Dodgers Web Musings: The numbers say it’s over

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The Dodgers are so done. The season is so over, the team is so finished it awaits only its final coup de grace.

If nothing else, baseball is about numbers. And alas, blue bleeders, it’s all there in bad digits.

It was troubling enough when the Wall Street Journal reported that, since the wild-card format was introduced in 1996, just 9% of teams that have had a losing record on June 1 have gone on to to win 90 games, the number typically considered the playoff minimum.

But now comes Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, who writes that in that same period 96% of all teams that were both at least five games under .500 and at least five games out of first place failed to make the playoffs.

By the end of June 1, the Dodgers were left 26-31 and 5½ games out.

Verducci has the four teams that managed to buck the odds, including the 2005 Astros who were 13 games under .500 and ended up in the World Series.

The National League West, of course, continues to offer hope to all. No team has stood out, and its five teams are bunched up fairly closely.

Also on the Web:

--ESPN/L.A.’s Tony Jackson lunches with MLB trustee Tom Schieffer, who tells him: ‘I don’t think there is any question there is a strain between the franchise and the community right now. And that isn’t the community’s fault.’’

--The Times’ Ben Bolch tries to figure out how Ubaldo Jimenez could do to the Dodgers Wednesday night what he couldn’t do to any other team in his first nine starts -- beat them.

--In a video, Fox Sports’ Kevin Kennedy says it would be foolish for the Dodgers to deal either Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier: ‘You have to give fans a reason to come to the park.’’

--The Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth has more on the story first reported by Vin Scully Is My Homeboy’s Roberto Baly, of the Vogue covering up Vin Scully’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: The Vogue is haunted.

--That new Jackie Robinson movie is a go, to be written and directed by Brian Helgeland, who penned the classic ‘L.A. Confidential.’’

--True Blue L.A.’s Brandon Lennox looks at players with Dodgers bloodlines who will be eligible for next Monday’s MLB draft.

--ESPN/L.A.’s Jon Weisman thinks it’s time the performances of the youngsters in the bullpen received more due.

--Fox Sports’ Jack Magruder writes that the Diamondbacks have bought into Kirk Gibson’s ultra-competitive style and it’s working.

--Yahoo Sports’ Steve Henson has a terrific piece on why Sparky Anderson eschewed a funeral.

--Giovanni Ramirez, the suspect in the Bryan Stow beating, has taken a second polygraph test, according to his lawyer.

-- Steve Dilbeck