You can circle the date now — Sept. 24, a week from Wednesday.
No heroics required. Keeping pace in the standings will be just fine.
If the Dodgers simply pick up a half-game over the next nine days, they can clinch the National League West on Sept. 24 — at Dodger Stadium, against the Giants, with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. Yeah, that would work.
On Sunday, the Dodgers extended their lead over the Giants to three games, with 13 to play. None of the Dodgers would go so far as to call the race over, at least not publicly.
“Still too close,” first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said. “Only an idiot would say that it’s over.”
On Friday, the Dodgers lost the series opener, 9-0. They lost Hyun-Jin Ryu to injury. They lost another game of their lead, which had shrunk from six games to one.
No matter. They romped on Saturday, 17-0, and they rode Kershaw to victory Sunday.
The coming week for the Dodgers: three games against the Colorado Rockies, the last-place team in the NL West and losers of six consecutive games, then four games against the Chicago Cubs, the last-place team in the NL Central and losers of eight of their last nine games.
So maybe the Dodgers clinch before Sept. 24.
“We know we’re close. Every day is another day closer,” outfielder Carl Crawford said. “But we still have work to do.”
The Dodgers did what they had to do over the weekend, winning the games started by Kershaw and Zack Greinke. They forced the Giants to do something the Dodgers need not do — watch the scoreboard and pray for help.
“We control our own destiny,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve controlled our own destiny for two months.
“I think probably 80% of the guys in here don’t really care if the Giants win or lose. If we win our games, we are going to win the division.
“We don’t need them to lose games. We can take care of it ourselves.”
Dodgers fans might have hit a panic button when Ryu got hurt and the team got pounded Friday, but the Dodgers players say they did not.
“Knowing that Madison Bumgarner was out of the way kind of helped out,” catcher A.J. Ellis said of the Giants’ ace. “He’s their version of Clayton. We had our two best guys lined up, and we had finished facing their best guy.”
Now the Dodgers have a three-game series in Colorado, with their two best guys idle. Roberto Hernandez starts Monday, Dan Haren on Tuesday, Carlos Frias on Wednesday.
“It isn’t even close to being over,” Ellis said. “We have to go to Denver, and that place can be a nightmare this time of year.”
The Dodgers have won five of seven games in Colorado this season. But lose two of three this week, and the lead could be back down to one game, and the weekend gain could be gone.
“You go into Colorado and you don’t play well, you give it right back,” Manager Don Mattingly said. “We want to keep the pressure on.”
This is how the Dodgers envisioned their September. They adjusted the pitching rotation so that Greinke and Kershaw would face the Giants here, so that Greinke and Kershaw would face the Giants at Dodger Stadium next week, and so that Kershaw would be lined up to start a playoff tiebreaker on regular rest — or, better yet, to start Game 1 of the playoffs.
Looks like Game 1 of the playoffs.
“That’s the dream scenario for us,” Ellis said.
For Dodgers fans, the dream scenario would be clinching at home, in the faces of the Giants.
“That would be nice,” Crawford said. “Whenever we clinch, it will be nice. We just want to get it done.”
Twitter: @BillShaikin
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