Road to division title unexpectedly a little bumpy for Dodgers

Hmmm -- concerned, are you? Something about the Dodgers losing three consecutive games in the season’s final two weeks and failing to make a statement that this is a playoff team to be reckoned with?

To be feared in the playoffs, of course, first requires you’re actually playing come October. And if that still seems inevitable, the faithful are not having their anxiety soothed by the Dodgers’ most recent play.

Last time the Dodgers lost three consecutive games was Aug. 21-23 in Houston. That would be when Clayton Kershaw challenged his team to start playing with a sense of urgency. Then the Dodgers won eight of their next nine, including a three-game sweep of the Giants that suddenly made a tight race a runaway.

The march to a third consecutive title looked like Sherman to the sea, at least until this three-game losing streak suddenly popped up, all unannounced and uninvited to the party.

“What happens is, guys start looking ahead,” Manager Don Mattingly said. “And you gotta win a game. You know? You get ready to play and win a game.”

That’s been Mattingly’s mantra for weeks now. He refused to talk about any playoff scenarios, wanting to focus on each individual game at hand. Which is exactly as it should be.

Yet here the Dodgers are, creating some unnecessary tension with their current skid. They remain, of course, with a seven-game lead with 13 to play. A couple of cracks don’t mean the walls are falling.

Mattingly is confident that the veteran pieces added to a team that has appeared in the last two postseasons is perfectly situated to withstand the challenges of the stretch. A slight wobble is a very long way from a collapse.

“We have a better group for the most part in there, that have been through some battles and been through a lot of these,” he said. “So it’s not like they’re going to be surprised by what’s going on. I feel comfortable that we have Chase [Utley] and Howie [Kendrick] and Jimmy [Rollins], and even our guys now have been through this a few years.

“You don’t feel like you’re going to get a panic going on. Hopefully we’ve all seen enough baseball to know it doesn’t do you any good to look ahead. You just have to play a game that night, get ready to play and do it again. For us, if there’s anything to learn from this one, you learn from it and then throw it away and be ready to play [Tuesday].”

So it’s back to today’s game, and the next one, until the division is secured, and then maybe a little more to win the homefield advantage in the expected first-round matchup against the Mets. Sorry for that: That would be looking ahead.