I'm Destined To Hate Bill Plaschke

I don't care a hill of beans about destiny. I accept that any team that wins a championship will have a few breaks, no different from our daily lives. Sometimes you catch all the traffic lights on the way to work. Sometimes every light is red. It has nothing to do with your destiny allowing you to get to work early. Rather it has more to do with the calculated pattern of the traffic grid, which on some days happens to coincide with your commute to the office and other days doesn't. Good thing no LA Times writer would attribute the Dodgers win over the Phillies yesterday to destiny because that would be silly and I might have to write about it.

[Opens LA Times Sports Section]
[Reading headlines]
[Comes to Bill Plaschke's Article]

Fuck me to Northridge. Guess I spoke to soon.

L.A. takes advantage of another playoff opportunity and makes runs happen.

By making runs happen do you mean the Phillies bullpen had a shitty 8th inning and coughed up the game? Or did they waive the magic fungo bat made of destiny and grizzle and runs mysteriously showed up on the scoreboard?

Destiny is not always about a fireworks show. Destiny is sometimes about a fight.

Too bad Chase Utley and his horrible error weren't on the side of destiny.

It's not always about the big swing, but sometimes the straining bunt, the hard slide, the dugout chat.

Manuel took out Pedro after 87 pitches in the bottom of the eight. There was the aforementioned Utley error. Park and Happ each walked a batter. But no, you're right Plaschke. Must have been destiny that carried the day.

A week ago at Dodger Stadium, one out from victory, the St. Louis Cardinals' Matt Holliday lost a fly ball and the division series.

It was a liner that he lost in the lights apparently. Players commit errors. Sometimes they occur in the ninth inning. Sometimes they occur in the playoffs. It has nothing to do with destiny.

On Friday, it was deja bloop, six outs from a Philadelphia Phillies victory when their second baseman lost the ball, a reliever lost the strike zone, and their manager lost his mind.

None of that is destiny, just bad baseball by the Phillies.

Amid the rubble the Dodgers found their first National League Championship Series win, two runs in the eighth inning giving them a 2-1 victory to even the series at one game apiece.

Two series, two handouts, two wins, almost makes you believe in . . .

What a bad article this is attributing the Dodgers win to destiny?

"Nope, I don't believe in destiny, no way," said Mark Loretta.

Mark Loretta, a man that understands baseball.

"You can get breaks in this game, but a lot of times teams don't do anything with them."

Oh you were doing so well, Mark.

"I don't care what anybody gives you, to win in this game you have to make things happen," Loretta said. "We make things happen."

You made Manuel take out Pedro prematurely? Did you make Utley throw the ball 98 feet wide of first base?

Indeed they do, standing firm while everything around them is crumbling, ignoring the giant distractions of a sweltering Dodger Stadium for three hours Thursday to focus on the important things.

Phillies incidentally were not sweltering as they lounged on La-Z-Boy Recliners and drank mai tais while their bat boy installed Carrier air conditioners throughout the locker room. Bunch of pussies. No wonder they lost.

They ignored the craziness in the owners' box, where noted Angels fan Kobe Bryant acted cool, that mayor dude acted silly, and the McCourts acted blissfully oblivious.

Jesus of Nazareth, what the fuck does Kobe have to do with the Dodgers being calm. Celebrities attend sporting events, especially in Los Angeles. And also dipshit, Kobe is from Philadelphia. Why wouldn't the Phillies have to deal with the craziness? Oh I guess they had to, but since the Phillies fold like oragami hats, Kobe's arrival threw the Phillies off their game in the 8th inning. Utley must have caught a glimpse of Bryant before he airmailed his throw to Nebraska.

They ignored the return of nearly unhittable Pedro Martinez, a former favorite son exacting one last ounce of revenge on the team that traded him.

Maybe if they didn't ignore Pedro they would have hit the ball.

They ignored a home run by Ryan Howard

Phillies pitches began crying after Utley's error. Probably why their pitchers couldn't find the strike zone, their eyes were full of tears.

"We play 27 outs here," Russell Martin said. "We believe, you play 27 outs and see what happens."

That is the reason the Washington Nationals lost 103 games this year, they only played 19 outs per game.

With Vicente Padilla having another out-of-body experience with nearly eight splendid innings, the Dodgers hung around and hung around and, finally, just like the Cardinals before them and the bell that hangs near them, the Phillies cracked.

Padilla is an ok pitcher. Not great. His ERA/WHIP/BAA is 4.33/1.39/.268. Statistically speaking he'll give up four or five runs next game and the Dodgers will probably lose.

If you think the Phillies, with Hamels and Lee, are going to go down without a whimper because of one bad half inning of baseball, you're very mistaken.

It began in the eighth inning when Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel inexplicably batted for Martinez even though Martinez had given up only two hits in 87 pitches.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. I probably would have left him in to see what he had. It was only 87 pitches and he would have enough time between yesterday and his next start to recoup if he threw 15-20 more pitches. The Dodgers weren't close to hitting Pedro all day. Then again I didn't talk to Pedro so I'm not sure how he felt.

"He was gone," Manuel said afterward. "I mean, I think he was spent."

Well ok.

Gone? Spent? This same guy who threw 130 pitches against the Mets on Sept. 13?

That was a month ago. Maybe he was laboring with the heat. Maybe his arm was a little more tired yesterday.

"We got Pedro out of there, and the momentum changed," Matt Kemp said.

There was also the error and two walks.

It changed when Casey Blake, batting .167 this postseason, greeted Chan Ho Park with a line drive off third baseman Pedro Feliz's glove and into left field.

Casey Blake got a hit off of Chan Ho Park, the greatest pitcher in baseball history. Destiny.

Changed when Ronnie Belliard, with only one sacrifice bunt all season, came to the plate, failed to get down a bunt on the first pitch, but kept trying.

Belliard also only had one last year. He did have a whopping six in 2007. He's a professional baseball player who doesn't have a ton of power. He should have some bunting skills.

"They took the bunt sign off, but I was going to do it anyway, I had to get him to second base," Belliard said.

Why listen to coaches when you have destiny on your side?

He pushed the second pitch back underneath Park's glove, and suddenly the Dodgers had two unlikely runners on base.

Destiny.

"In my short time here, it's been clear that this team never panics," Thome said.

How many teams panic? Like truly panic. I feel that is such a cliche sporting statement. Do the Astros run around in circles and shit themselves whenever they are down by one or more runs from the seventh inning on?

Even when they panic, they don't panic

So they do panic?

as Martin seemed to kill the rally with a grounder to third baseman Feliz, who threw to second baseman Utley to start what looked to be a double play.

If the fact that Martin almost grouded out is a sign of panic, then Pete Rose panicked himself into 11,605 out. What a shitty ballplayer he turned out to be.

Except Utley threw it five stories high, bouncing the ball against the Phillies' dugout, allowing pinch-runner Juan Pierre, who was at second base, to score the tying run.

Destiny.

Moments later, Andre Ethier came to the plate with two out, bases loaded, and an earful from Thome.

Earful from Thome sounds like a great name for a garage band.

The veteran grabbed Ethier as he was leaving the dugout and told him how reliever J.A. Happ had pitched him the previous night when he had drawn a walk.

Destin...huh? That sounds like one baseball player talking to another baseball player. Whatever. Destiny. It has to be destiny that brought Thome in that trade with the White Sox.

Whatever he said, it worked, as Ethier fell behind, 1 and 2, then patiently watched three consecutive balls to draw the walk that drove in the eventual winning run.

Destiny.

"Just like when you were a kid," Ethier said. "You swing at the good ones and lay off the bad ones."

The little things. The fighting things.

The destiny things.

It's going to be great to read Plaschke's article after the Phillies win in six games and the destiny theory blows up in his face.