Braves Lose Eighth Straight Post Season Series as Dodgers Advance

The Los Angeles Dodgers started pitcher Clayton Kershaw on short rest in the hope of eliminating the Atlanta Braves on October 7th, and the move paid off.  Kershaw, a front runner for the National League Cy Young Award, didn’t get the victory but pitched six strong innings and allowed no earned runs (the Braves scored two unearned runs in the fourth inning).  The Dodgers won 4-3 on Juan Uribe’s two run homer in the eighth.  Carl Crawford hit two solo home runs to provide the rest of  Los Angeles offense. 

The Dodgers won the best of five Division Series 3-1, and advance to the National League Championship Series and will play the winner of the Pirates-Cardinals series.  The Braves will go home early again.  Atlanta has now lost seven straight post season series, including last year’s Wild Card one game elimination.  They haven’t won a post season series since beating the Houston Astros in a Division Series in 2001, before losing to the eventual World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.  That’s six Division Series, one Wild Card, and one National League Championship Series if you’re keeping score.

A few times this season, the Braves took issue with opposing players whom they said “disrespected” them by violating Baseball’s “Unwritten Rules”.  This occurred most recently after Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez hit a home run off of Paul Maholm in the final week of the season, which led to a bench clearing scuffle.  Hey, guys, maybe you should quit worrying about unwritten rules and start worrying about winning in the post season, which will earn you that respect you say you don’t have.