Coming out of the All-Star break, the Los Angeles Dodgers faced perhaps their toughest stretch of the season, playing 17 straight days, 10 games on the road, and all against potential playoff teams.
They closed out that stretch on Sunday afternoon with a win over the Houston Astros to avoid being swept at home, finishing with a 9-8 record overall going into their first day off of the second half on Monday.
While it is not as good of a record as he had hoped, Kenley Jansen was still pleased with how the Dodgers played in the grueling stretch and to finish it with a winning record, via Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times:
“I’ll take it,” closer Kenley Jansen said. “Yeah, you look back and question yourself, this and that, but the thing is we played hard. That’s the one thing I liked about it. We played hard. And we got everything done, and that’s all you can worry about. It’s a winning record.”
The Dodgers are still very much in the postseason picture, beginning Monday tied with the Arizona Diamondbacks for first place in the National League West.
Los Angeles now enters a stretch where they have an off day every week during the month of August, which should help keep players fresh for a potential pennant race. As it stands, Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Alex Wood and Ross Stripling are among those dealing with nagging injuries.
The Dodgers return to the field in Tuesday when they begin a two-game series with perhaps the hottest team in all of baseball, the Oakland Athletics. From there it’s off to Colorado for a four-game series against the Rockies.
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