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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 -- 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.

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.

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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 -- For a while, people were asking whether Ricky Nolasco should be the No. 3 or No. 4 starter in the playoffs. Now, a better question is whether he should be given the ball for any postseason starts.

That's how badly things have been going for Nolasco as the season winds down. For a month-and-a-half after the Dodgers acquired him from the Miami Marlins, he looked like the acquisition of the year.

After Wednesday's 6-4 loss to the San Francisco Giants, Nolasco (13-11) is 1-2 with a 12.75 ERA in his last three starts and he has given up 24 hits while pitching only 12 innings combined.

Wednesday was Nolasco's last start of the regular season. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly indicated the pitcher's stalled momentum won't impact how he feels about him as he sketches out his playoff rotation.

"Your guys are your guys," Mattingly said. "We're not all the sudden going to go do something different. Our guys are our guys. It's like saying a guy is struggling the last week, are you going to quit playing him?"

In his first 12 games with the Dodgers, Nolasco was 8-1 with a 2.07 ERA and he had held opponents to a .213 batting average.

On Wednesday, Nolasco put the Dodgers in a 3-0 hole in the second inning after Tony Abreu cranked a three-run triple to deep right field off the glove of Yasiel Puig, who lunged near the wall. Nolasco's best hope of holding onto the No. 4 spot is the Dodgers' lack of options. The next pitcher on the depth chart, Edinson Volquez, has pitched better lately, with a 3.50 ERA in his last three starts, but he is 9-12 with a 5.77 ERA for the season.

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LOS ANGELES -- Mark Ellis has 12 defensive runs saved, the most in the major leagues among second basemen not named Dustin Pedroia. He is eighth in something called ultimate zone rating, or UZR.

The gap between Ellis' defense and that of any other Dodgers second baseman is yawning, according to all the advanced statistical metrics.

And all of this means what, exactly, to Ellis?

"My agent tells me about them every once in a while, but honestly, I don't know what half of them mean. Nobody does," Ellis said. "I just go out there, try to put myself in the right spot and try to catch the ball."

That last comment encapsulates Ellis as a baseball player in 19 words. He just tries to put himself in the right spot and he tries to catch the ball.

Ellis is the least-flashy, least-obtrusive, lowest-maintenance everyday player on the Dodgers and, without many people knowing it, he's among the most valuable. On a team of brilliant athletes, $20 million-per-year salaries and puffed-out chests, Ellis falls under none of those categories. He's just a good player in all the ways most people don't bother to track.

Every other Dodger who has played second base this season combines for a minus-13 defensive runs saved, a chasm of 25 runs saved between those players and Ellis. The Dodgers are 68-35 when Ellis starts and 23-31 when he does not, entering Wednesday.

It all points to a player whose value is nowhere near suggested by his .264 batting average, his six home runs or his four stolen bases. It has become increasingly possible to isolate and study a player's value in every dimension of the game, but very few of those numbers show up in a box score on a daily basis.

Ellis routinely gives up at-bats to move runners over. He hangs on at second base in perilous situations and is among the best in the game at turning double plays.

"He’s just kind of day-in, day-out a solid player," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "You don't have to worry about Mark Ellis being ready to play or doing his work or anything at all."

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Barring some unforeseen circumstances -- or perhaps a misguided decision by the Los Angeles Dodgers to go with Ricky Nolasco -- Hyun-Jin Ryu will pitch Game 3 of the Dodgers' first-round playoff series.

If the Dodgers need that game to advance, or even if they need it to stave off elimination, it would appear they'll have the right guy on the mound. Ryu has certainly not looked overtaken by big moments.

Ryu pitched seven strong innings, giving up only four hits and a run in the Dodgers' 2-1 win over the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park on Tuesday. It was certainly not a playoff atmosphere -- the Giants have been playing out the string since August -- but it was a game the Dodgers had to have if they want to maintain hope of opening the playoffs at home. The Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals both won.

Ryu is 14-7 with a 2.97 ERA. Were it not for Miami phenom Jose Fernandez and the Dodgers' own Yasiel Puig, Ryu would have been a walkaway Rookie of the Year winner.

"I've surpassed my initial expectations," Ryu said through an interpreter. "Not that I thought it was going to be easy, but it's been much better than I thought. That's a good thing."

He had lost four of his previous five starts coming into Tuesday, but all four of those losses were quality starts. In a spotlight game in his native Korea, he pitched brilliantly in a Dodgers' win over the Cincinnati Reds and Korean superstar Shin-Soo Choo back in July. He gave up one earned run in his major league debut.

The Dodgers have gone 11-4 in his past 15 starts. Since the All-Star break, Ryu has walked nine batters in 11 starts while striking out 57. He can even hit a little, though his base running isn't exactly graceful.

"We couldn't have asked, really, for anything more," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Between now and the middle of next week, the Los Angeles Dodgers will be pondering the unkindest cut of all.

Jerry Hairston Jr. is a 12-year veteran who has won a World Series ring and competed in two postseasons. He has been part of the fabric of the Dodgers' clubhouse for the past two seasons. He's a gregarious, popular player who has, at times, helped bring along some of the team's young players.

But can the Dodgers afford to carry an aging, injury-prone utility player who, while playing sparingly, has batted .215 this season and .152 since Aug. 1?

"To be honest with you, I don't think about it," Hairston said. "The good thing about it is I don't make those decisions."

It's not as though the Dodgers don't know what their core is. They have four everyday options to play the outfield and, assuming Andre Ethier is healthy enough, they'll all be in the mix for heavy playing time in the playoffs. They have their five everyday infielders, including the catcher. They'll bring four starting pitchers with them and they haven't decided if they'll keep a fifth should they require a long man or emergency replacement.

They figure to bring seven relievers. Nick Punto and Skip Schumaker have played significant roles and look like locks. Tim Federowicz is the No. 2 catcher, so he's on.

Michael Young has batted .385 since the Dodgers acquired him from the Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 31 and, since they got him in part because of his postseason experience, he seems like a safe bet.

But what about Dee Gordon, whose speed makes him a tempting weapon, but whose lack of polish in other areas could make him an iffy proposition? Or, Scott Van Slyke, who can provide power off the bench, but is also somewhat uni-dimensional?

Between Edinson Volquez, Carlos Marmol and Chris Capuano -- all veteran pitchers -- one, at most, figures to make the cut. What about Brandon League, who has pitched poorly all season but is signed for two more years at $7.5 million per season?

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SAN DIEGO -- The Los Angeles Dodgers' front office is on a nice little roll.

After most people had given up on Carlos Marmol, the Dodgers acquired him in exchange for an overpaid reliever and have received better-than-solid relief from the former closer. The only thing Edinson Volquez led the league in was hits allowed when the Dodgers scooped him up, and he has given them three pretty good starts.

Brian Wilson went from health risk to the team's No. 2 right-handed reliever.

But perhaps the Dodgers' best in-season acquisition, Michael Young, may have been the least-popular move at the time. When the Dodgers traded lefty Rob Rasmussen to get Young from the Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 31, it wasn't exactly universally lauded, particularly by the statistically minded. All he has done is bat .384 in a role he has never played and, on Sunday, come up with the only meaningful hit of the game in a 1-0 win over the San Diego Padres.

It's fair to say the Dodgers are happy with their return on investment thus far. Young could even play a key role in October, which was kind of the point of the trade, both for Young and the Dodgers.

"He's where he wants to be. He's in a good situation," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "We've talked about it before. Guys get older and they like to play for something."

Young cracked a run-scoring double to right field Sunday, one of the Dodgers' only signs of life against the Padres' hard-throwing pitcher, Andrew Cashner.

It's fitting that Young got the start against Cashner, because he's likely to get a spot start or more in the playoffs against hard-throwing pitchers. Juan Uribe has resurrected his career this season, but with his big swing and tendency to step toward third base, he's often susceptible to pitchers who throw in the mid-90s and faster.

Young, who has a short stroke and an up-the-middle approach, tends to hit good fastballs. That could come in handy against any of the possible playoff matchups the Dodgers face. All the potential opponents have hard throwers.

The Dodgers signed Young largely to pinch hit, a somewhat puzzling move considering he had barely done it before this season. Of the 1,965 major league games he had played before Sunday, he had started 1,926 of them.

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SAN DIEGO -- The Los Angeles Dodgers' bullpen looked more than ready for the postseason in a 1-0 win over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Sunday, keeping alive the team's hopes of opening the playoffs at Dodger Stadium.

Closer Kenley Jansen struck out the side in the ninth, the fourth scoreless inning of relief by Dodgers relievers.

The Dodgers are barely in the hunt for the best record in the National League any more, but there are lesser prizes worth pursuing. The Atlanta Braves won, giving them a 2½-game lead over the Dodgers, who have only six games remaining.

The Dodgers could still begin the playoffs at home if they can finish with a better record than any of the teams in the National League Central. Entering their night game, the St. Louis Cardinals had a 1½-game lead over the Dodgers in that race.

Between Zack Greinke and Andrew Cashner, two of the hottest pitchers in baseball, the teams showed barely a hint they were going to score as the afternoon wore on. Finally, the Dodgers broke the ice in the seventh inning.

With two outs, Michael Young cracked a deep fly ball to right field. It sailed over Will Venable's head, but Adrian Gonzalez wouldn't have been able to lumber all the way around from first if Venable hadn't mishandled the ball.

San Diego put together a rally in the next half of the inning off reliever Chris Withrow but couldn't score. Logan Forsythe took a 95-mph fastball for strike three and pinch hitter Mark Kotsay taped one back to Withrow to end the inning.

The Dodgers pulled Greinke after just five innings and 72 pitches despite the fact he was cruising through San Diego's far-from-intimidating lineup. The Padres got two runners on with nobody out in the third inning, but after Cashner's bunt moved them over, Greinke coaxed an infield pop-up from Alexi Amarista and a groundout from Ronny Cedeno.

Greinke gave up only two hits and struck out three in his five innings. It's likely he was pulled early because of the upcoming playoffs, but the Dodgers allowed ace Clayton Kershaw to throw 99 pitches over seven innings Saturday night.

SAN DIEGO -- Before the Los Angeles Dodgers took the field Saturday night to face the San Diego Padres, manager Don Mattingly gathered his players in the clubhouse for an impromptu meeting.

He didn't have a particularly long or motivational speech prepared. He simply outlined where the Dodgers are and what they have to do during the final games of the regular season before the playoffs start.

"They all know where we're at," Mattingly said. "It's about where we're going, not about where we've been."

Where the Dodgers are going will actually have a lot to do with how they play over the final week of the regular season. Despite clinching the NL West and their first playoff berth since 2009 on Thursday, the Dodgers still have no idea who they will play when the playoffs start and, more important, where they will be to open the postseason.

After Saturday's 4-0 win over the Padres, the Dodgers are tied in the overall NL standings with the Pittsburgh Pirates, one game ahead of the Cincinnati Reds, two games behind the St. Louis Cardinals and 2½ games back of the Atlanta Braves.

It would be natural to assume the Dodgers are still eyeing to claim the best record in the National League and home-field advantage in the playoffs, but the truth is they are more concerned about going into the playoffs healthy and rested.

"We feel like we can win anywhere," Mattingly said. "We feel like we can win on the road, but you want to be healthy. I would also like to be at home. I would much rather have home-field advantage but do I want home-field advantage and not have Hanley [Ramirez] or Adrian [Gonzalez] in the lineup? No. The priority is I'm going to try to get these guys as healthy as I can and keep them sharp."

The Dodgers have certainly been a strong road team this season. They have the best road record in the National League and the second-best road record overall. They won a franchise-record 15 consecutive road games this summer and celebrated clinching the division on the road by celebrating in the Arizona Diamondbacks' pool.

So Mattingly is more than comfortable taking his team on the road to open the postseason as long as his team is healthy.

"We're going to play, we're going to keep playing," Mattingly said. "But not at the risk of [playing someone hurt]. When medical says Hanley is a little tight, I'm not going to use him. We're going to be more safe than sorry later."

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SAN DIEGO -- The old adage in football is you take 24 hours to enjoy a big win before moving on to the next game. That's not really possible in baseball in which the daily grind of the regular season forces you back on the field for the next game within hours of the final out of the last game.

Don Mattingly, however, made sure the Los Angeles Dodgers had at least 24 hours to savor clinching the NL West before moving on to the rest of the regular season and attempting to secure home-field advantage in the playoffs.

Mattingly's lineup Saturday for the Dodgers' 4-0 win over the San Diego Padres returned to normalcy one night after he went with a lineup more reminiscent of a spring training game in Friday's 2-0 loss to the Padres.

"We want to win every day and we want to have home-field advantage, but we've been at this for close to 200 games when you count spring training," Mattingly said. "It's one of those where you felt like these guys needed to sit there and enjoy that and now we have more work to do and we're going back to work."

The Dodgers didn't waste any time getting back to work with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. The Cy Young favorite pitched seven scoreless innings, giving up only three hits and striking out 10. With one start left in the season, Kershaw owns a 1.88 ERA and will likely be the first Dodger since Sandy Koufax to end a season with a sub-2.00 ERA.

A.J. Ellis, who hit the winning home run to clinch the division in Arizona, hit a two-run homer to left in the fourth inning Saturday to get the Dodgers on the board first and score all the runs they'd really need with Kershaw starting.

Yasiel Puig put the game away with a two-run blast in the seventh inning that could have easily landed in the Gaslamp Quarter. Puig's home run was calculated at 457 feet, making it the second-longest home run in Petco Park history. The first was a 458-foot home run by Adrian Gonzalez in 2009. The two friends and teammates will no doubt be debating that one foot for a while.

Mattingly will now go into the final seven games of the regular season not only looking to gain home-field advantage but also shore up any issues the Dodgers might have heading into the playoffs.

"One of our goals coming out of spring training was to win the division and set ourselves up where we could do what we're doing," Mattingly said. "We also wanted to set our pitching up the way we want it. We've at least accomplished that much of it. It's now an opportunity for us to touch on some other things. This is a great opportunity for us."

SAN DIEGO -- Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly insists he would like to have home-field advantage in the playoffs. He's just not extreme about it.

The Dodgers' lineups figure to get more competitive as the team gets closer to its first playoff game on Oct. 3, but the first post-clinching effort didn't go so well. The Dodgers, or perhaps we should say the Isotopes, lost 2-0 to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Friday night.

The good news was nobody got hurt. In fact, nobody who figures prominently in the Dodgers' playoff plans really could have gotten hurt (barring a household accident), because none of those guys played until the ninth inning.

The bad news was that it's looking more and more likely the Dodgers will open the postseason on the road. They trail the Atlanta Braves by 3 ½ games and the St. Louis Cardinals by two. If the playoffs started Saturday, L.A. would be opening at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

One positive development was a strong outing by Edinson Volquez, who is competing for a spot as a long man/emergency starter on the Dodgers' postseason roster. Bear in mind that he was facing the Padres, his former team and the No. 13 offense in the National League. But he had his longest outing as a Dodger, 6 ⅓ innings. Volquez gave up two runs and five hits and struck out six batters.

One negative development was more sloppy defense by Dee Gordon, who threw a ball away after fielding Chris Denorfia's grounder in the first inning, leading to an unearned run. The Dodgers have begun using Gordon at second base -- and even toyed with using him in the outfield -- and that seems like a reasonable course of action at this point.

Gordon has seven errors in 24 games at shortstop this season. His speed could come in handy in October, but carrying him strictly as a pinch runner could be a luxury the Dodgers can't afford, particularly with a bench filled with veterans.

Mattingly plans to play his regular lineup behind Clayton Kershaw on Saturday, with the exception of Hanley Ramirez and Andre Ethier.

"We'll be back at it tomorrow," Mattingly said.

PHOENIX -- It was an unusual division title-winning season. It started with a gradual descent followed by a massive, unrelenting climb before culminating in a short, late-season dip. But in the end, the Los Angeles Dodgers found themselves right where they expected to be all along.

They're the National League West champions, and they have designs on grander goals than that.

The Dodgers became the first team in baseball to clinch a playoff spot with their wild 7-6 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Thursday afternoon.

After closer Kenley Jansen got Aaron Hill to fly out to left field, the Dodgers streamed onto the field. Jansen and catcher A.J. Ellis were locked in a bear hug when Clayton Kershaw leaped onto Jansen's back. Players began putting on gray T-shirts that read, "We own the West."

The team formed a scrum, which gravitated to the second-base area before the Dodgers took their celebration inside to the clubhouse.

Ellis, in a deep hitting slump entering the game, hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth inning.

Hanley Ramirez is making a pretty good argument that he's the Dodgers' MVP, presuming you don't think a starting pitcher enters the discussion. The problem has been keeping him on the field. He largely was the Dodgers' offense Thursday, hammering a pair of home runs and driving in four.

Ramirez has hit 20 home runs while playing in just 81 games, his season hampered by thumb, hamstring and, lately, back issues. He was pulled in the ninth inning after appearing to pull up after running hard to first base trying to leg out an infield single.

It looked as if the Dodgers might walk into the playoffs when Ramirez hit his first home run, a three-run shot, into the left-field stands in the third inning. After the Dodgers had bumbled about for two weeks trying to get this division clinched, it seemed to ease the pressure in the dugout.

But Ricky Nolasco came unhinged in the third inning, giving up six runs on seven rapid-fire hits. With the Dodgers' bullpen a bit ragged after Stephen Fife's short start the night before, Don Mattingly left Nolasco out there and he managed to get through two more scoreless innings to give the Dodgers hope of a rally.

Yasiel Puig continued his beginner's-mistake-a-day tour getting a bad read on Jerry Hairston Jr.'s bloop to right field before Ramirez's home run. What would have gone for a base hit became a fielder's choice when Gerardo Parra easily threw Puig out at second. Afterward, Hairston was captured on camera yelling and gesturing in Puig's direction. Adrian Gonzalez later was seen in the dugout with his arm around Puig talking to him.

That's OK. The Dodgers have exactly two weeks to work out any issues before they play another game that matters.