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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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The Dodgers’ new owners have spent more than $600 million in acquiring players since they bought the team less than one year ago. They will enter the 2013 season with the highest payroll (more than $220 million) in baseball history.

Now the only question is if they can they turn money into wins.

We’ll take a look at some of the issues facing the Dodgers as they enter a season filled with promise but, as always, fraught with peril. What are the costs -- and what are the opportunities -- inherent in such a high-stakes gamble?

Next up: Is third-year manager Don Mattingly the man to lead this team far into October?


The Dodgers gave $42 million to a Cuban defector, Yasiel Puig, they had scarcely had a chance to scout. They put about $100 million into a stadium they won’t even commit to staying in over the long term. They paid $62 million to sign a pitcher, Hyun-Jin Ryu, that their general manager, Ned Colletti, had never seen in person.

To cap it all off, they signed (at the time) the most expensive right-handed pitcher in baseball history, Zack Greinke.

But while all this was going on, they declined to pick up a one-year option on manager Don Mattingly, probably for less than $2 million. No matter what the club says or how gracefully Mattingly accepts it, that is a telling omission.

Exactly what it tells us isn’t quite as crystalline. Does it mean Dodgers owners or president Stan Kasten -- I don’t think it’s Colletti -- aren’t sold on Mattingly’s style? Do they think he’s too laid-back to manage a team with massively paid players up and down the roster, that he won’t be forceful enough to stand up to all the egos?

Does it mean they want to retain a lever -- Mattingly’s job status -- should this experiment in hyperconsumption prove misguided? Or, is it, despite all appearances, simply a matter of time before they lock up his services?

Until the Dodgers exercise Mattingly’s 2014 option, the players will know their popular manager is in limbo. Might that add to the already sizable pressure on their shoulders?

Whatever fans think of Mattingly’s style, it’s hard to imagine he’s not well-liked inside his clubhouse. Players have to respect his resume. He was a fringe Hall of Fame-caliber player, a .307 lifetime hitter and team captain. He seems relatively easy to play for. He rarely criticizes players in the media, probably because he played under George Steinbrenner, who seemed to relish it.

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LOS ANGELES -- In the first three innings of the past three games, the Los Angeles Dodgers had half as many hits -- three -- as the San Francisco Giants had runs.

Not a good formula for a team that is built on pitching, defense, camaraderie and just enough offense to eke games out. So while it may seem as though the offense is to blame for this week's three-game sweep and the team's subsequent plunge into second place, don't look past the pitching staff.

Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Hanley Ramirez and Shane Victorino went three days without getting a meaningful hit. Until the eighth inning Wednesday -- after the Dodgers were long since buried in the game -- the offense looked as though it had been lost by luggage handlers on their most recent road trip.

But teams tend to look flat when they're scrambling to get back to even. Hitting is easier when you're playing loose. Pitching is easier with a lead.

In other words, the Dodgers followed the exact formula for losing these kinds of games. Give people such as Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and, yeah, even Tim Lincecum a lead and you're starting the race by tripping out of the blocks. Especially if you're the Dodgers. They are 25-38 when the other team scores first, 5-44 when they're trailing after six innings.

Clayton Kershaw gave up a double to Angel Pagan leading off Monday's game, which seemed to set the tone for the 27 innings that followed. The Giants scored two runs in the first inning the next night off Joe Blanton and three in the first inning Wednesday off Chris Capuano. It was an escalator to failure in a rivalry series between pitching-rich, offense-challenged teams.

"They kind of got us on the ropes," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "You don't want to give Matt Cain a three-run lead the way he throws the baseball."

It's tough to draw sweeping conclusions about the Dodgers aside from the fact that they are involved in a lot of sweeping. Of their past four home series, three have been sweeps, one in the Dodgers' favor, two in the other team's favor.

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LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers didn't exactly bring their 'A' games in their most meaningful series so far.

The San Francisco Giants beat them 8-4 Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium to complete the three-game sweep and grab a 2 1/2-game lead in the NL West. The Dodgers, who pulled a similar trick on the Giants up north last month, were outscored 14-6 in the three games, their top hitters all falling into slumps.

The Dodgers have lost 12 of their past 17 home games.

The Good:

Rubby Dub-Dub. Rubby De La Rosa returned after missing just over a year following elbow ligament-replacement surgery and did just fine. His anatomy appeared to remain intact and his velocity, mid-90s, was just a tick off last year's. Jamey Wright jogged in and allowed the two guys De La Rosa walked to score, but it was otherwise a fairly encouraging step forward for the 23-year-old. De La Rosa could give the Dodgers another crucial hard thrower in the bullpen.

Containment tactic. The Dodgers pitchers did not -- repeat not -- allow part-time, light-hitting shortstop Joaquin Arias to hit for the cycle or break any RBI records. They held Arias to 3-for-4 with two doubles, a home run and five RBIs. Whew.

Pick an Ellis, any Ellis. It's a bit baffling that A.J. Ellis hits eighth so frequently considering he's one of the Dodgers' best on-base guys and he has a better batting average than every regular other than Matt Kemp. While the rest of the lineup was inert, the catcher had a single, a double and hit a deep drive to the wall in right-center that was caught. Mark Ellis also had two hits and also has the same last name.

The Bad:

Early damage. It's not that the Dodgers pitched poorly in this series, but they were playing from behind in all three games because their pitchers couldn't get out of the first inning with the 0-0 tie intact. For teams that rely on winning close games, that's a bad formula. Chris Capuano gave up three first-inning runs, including Arias' third home run of 2012. Capuano steadied himself for a while, but unraveled in the sixth.

Missing spark. The slumps of Kemp and Andre Ethier may have been the primary culprits in this rough offensive series, but Shane Victorino wasn't exactly a dynamic force atop the lineup. Victorino had two hits in 13 at-bats and those were the only times he got on base. The first two games of the series were low scoring and the Dodgers could have used Victorino's disruptiveness on the bases, but it never emerged because he couldn't get on.

Bereft of bench. Is there another team in the history of baseball that would have used a sub-.190 hitter to pinch-hit in all three games of a big series? That would take too much time to research, but the fact that Juan Uribe appeared in all three sums up the Dodgers' bench. It's about as thin as you can get. Asked if there could be help in the waiver trade market or at Triple-A, Don Mattingly hemmed and hawed for a while but basically said, "No."