MLB teams
Mark Saxon, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Matt Kemp adds new fuel to Dodgers

MLB, Los Angeles Dodgers

LOS ANGELES -- A year ago, Matt Kemp gamely hobbled around, cheering on his team from crutches. He got on and off airplanes to Atlanta and St. Louis with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates knowing he was less than three weeks away from having ankle surgery that, at the time, doctors portrayed as the only way to save his career.

"Last year was a disappointing year for me, as far as sitting there and watching my team be successful," Kemp said. "I thought I could have helped them a lot."

Mike Matheny could see it unfold this season from thousands of miles away. Players and former players tend to have a better idea, really the only idea, of the grind a 162-game schedule puts on players' bodies, particularly bodies that are expected to heal through that grind, to the extent that is even physically possible.

After Kemp hit the decisive home run to beat Matheny's St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 and even the teams' National League Division Series at a game apiece, Matheny credited Kemp for grinding through what everyone in baseball knew was a brutal one-two blow of injuries to his shoulder and ankle. And, to Matheny's dismay, everyone in baseball is becoming increasingly aware that Kemp is healthier than he has been in nearly 2½ years, suddenly, at an inopportune time for the Cardinals. Kemp led the major leagues with a .606 slugging percentage after the All-Star Game.

The last time Kemp was physically sound, in April 2012, he might have been the best player in baseball.

"I always respect how these guys just push even when they're not right physically," Matheny said. "They figure out a way to stay in there and fight. But then they're rewarded once they do come around to full health."

A year ago, in the NLCS, Matheny and his coaches, catchers and pitchers didn't have to spend a minute figuring out how to get Kemp out. They barely had to worry about Hanley Ramirez, whose rib was cracked by an errant fastball in Game 1, and they barely had to worry about how to contain Dee Gordon's speed, because he didn't have a position to play. They're dealing with a lot of new things as they try to figure out how to navigate the remainder of this series. The Dodgers, fueled in part by Kemp's power but sustained by hot hitters 1 through 7 in their lineup, scored more than six runs per game in September, only the seventh time that happened in any month since the team moved to L.A. in 1958.

"Our team's been playing amazing the past month. At least I felt like we've got to be one of the best offenses in the game right now," Zack Greinke said. "Our defense has been playing great, and our pitching has been the weak link, which wasn't the case the whole year, but it's how good the rest of our team's been playing."

Finding the right guy to pitch the eighth inning is as puzzling as they worried it would be. If you thought J.P. Howell instead of Clayton Kershaw should have faced Matt Carpenter in the seventh inning in Game 1, you probably feel a little less strongly about it after seeing Carpenter launch a tying home run off Howell in the eighth inning of Game 2.

It's not that this thing now sets up as a Dodgers walkover, of course, no matter how well they're swinging. They've already used their two best starting pitchers, at home, and the Cardinals got to fly back over the mountains with a split. Who knows what the Dodgers can expect from Kershaw the next time he takes the mound after the past two postseason beatings he has gotten from this team.

But with the way the Dodgers have been swinging, none of that might matter. They managed to score nine runs in a game Adam Wainwright started on Friday and, though Lance Lynn was able to escape jams to limit their damage Saturday, there was no evidence their offense lost its edge. The Dodgers have three regulars hitting .400 or better in this series and four guys with at least two RBIs. The Cardinals have one regular, Jon Jay, hitting .400 or better and two guys, Carpenter and Matt Holliday, have driven in 75 percent of their runs.

The Dodgers got a lot of attention in July and August 2012 when they traded for Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to inject instant legitimacy in their offense, but it wasn't until now that they have truly seen it work as they'd planned. That's mostly a result of health. Until now, they've barely had enough time to form any offensive chemistry because somebody was always on the disabled list. The chemistry is here now and it's bubbling pretty good, often producing bubble parties in the dugout.

"I tell you what, it's as good a focus as I think we've had offensively as far as the battles and seeing every guy kind of fighting and fighting," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "I thought their guy was good tonight. His stuff was live. I know at this time of year, everybody's pretty focused, but for the last month or so, our guys have been pretty good about grinding things out."

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