Thanks in part to Matt Kemp’s two-run dinger in the top of the first off Chris Carpenter, the Dodgers earned a 5-3 victory over the Cardinals in Game 1 of the NLDS.

From MLB.com:

It didn’t start well for the Dodgers. Wolf worked himself into a first-inning mess, loading the bases with no outs on a walk to Skip Schumaker, a ground-rule double by Brendan Ryan and an intentional walk to Pujols. He caught Matt Holliday looking and appeared to get Ludwick on a popup behind second base.

Ronnie Belliard, starting instead of Gold Glove second baseman Orlando Hudson, headed out and Kemp came in as the ball hung in the air. At the last moment, Kemp yielded to Belliard, who tipped the ball with his glove but didn’t catch it as a run scored. Belliard made amends on the next batter, ranging up the middle to glove Yadier Molina’s sharp bouncer and turning it into an inning-ending double play.
The Dodgers added to the lead in the third. With runners on the corners, Casey Blake grounded over the third-base bag. Mark DeRosa made a diving stop and, as Andre Ethier scored from third, DeRosa airmailed the ball into right field trying to erase Manny Ramirez going to second base.

But Wolf opened the fourth by walking No. 8 hitter Colby Rasmus, who was bunted to second by Carpenter and doubled home by Schumaker as Weaver started warming up. With two outs Wolf walked Pujols intentionally for the second time. But when he nicked Holliday with a 1-2 pitch he was replaced by Weaver.

Carpenter was back in trouble in the fifth with two on and no outs. After pinch-hitter Juan Pierre’s sacrifice bunt, Furcal increased the lead to 4-2 with a sacrifice fly that ended an 11-pitch at-bat. The Dodgers sixth started with Ethier’s double, which was cashed in when Kyle McClellan hit Russell Martin with a pitch with the bases loaded.

All playoff games are big of course, but this one carried extra weight for the Dodgers because they hadn’t played well the week heading into the playoffs (they nearly handed the division over to the Rockies) and Carpenter had owned them in previous outings. So for Joe Torre’s club to get a win in Game 1 to set the tone for the rest of the series is big.

Earning a win in Game 2 isn’t monumental, but it’s highly important for St. Louis. I’m sure before the series started Tony La Russa figured that he had to get at least a split out of the tandem of Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in these first two games before heading back home. We’ll see how Wainwright fares against Clayton Kershaw.

We are barreling toward the playoffs, which begin next week. But some of the races are not determined officially yet…namely, the Rockies have clinched a playoff berth but still have a shot at the division title. The Twins are hanging tough, having fended off elimination one more day. Other than that, the races are decided. Here are the final power rankings for the regular season…..

1. New York Yankees (102-58)—Absolutely no signs of slowing down, and that’s probably a good thing with the playoffs looming.

2. Los Angeles Angels (95-65)—Will this be the year the Angels finally break their playoff curse against the Red Sox?

3. Los Angeles Dodgers (93-67)—These guys have been playing mediocre ball since Manny came back, and now they are in danger of blowing the division lead.

4. Boston Red Sox (93-67)—The Sox seem to be able to beat up on everyone except the Yankees. And that could prove to be a problem in the next two weeks.

5. Philadelphia Phillies (92-68)—No matter who the closer is, this team has to like its chances with Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels going 1-2 in a short series.

6. St. Louis Cardinals (91-69)—Sometimes coasting to the division title makes a team complacent, and winning 4 of 10 games is complacent. Plus, the NL matchups are yet to be determined, so the Cards don’t know who their first opponent will be.

7. Colorado Rockies (92-68)—You don’t get as hot as the Rockies, who are 74-40 since Jim Tracy took over as manager. I mean, are you kidding me? I’d be really worried if I were any other team these guys might face in the postseason.

8. Detroit Tigers (85-75)—They’ve been in first place just about since day one, but the feisty Twins are making live miserable. Still, the Tigers have had to fight and that could give them momentum against the Yankees. Well, if they hang on to win the division.

9. Minnesota Twins (84-76)—They earn a spot here because they are still in the race.

10. San Francisco Giants (87-73)—Lots of promise this season, but couldn’t fend off a white hot Rockies team in the end.

We are now in September, which means pennant races are becoming reality and every game is more meaningful.

It’s getting down to pennant race times and there are some incredibly tight races and a lot of teams that are at least in contention. Here we’ll take a look at who we think the Top 5 teams are right now and who the Bottom 5 are as well.

Top 5

1. New York Yankees (73-43)—Not only did the Yankees sweep the rival Red Sox last weekend and make quite a statement, they’ve won 10 of 11 and are 22-6 (.786) since the all-star break. That is just scorching.

2. Los Angeles Angels (68-45)—You have to feel for the surging Rangers and even the Mariners, because neither one is going to catch this fundamentally sound team. If Mike Scioscia isn’t the best manager in baseball, he’s surely the most underrated.

3. St. Louis Cardinals (65-52)—The Cards grabbed Matt Holliday before anyone else could and he’s batting .493 with a slugging percentage of .813 in his first 75 at-bats with St. Louis. Pujols/Holliday has got to be the most fearsome 3-4 tandem in baseball.

4. Los Angeles Dodgers (69-47)—The Dodgers hung on without Manny for a few months, and then cooled off when he returned. They’ve lost 7 of 11 but still lead their division by 5 games and are 32-14 against NL West opponents.

5. Philadelphia Phillies (65-48)—Suddenly with Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez, and Jimmy Rollins finally finding his stroke, the defending champs are poised to make another run deep into October and possibly November.

Bottom 5

1. Washington Nationals (41-75)—They recently won eight in a row but still trail the Phillies by 25.5 games and the fourth place Mets by 13.5. So yeah, they’re still the worst team in baseball.

2. Pittsburgh Pirates (46-69)—The Pirates actually looked half decent early in the season, but they did what they always do in July—made a whole bunch of trades and pretty much surrendered the season as well as the next three seasons, as they’ve lost 11 of their last 13 games.

3. Kansas City Royals (45-70)—Remember the Royals were 14-12 and everyone started talking about this team being decent for the first time in two-plus decades? We remember, but then they remembered that they were the Royals.

4. Baltimore Orioles (48-67)—This team has some great young players like Adam Jones and Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis, but playing in that division is almost unfair.

5. Cleveland Indians (49-66)—Once again, the Indians have disappointed and started selling off players. Cliff Lee, like CC Sabathia last year, is the reigning AL Cy Young winner, and the Tribe also dumped popular catcher Victor Martinez and infielder Ryan Garko. Next year sure has a familiar ring on Lake Erie.

- Bullz-Eye.com reviews the latest Madden NFL 10 game, which they gave four (out of five) stars.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS calls out Giants fans for being hypocrites in how they treated Manny Ramirez during last night’s San Fran-L.A. game (i.e. they booed Manny, but cheered for Barry Bonds). Of course, the author fails to mention that Dodgers fans are hypocrites themselves for booing Bonds, yet cheering for Manny. Just sayin’…

- DEADSPIN tries to explain and evaluate SportsCenter anchor Neil Everett’s pet phrase, “Hotter than a fox in a forest fire.”

- TONY BLOGS.NET shares the news that Jay Mariotti will write for the Chicago Tribune on September 1.

- YARDBARKER discusses whether or not Cubs’ starter Carlos Zambrano is the most overrated player in baseball.

When asked recently about his opinions regarding former Boston teammates David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez testing positive for steroids in 2003, Phillies’ pitcher Pedro Martinez shared some interesting answers.

“I’m not going to say anything, because I don’t agree with it. I believe the game should be played clean. They’ve got my total support. They weren’t the only ones. There were a lot of guys.”

“There’s no crying in baseball,” Martinez said. “We won in 2004. That’s it. Are you going to tell me that the other guys, who used it on other teams are now whining? They used it, too. One thing that’s really caught my attention is — why is it all Dominicans? What’s going on? Why is it all Dominicans that all of a sudden come out positive? The last one standing might be me.

“That’s a big question to ask. What’s going on here? Why is it I’m the only one who might be left standing? All of a sudden, they’re going to come up and say: ‘Pedro [did it], too.’ That’s when I’m going to start stripping my clothes off and showing everybody I’ve never had acne on my back. If I did use it, it didn’t help me. They need to give my money back. It didn’t work.”

Martinez raises a great question that most media outlets are afraid to touch: Why are there more Dominican players testing positive for PEDs?

Granted, we don’t know what percentage of the 104 is Dominican and we may never know. But of the seven players whose names have been linked to the media, four are of Dominican descent: Ramirez, Ortiz, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez. Barry Bonds, Jason Grimsley and David Segui (who was born in the U.S., but his father is Cuban) were the other three names.

It’s an interesting topic and surely something that will gain further attention if the names of more Dominican players are released from that ’03 list.

After news broke yesterday that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, I got to thinking, “What’s Curt Schilling’s take on all of this?�

Schilling was part of the 2004 Boston Red Sox team that Ortiz and ManRam helped win a World Series and is a close friend of Big Papi. He was also the one that absolutely lambasted Barry Bonds in a 2007 radio interview when the slugger was on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s record with the obvious aid of performance-enhancing drugs.

Schilling said he thinks that Bonds’s achievements during his period of alleged steroid use — as detailed in the book “Game of Shadowsâ€� — should be “wiped out.â€�

“If you get caught using steroids, you should have everything you’ve done in this game wiped out for any period of time that you used it,” Schilling said at the time of the book’s release.” A lot of players, I think, have said as much because it is cheating.”

Now, Schilling did apologize for what he said about Bonds in the interview. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t mean what he said. And if he truly feels that way, I find it interesting that he wasn’t as harsh on Ortiz as he was on Bonds back in ’07.

This is from Schilling’s blog 38pitiches.com (which was posted yesterday) in reaction to Big Papi’s positive test in ’03:

Should any of David’s subsequent accomplishments be judged by this?
That’s for you to decide. It seems to be an area of immense debate, but I am not sure how this could/should/will be resolved. Whatever you do you need to do it for anyone now, and if you do do something, make sure there is some detriment for anyone caught going forward. Given that so many people live on their accomplishments or stats, taking one or both away would be a decent way to deter some guys, I think.

Should any of the Sox’ accomplishments in ‘04 or ‘07 be judged differently because of this?
This makes me laugh. I have already seen the bandwagon fans start the *04 and *07 threads and remarks, people with teams who are far deeper into this than most other teams — as if this makes it all OK. Every team going back 10-15 years needs an * if you want to consider giving it to anyone. The hard part is that it’s turning into a situation where we are seeing every single GREAT player in the past 10 years caught, and they’re dragging what we thought were the majority, and are now turning into the minority, down with them.

Well that’s certainly a more diplomatic approach now isn’t it, Curt?

Look, I get it – Schilling isn’t going to blast his buddy like he did Bonds, nor is he going to say that anything he and the Red Sox accomplished this decade should be stricken from the record books because Big Papi and Manny were on PEDs.

But I’m just wondering what happens if Big Papi says that he didn’t know what he was taking a la Bonds. Will Schilling come out and say the same things as he did in ‘07? If he truly feels that (and I’m using his words here) if you get caught using steroids, you should have everything you’ve done in this game wiped out for any period of time that you used it, then he should say that Big Papi and Manny’s accomplishments should be wiped out as well. (That is, for whatever years they were doping, which of course couldn’t have been in ‘04 when they won a championship right??)

Granted, neither Ortiz nor Ramirez broke a sacred record like Bonds did. But still, wouldn’t it be a little hypocritical of Schilling to voice so boisterously against Bonds and not do it against Ortiz? If Schilling wants to be known as someone who isn’t afraid to speak his mind about steroids in baseball, then he can’t pick and choose whom he blasts. He can’t attack Bonds one year and then essentially give Ortiz a free pass two years later because the two were teammates and friends.

Maybe Schilling is waiting for more details to emerge or for Ortiz to release another statement before he comments further. That’s certainly fair. I’ll wait too. I’ll wait for more details, and I’ll certainly wait for more from Schilling, because more should be coming.

Following the Red Sox win over the A’s on Thursday, David Ortiz addressed the media about a New York Times report that stated he tested positive for performance-enhancing dugs in 2003, although didn’t say much.

“Today I was informed by a reporter that I was on the 2003 list of MLB players to test positive for performance-enhancing substances. This happened right before our game, and the news blindsided me. I said I had no comment because I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

“I want to talk about this situation and I will as soon as I have more answers. In the meantime I want to let you know how I am approaching this situation. One, I have already contacted the Players Association to confirm if this report is true. I have just been told that the report is true. Based on the way I have lived my life, I am surprised to learn I tested positive. Two, I will find out what I tested positive for. And, three, based on whatever I learn, I will share this information with my club and the public. You know me – I will not hide and I will not make excuses.

“I want to thank my family, the Red Sox, my teammates, and the fans for their patience and support.�

So essentially he’s getting ready for the ol’ “spin-a-roo� routine, where he’ll admit to taking “something,� but didn’t know it was a performance-enhancing drug.

“Somebody at sometime in some juncture under some circumstance might have probably given me something at some point,� Ortiz will say.

Big Papi, do us all a favor and just come clean. Say you messed up, you shouldn’t have done it and you’re ashamed. You’ll still be a cheater, but at least some of us will respect you for coming forward. If you sidestep the situation, you’re no better than Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Manny and all the other ass clowns that think they can pull the sheets over our eyes.

Related Stories:

- Report: Big Papi, Manny test positive for PEDs in 2003

Reds starter Bronson Arroyo told the Boston Herald that he used both androstenedione before they were banned in 2004, and amphetamines before they were banned in 2006.

“Before 2004, none of us paid any attention to anything we took,� said the Reds starter. “Now they don’t want us to take anything unless it’s approved. But back then, who knows what was in stuff? The FDA wasn’t regulating stuff, not unless it was killing people or people were dying from it.�
“Andro made me feel great, I felt like a monster. I felt like I could jump and hit my head on the basketball rim,� Arroyo said of the substance that became infamous after it was discovered in the locker of slugger Mark McGwire during his historic 1998 home run chase.
Arroyo said he had no idea about what Ortiz and Ramirez were taking, if anything, in 2003. He said he observed teammates then who were obsessive about taking nutritional supplements and others who never had a protein shake. His knowledge of what others did stopped when he left the ballpark.
“Everyone has their own lives, nobody knows what anybody does at night,� said Arroyo. “Nobody knew Ken Caminiti was smoking crack. At the end of the day, we all have our own lives. It’s not a frat house in the big leagues where you go back to the dorm at night and everybody knows what everyone’s doing.�

Wow, honesty in baseball – what a refreshing concept.

This is what baseball needs more of. Arroyo doesn’t seem to be hiding anything and I actually believe him when he says that players weren’t paying attention to what they took. It’s not far-fetched to believe that players would go up to teammates saying, “Hey, I’m talking this stuff called andro, which makes me feel like a freaking bull. You’ve got to try this stuff!� and then those teammates taking the advice to heart and trying it without fully knowing everything about the substance.

One would think that professional athletes would know everything that they’re putting into their bodies. But if something like andro is being passed off as a “supplement� and not a “performance-enhancing drug,� then I’m sure more players used it without reading every last detail on the label.

That said, I’d have to be pretty naïve to believe that all players didn’t know what they were doing to their bodies. Guys like Big Mac and Bonds were juicing because they knew performance-enhancers would allow them to extend their careers and break records. And those guys were on more than andro and amphetamines, or else Arroyo would look like the Jolly Green Giant as well, and not the bean poll he is today.

Either way, I applaud Arroyo coming out and admitting that he was on something. More guys should follow his and Andy Pettitte’s lead and just be truthful about what they took and when.