I don’t think the word new means what Dodger management thinks it means. They keep throwing that word around as if it applies to this team, and it doesn’t. It may apply to the concrete sculptures of bobbleheads and baseballs that are strewn around the concourses. It may apply to the larger clubhouses that no fan will ever see. And it may apply to the ticket prices that ask $30 for a Top Deck seat for “Premium Games.” But it doesn’t apply to the team, to its play in the last two games, nor, as I’ve heard tell, to the long lines at the concession stands.

That bottom of the sixth, when Mark Ellis singled, Carl Crawford singled and Skip Schumaker got hit by a pitch to load the bases for Matt Kemp looked a lot like “The Same Old Blue” when Kemp hit into a double play and then Adrian Gonzalez struck out swinging. They only got one run out of an inning that should have been a scorefest, and the Giants, who had taken advantage of Josh Beckett and an error to score four in the third, went on to win 5-3.

I am in no way wishing the Dodgers to failure. I want them to win. I want them to thrive. But, ironically, if they keep playing like this, it might get me back to the stadium. Seats on Stub Hub will be going for 45 cents again, just like last year.

Look at that headline. It’s beyond ridiculous, as is the article by Dylan Hernandez.

As I wrote in my post-game recap last night, Justin Sellers’ errors had nothing do to with why the Dodgers lost. Hernandez pins the entire debacle on Sellers, and that is just so unfair.

The Dodgers lost because they couldn’t hit Madison Bumgarner. End of story. The Giants had no trouble hitting our new Korean phenom, Hyun-Jin Ryu. Luckily, a bunch of double plays saved his ass over and over. But all the Giants needed was the one run they managed to score in the fourth. So the game was essentially over before the seventh inning, when Sellers made two errors, one of which resulted in a run. Even Don Mattingly, in a quote from Hernandez’s story, says, “Nothing happened in that inning that changed anything.”

I have long regarded Bill Plaschke as a fair-weather Dodger fan. And I suspect there are elements on the Times’ editorial staff (other than the obvious, T.J. Simers) who hate the Dodgers too. (Nine times out of 10, the team will only get a photo in the paper if it is an image of them failing.) But I always thought before that Hernandez was fairly accurate. This was a low blow.

Shame on you, Dylan Hernandez, for kicking a scrappy fill-in shortstop when he’s down!

Tonight
We’ll see the pitching matchup of Dodger Josh Beckett and Giant Tim Lincecum. Beckett hasn’t done anything particularly special since donning the Blue, but I guess he once had a hint of greatness in him. Maybe it will rear its head tonight. Lincecum, once the darling of every sports writer in the world, has lost a lot of his effectiveness the past two seasons. These right-handers seem a pretty even match. We’ll see.