A telling statistic

Someone ran across this little tidbit this morning: From May 16 through last night, a span of eight games over nine days, the Dodgers have exactly EIGHT extra-base hits. That is last in the majors, and half as much as the next-lowest total, 16 by Arizona (which goes a long way toward explaining why the Dodgers have actually been GAINING ground on the Snakes even though they haven’t been hitting well). The Dodgers have scored 26 runs in those eight games, an average of 3.25/game. But over the past three games, during which they have gone 0-21 with RISP, they have scored just six runs. Five of those came in Wednesday night’s win over the Reds, and three of THOSE scored on a wild pitch, a passed ball and that play where Johnny Cueto turned around and fired a pickoff throw into the second row behind first base. Another one scored on a well executed suicide squeeze by Chin-lung Hu. And yet somehow, in those eight games beginning May 16, the Dodgers are a respectable 4-4. That could bode well if this offense ever gets untracked — and if it ever finds a way to stay consistent with Furcal out of the lineup.