'Cause the Dodgers are the Champions.  Of what is yet to be determined, but Saturday afternoon's 4-2 win over the hated Giants put the Dodgers in the postseason, and gave fans what I'm sure will be the incredibly satisfying and lasting image of their boys celebrating on San Francisco's home turf.

Enjoy your Saturday night.

BK

Here are your starting lineups.  Philly is holding on against the Marlins, and the Cards have taken the lead against Milwaukee.  Pads kick off at 1:15 as well. 

BK

At the very least, there will be playoff.  Not necessarily playoffs, but at least the one (possibly two) game variety that allows a team to officially qualify for the postseason.  With Friday night's 4-3 comeback win in San Francisco, the Dodgers whittled their magic number down to one, clinching no worse than a tie for the Wild Card and a birth in the Hall of Fame of Obscure Statistics.  A Dodger win or a Philadelphia loss, and the Blue are in.  At the same time, with San Diego's 3-1 loss to Arizona, L.A. is once again knotted up with the Pads for the lead in the NL West.  The decisive blows came in the ninth off San Francisco closer Mike Stanton.  Jeff Kent led off with a single, and was replaced by Jason Repko.  Back in the dugout, he went into information sharing mode with Olmedo Saenz.  Good move.   After J.D. Drew struck out looking- give him a break, since Drew's two run homer in the seventh put L.A. in position to make the comeback- Russell Martin drew a walk. 

Grady Little sent Saenz to the plate for Marlon Anderson, despite some numbers that might have suggested otherwise, and inspired by Kent's information and a little help from upstairs, Saenz spoiled an inside cutter from Stanton (so far in, it eventually came back to the mound smeared with pine tar), squirting a soft liner to right to score Repko.  After a hustling Julio Lugo beat out a potential double play ball, Stanton bounced one through the wickets of Eliezer Alfonzo.  Martin scores, 4-3 Blue.  Takashi Saito shut the door in the ninth.  Jenga. 

Philly's ahead 14-2, so nobody's ready to concede anything yet.  Got to win.

BK

They say kids these days like offense.  More hits than the Billboard Top 40.  More runners than the Boston Marathon.  If that's true, Thursday's 19-11 win against the Rockies is ripe for ESPN Instant Classic candidacy.  If nothing else, it'll be one of those box scores James Loney cuts out for his refrigerator door.  After all, when you enter a game with eight RBI and exit with seventeen, that's pretty good.   His nine ribbies in a single game set a National League record for rookies, and last we checked the National League is pretty old.  Plus, he tied Gil Hodges for the franchise record.  At worst it was a decent pitch for a regular gig at first next season.  Combined with the Phillies losing at Washington, the win put L.A. in prime position to clinch a Wild Card birth this weekend in San Francisco, where Barry is playing well (not that the Giants planned on rolling over if he wasn't).  Two games up with three to play.  And with San Diego a mere game ahead, the division isn't out of reach, either.  Not for a team so hot they're on fire. 

The 2006 Dodgers has been nothing if not interesting, and you can take a pick from a variety of reasons. If you like your teams absurdly streaky, the Dodgers had you covered and then some. If you enjoy the return of local products done (and still doing) good, Nomar Garciaparra certainly fits the bill. Junkie for roster turnover? First-year GM Ned Colletti pulled that off. Twice. For that matter, Colletti's arrival itself, along with new skipper Grady Little, have given fans plenty to keep their eye on.

But for my money, the most enjoyable and exciting part of this season has been watching a plethora of rookie talent develop and make their presence felt. And make a difference, often carrying the team through stretches when the veterans were injured or under-performing. They've become a huge part of this team's present and future, and for that, Dodgers fans should be very optimistic.

There have been a lot of first year guys making contributions all season, but the five guys who've spent the most time up are Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Andre Ethier, Russell Martin and Takashi Saito (36 years old, but a rookie nonetheless). I caught up with all five throughout last week and will be posting a series of interviews with each. Today's chats are with Takashi Saito and Jonathan Broxton, the closer and set up man respectively who've become (along with Joe Beimel) the rocks of an otherwise frequently erratic relief staff. With Eric Gagne, Yhency Brazoban and newly acquired Danys Baez in the fold, neither was predicted in April to play huge roles, and they didn't start the season with the club. But after Gagne and Brazoban's early season-ending injuries and Baez's ineffectiveness got him dealt to Atlanta, the pair became a tandem and ran with it. In talking with both, I learned about- among other things- the difference between Japanese and American baseballs and Broxton's steadiness in the face of projectile towels (much less random after you read the interview). Here's what they had to say.

(Note: Saito's interview was translated for me with the assistance of Mayumi Inaba, a reporter with JATV. Mayumi is awesome and did this for me out of the goodness of heart, which I really appreciate. For those readers who can speak Japanese, check out some of her work.)

Andrew Kamenetzky: What's the experience been like for you, your first season in the Major Leagues?

Takashi Saito: I just wanted to come here to be on the mound for one (game) at the Major League level, but it's been a wonderful and exciting season, more than I expected.

AK: Was were some of the bigger adjustments for you going from the Japanese league to playing here?

TS: The ball's stitches are much bigger here in America, so it gets a really big curve and the slider gets really pronounced, so it's been difficult. I've had to adjust for that. And the mound is more solid. But now I've gotten used to it and I think that I like it more here.

When the Rockies rocked Brad Penny for three runs in the bottom of the first during L.A's eventual 19-11 win, it looked really, really ugly for the Blue.  Chad Billingsley was warm and ready to go before the Dodgers finished the inning.  Once it was done, so was Penny, yanked ostensibly because of his sore back (though his performance couldn't have helped). 

That all happened before James Loney had a chance to bat.  His second inning grand slam off Byung-Hyung Kim gave the Dodgers a brief 4-3 lead.  They hung another four on Colorado in the third, two on a Loney double.  The Rockies roared back into the lead in fourth, with a touchdown and extra point (that's seven runs for you non-footballers).  That was before Loney tied the game with a single in the fifth.  And just in case the Rockies had any crazy comeback ideas, Loney hit a two run jack in the sixth as L.A. lit Colorado for seven of their own.   Should you have been keeping score at home (and seriously, if you were, why?), that's nine RBI (tying a Dodgers record) for the young first baseman, only playing because Nomar Garciaparra is currently being held together by chewing gum and high grade twine. 

So it's on to San Francisco with no less than a one game lead over Philly, and no more than a one game deficit to San Diego.  Time for a little scoreboard watching, Dodger fans!

More on the game tomorrow.

BK

Because it's more fun to get upset with Brad Penny as a group.

Below, I'm cherry-picking from an article by Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus (baseballprospectus.com), sizing up the rotations of potential playoff teams. He's using one of those fancy metrics the eggheads love, something called QERA. The formula, should you be wearing your wonk hat, looks like this:

QERA =(2.69+K%*(-3.4)+BB%*3.88+GB%*(-0.66))^2

Enjoy that. Click below for the relevant information on the Dodgers, the team they're chasing, the one chasing them, and the teams they could see in the National League playoffs.

—BK

Programming Note: Blue Notes has once again returned to Blue Notes Central, and will be following today's game as usual. Basically, it's all back to normal.

Today's forecast calls for a 9.9% chance of a division title mixed with a higher probability of wild card, thanks to Wednesday night's 6-4 comeback win in Colorado. The victory pulled the Dodgers to within a game of San Diego — 4-2 losers in St. Louis (go figure!) — and kept them a game ahead of Philadelphia, who topped Washington 8-7 in 14 innings, a game that got more attention in the visiting clubhouse at Coors than Evangeline Lilly modeling lingerie.

Blue starter Derek Lowe wasn't exactly sharp, giving up four runs and 10 hits over six innings, but it was good enough to keep the Dodgers in the game, pick up the win, and conserve enough energy for a possible short rest start on Sunday in San Francisco. Plenty good enough for him. And plenty good enough for the Dodgers, who once again received solid contributions up and down the lineup for the win (proving again that the Monforts may own the Rockies, but the Dodgers own the Rockies).

The box shows three hits from Nomar, who we believe showed up at the game in a full body cast before emerging to play, clutch hitting in a two-run triple from J.D. Drew, clutch pitching from Broxaito in the seventh, eighth and ninth, and clutch baserunning in the decisive three run seventh that put L.A. ahead for good.