Dodgers Busy in the Front Office, Sinking on the Field

There are a lot of things happening for the Dodgers.

- The Dodgers officially signed 21-year old Cuban outfield prospect Yasiel Puig to a seven-year contract that is reportedly worth $42 million.

- The Dodgers and the Astros are in talks to make a deal. The first tweets came from ESPN's Buster Olney:

FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal updated the news with this:

No confirmation yet of who was wearing the chicken suit.

- The Dodgers are favorites to get Cubs' starter Ryan Dempster once he comes off the disabled list according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

Too bad there wasn't quite as much activity for the Dodgers in between the white lines. Sure they had members of Linkin Park throw out ceremonial first pitches. And they had the Mormons on the field for Mormon night. But not all the prayers or sister wives in the world could have helped out the Dodgers in their 9-0 loss to the Mets.

Pitching novelty-du-jour R.A. Dickey and his magical knuckles kept the Dodgers scoreless for the fourth time this week. Only Aaron Harang, A.J. Ellis and Tony Gwynn, Jr. managed to get singles off of the knuckleballer.

So at 7:54 p.m. the game was officially over. It was the third inning. Andre Torres led off the inning getting on base after his grounder ate up Jerry Hairston, Jr. at second base and Ruben Tejada grounded a single up to left-centerfield.

David Wright worked the count full then fouled off a couple of pitches for good measure. The inevitable happened. Wright lined a single to right field that scored Torres. For good measure Ike Davis hit a sacrifice fly that scored Tejada.

So what if Wright got doubled up at second? Like Linkin Park sang, "In the end it doesn't even matter." A 2-0 lead, the Dodgers being the Dodgers, there was no room for a comeback.

Just for good measure the Mets got three more off of Harang in the fifth inning and brutalized Sean Tolleson for four more in the seventh inning. The only good thing was the late delivery of chocolate chip cookies to the press box.

It's clear the Dodgers are treading water until the All Star Break when they hope to get Mark Ellis, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier back. But Dodgers manager Don Mattingly is not looking to sink.

"My job as a manager and our job as a staff is to make sure we see the light," Mattingly said. "There's a lighthouse out there somewhere that we're heading for. No matter what kind of water we're in, we've got to keep steering. No matter how we're getting to it, we're heading somewhere. We're heading to that light.

"Our job is to keep going. If we have to go here and do a little zigging — right now we're doing a little backward it feel like. But that light is still there, and it's still reachable. That's the kind of thing we've got to keep sight of. We can't let ourselves get caught up in this little storm and get swallowed up by it."

It's a nice allegory and all, but at the rate they're going the nine games until the All Star Break is an eternity.

"We're not planning on losing nine games," Mattingly said. Although later he did admit that if they did they would be in a big hole. But the optimist peeped his head out again.

"There's a lot of baseball to be played. Did you see what happened to Atlanta?"

Well losing 10 of their last 11 games and being shutout four of their last five games won't get the job done. Thankfully the San Francisco Giants lost so the division deficit is still one game.

So maybe Carlos Lee will be the answer. Maybe it will be Jeff Francoeur. Maybe it will be Chase Headley. Or maybe there won't be any answers and the Dodgers will sink like the Lusitania.

Regardless, if the Dodgers hope to get back in this they better turn things around quick.