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Dodgers don’t figure to suffer from overconfidence despite lead

Dodgers right fielder Matt Kemp, left, is congratulated by teammate Adrian Gonzalez after hitting a home run during Sunday's win over the San Francisco Giants.
(George Nikitin / Associated Press)
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Careful now, don’t get all comfy. Don’t start dreaming of Dodger Stadium draped in patriotic bunting, Clayton Kershaw chewing up postseason hitters, the World Series finally calling.

Yes, it was impressive how the Dodgers overcame that abysmal opening loss to the San Francisco Giants last weekend to take the final two games of the series. And sure, a three-game lead with 13 to play sounds nice.

But that’s also 13 games where most anything could go wrong, where overconfident teams have done baseball’s version of slipping on the banana peel. Baseball will always have the 1964 Phillies, or more recently, both the collapsing Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox in 2011.

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The Dodgers, though, hardly seem a team suffering from overconfidence. Maybe it’s because they didn’t rip through the National League this season as expected, never really had an impressive winning streak or the memory of last year’s postseason still stings fresh.

“Only an idiot would say it’s over,” first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said after Sunday’s win.

On one hand, the Dodgers will open a three-game trip tonight in Denver against the worst team in the National League, a Colorado Rockies squad that has lost six consecutive games. On the other, the Dodgers are scheduled to start Roberto Hernandez, Dan Haren and Carlos Frias.

When the rotation has been temporarily reduced to the “Not Quite as Big Two,” expectations tend to be tempered. Certainly, you can expect Manager Don Mattingly to take every game very seriously. Tonight he’s going with his “A” lineup in Denver. Expect that he will every night until the postseason is set.

It’s easy to get swept up by the weekend’s success and start dreaming of finishing ahead of the Washington Nationals for the best record in the NL -- which could earn the Dodgers a division series matchup against the Giants -- but fortunately the team appears very wedded to the one-game-at-a-time approach.

Three games is a decent lead, but no one is calling it a comfortable lead.

Kershaw may be the only Dodger to publicly cry “It’s World Series or bust,” that that’s pretty much every player, coaching and front office member’s attitude. And that motivation figures to aid them these final 13 games.

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