at the plate, though he continues to be limited to straight-ahead running.

“That’s the main reason for going there, to get 10 to 15 [at-bats] a day,” Mattingly said.

It’s the same regimen the Dodgers used for Matt Kemp as he worked his way back from ankle and hamstring injuries earlier this month. Kemp is hitting .355 since his Sept 16 return.

The other player who’s being monitored closely is shortstop Hanley Ramirez. He’s in the starting lineup for Friday’s opener against the Rockies, but likely won’t play in Saturday’s game and Sunday’s status is still to be determined, Mattingly said.

Ramirez has battled hamstring injuries this season and, more recently, an irritated nerve in his back that has caused hamstring tightness. The goal is to have Ramirez as fresh as possible for Thursday’s playoff opener against either the Atlanta Braves or St. Louis Cardinals, likely to be played on the road.

“He’s not going to want to come out once we get there,” Mattingly said. “He’ll accept all of this, knowing that gives him the best chance of playing every day [in the opening round].”

Left-hander pitcher Chris Capuano is also available to pitch out of the bullpen, Mattingly said. Capuano is coming off a strained groin muscle and hasn’t pitched since Sept 6. He made 20 starts for the Dodgers this season, but his best chance of making the postseason roster is as a reliever.

Capuano, a nine-year veteran, has never pitched in the postseason.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The offense has stalled. They have frittered away a chance at home-field advantage. Their momentum heading into the playoff is virtually exhausted.

All of which means what, exactly, when the bright lights come on somewhere other than at Dodger Stadium next Thursday, when the Dodgers begin the postseason on national TV? Depends on whom you ask. To manager Don Mattingly, it's all meaningless -- though he used a stronger word for it.

"You know, I'd like to see all kinds of things. I'd love to see us go out and get 10 runs a night and throw shutouts and everybody get their outs, but I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think any of it's going to matter one bit," Mattingly said. "What's going to matter is the game next Thursday."

If Mattingly's words don’t convince you, perhaps his lineups will. Yet Thursday was one of those evenings when Mattingly started nearly all of his frontline guys, with catcher A.J. Ellis the only healthy regular who wasn't in the starting lineup.

And still, they allowed Tim Lincecum to turn back the clock a couple of years in what may have been his final start as a Giant in a 3-2 Dodgers loss.

The Dodgers were eliminated from the race for best record in the National League. And, unless the St. Louis Cardinals implode this weekend at home against the last-place Chicago Cubs and the Dodgers sweep the Colorado Rockies, the Dodgers will begin the playoffs on the road.

The bigger worry is that the Dodgers can't generate any momentum going into October. Lately, they seem to be gazing ahead at the playoffs rather than focusing on these final regular-season games. They're 6-9 since Sept. 10.

Angel Pagan hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth inning off reliever Paco Rodriguez, who hadn't pitched in more than a week. One of the Dodgers' best relievers has been struggling for a solid month.

(Read full post)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Clayton Kershaw playfully took ground balls at shortstop off the bat of third-base coach Tim Wallach during batting practice Wednesday afternoon at AT&T Park.

It was a bit awkward since he's a left-handed thrower, of course, but Kershaw scooped several balls up the middle and shoveled to second using his glove. He went into the hole, spun and made a nice, firm throw on the money to Dee Gordon.

It gave the impression that, should every other player on the Los Angeles Dodgers' roster capable of playing shortstop go down, he could probably do it.

Why not? There's very little Kershaw hasn't accomplished for the Dodgers in keeping other teams from scoring this season. He leads the major leagues in ERA (1.88), WHIP (.92) and ERA+. He leads the National League with 224 strikeouts, fewer than only Yu Darvish and Max Scherzer in the major leagues.

He's a 25-year-old Cy Young winner who, by virtually all measures, is having his finest season. After he polishes off his regular season with Friday night's start at Dodger Stadium against the Colorado Rockies, he figures to become only the third pitcher since 2000 to finish a season with a sub-2.00 ERA, joining Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez.

He will be only the second Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher to do it. The other, of course, was the man he's so often compared to, Sandy Koufax, who did it four times.

Yet, at 15-9, Kershaw is tied for 10th in the majors in wins going into Thursday's games. He is tied for 22nd in winning percentage.

In recent seasons, Cy Young voters have become astute enough to look beyond wins in selecting the league's best pitcher, so Kershaw stands little chance of missing out on his second Cy Young Award in three seasons. The San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum won the award in 2009 going 15-7. Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners won it in 2010 at 13-12.

But does that go far enough?

There has been a movement among some statistically-minded fans, led by MLB Network anchor Brian Kenny, to get rid of the win as an official statistic. Many of those people also believe Kershaw should be the league MVP. On Twitter, the campaign trends under #killthewin. Kershaw could be the poster child for the movement, but neither he nor fellow Cy Young winner Zack Greinke, the Dodgers’ 1-A, is in favor of such a drastic move.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Every afternoon, Dodgers left-hander Paco Rodriguez spends part of it lounging on clubhouse furniture with what looks like a massive ice pack wrapped around his left arm. The device is connected to a small computer.

According to the manufacturer, it provides "dynamic compression to limbs compromised by poor circulation." Other Dodgers players have used the the same device to help increase blood flow in various parts of their body.

Rodriguez, one of the key Dodgers relievers, hasn't pitched since the day before the Dodgers clinched the NL West, a span of eight days without entering a game. But he says he feels perfectly sound.

"It's just a matter of getting an opportunity," Rodriguez said.

The Dodgers, mindful of his heavy workload and the fact he is finishing his second full season in professional baseball, have tried to limit his use. He was told he was off limits for the Dodgers' Sept. 8 and 9 games. Since then, his role simply hasn't come up much.

Rodriguez has warmed up in the bullpen without getting into a game.

"We really do feel like we need to get him into a game," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "But we don't want to just put him in a game. We want to make sure it's the right situation."

* Mattingly said it's unlikely Andre Ethier, who has an injured left ankle, will play in a game before the end of the regular season Sunday, but that the team will try to set up a simulated game to get him at-bats and that it's possible Ethier could still make the first-round playoff roster.

Here are lineups for Thursday's game:

Dodgers

1. Yasiel Puig RF
2. Carl Crawford LF
3. Hanley Ramirez SS
4. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
5. Matt Kemp CF
6. Juan Uribe 3B
7. Mark Ellis 2B
8. Tim Federowicz C
9. Edinson Volquez RHP

Giants

1. Angel Pagan CF
2. Gregor Blanco LF
3. Brandon Belt 1B
4. Buster Posey C
5. Hunter Pence RF
6. Tony Abreu 2B
7. Brandon Crawford SS
8. Nick Noonan 3B
9. Tim Lincecum RHP

ESPNLA.com's Mark Saxon looks ahead to the playoffs for the Dodgers and the long offseason for the Angels.