August 18, 2025
The Dodgers have stabilized things for the time being after sweeping the Padres over the weekend. That is the most baseball thing in the world. The Dodgers get swept by the Angels, then turn around and sweep the Padres, who have been on fire. The talent is there, but the consistency is not. When they hit they can’t pitch. When they pitch they can’t hit. It’s really good to see the top 6 producing again, especially Mookie and Teo, who finally seemed to get going. The starting pitching has been outstanding for a while, but the bullpen is very up and down. The Dodgers closer is basically the whatever flavor of the day Andrew Friedman’s computer chooses. Hopefully getting some of their injured relievers will help this, however, they will still need to be more consistent. At the moment, those types of inconsistencies make it hard to imagine that come October, they can put together a run to defend their World Series Title.
Meanwhile, the Angels are still the Angels. They sweep the Dodgers, and you think they are going to rocket up the standings, but then they follow it up by losing 2 of 3 to the last place A’s. The Halos pitching got rocked this weekend, and they fall to 7 games out of the wild card chase with only 6 weeks left of the regular season. In case you had any hopes of this team making the playoffs, they have a -71 run differential, which is not great. Arte Moreno doesn’t care though. As long as he can put butts in the seats in August and September for the big games, he could care less if this team is actually winning or not.
It’s time to officially start worrying about Matt Stafford. Dude has a back injury and can’t workout. Dude starts to workout, then can’t workout. The media starts asking if he worked out, and the answer seems like a resounding no, judging by how irritated the staff was at the questions the media was asking. Now there is word this morning that he is working out and throwing. We’ll see how his back reacts. If in fact Stafford has to be shut down for any significant period of time, that is going to torpedo the Rams chances of going to the Super Bowl. At best, I could see this team being held together by 5-6 games by Jimmy G. He’s a capable backup, but he’s not going to put this team in the upper echelon of the NFC.
The Chargers have their own injury issues to deal with as well. Quentin Johnston got knocked out on Saturday against the Rams. This comes after Rashawn Slater suffered a season ending knee injury, which is going to be a big problem in a competitive AFC West with fierce pass rushes. Everybody seems to love the Denver Broncos, but they are also dismissing the Chiefs, while the Raiders are also much improved too. The Bolts will be in the mix because they are well coached and have a great QB, but it’s going to be stiff competition just getting to the playoffs.
Speaking of injury scares, the Lakers got their own with Luka Doncic in the FIBA competition while playing for Slovenia. Doncic suffered a bone bruise while competing. Fortunately he appears to be ok. If Doncic got severely injured, that would in fact create a real conversation of whether or not Lebron would want out of LA for what may very well be the last season of his career. However, Doncic is like an NHL player, wanting to represent his country with pride in these international competitions, even if his team has very little chance of winning anything. That probably doesn’t sit well with a lot of us, since the Lakers have obviously made a huge investment in making him the face of the franchise. There’s really nothing they can do about it though.
Finally, these idiots that are calling for 2028 Olympics to be move from LA are truly nothing more than social media morons. The Olympics aren’t getting moved from LA people. LA could be ready for the Olympics in 5 minutes if necessary. Other countries and cities, with far less infrastructure and resources, have pulled it off in a few months. I can tell you that Paris did exactly that, when they weren’t ready about 8 weeks beforehand. The Olympics are something that California really needs for it’s economy, because well, its a state that is currently being run by people that shouldn’t be running a hot dog stand. Just because someone says something on social media doesn’t give it any credibility, so pay no attention to it.
