That’s the Thing About Momentum: It Shifts

Wednesday afternoon, the swirling debate about the lasting effect of the Dodgers’ miraculous victory Monday night was about the concept of “momentum.” The only definitive answer was heard in the visitor’s clubhouse.

Asked whether his Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of four consecutive games against division-leading teams, had momentum, Manager Jim Tracy said, “Yes we do. Yes we do.”

The Dodgers don’t know what they can claim right now. They don’t have the division lead, an opportunity presented by San Diego’s defeat to Arizona that the Dodgers squandered with a 6-4 loss to Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. They don’t have sole possession of the wild card, which they now share with the Philadelphia Phillies.

They can’t say their bullpen is a strength.

“It’s a concern,” Manager Grady Little said.

It’s an even greater concern when the starting pitchers can’t make it to the seventh inning in six of nine outings, and the relief corps has yielded 26 earned runs in those short stints.

Yes, the Dodgers, two sunrises removed from the euphoria of their Cooperstown-class comeback against the San Diego Padres, had issues. True to their up-and-down nature of the last couple of weeks, they did get one good sign: Jonathan Broxton struck out the side while giving up one hit in the eighth inning, progress after yielding runs in his two previous outings.

Now for the step back: After cracking four consecutive home runs to tie the score in the bottom of the ninth inning Monday, they couldn’t get one hit with two runners in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth Wednesday.

The Pirates, who kept the New York Mets’ National League East champagne bottles corked with a three-game sweep over the weekend, beat the Dodgers for the second consecutive game.

So much for Monday night launching the Dodgers to greater things.

My theory is that those crazy, unbelievably dramatic games have a bigger impact on the losers than the winners. In other words, it’s easier to lose momentum than to gain it.

We’ve seen it in the postseason, when teams lost crushing games and then had nothing left for the last game in the series. The Red Sox after the Bill Buckner play in 1986. The San Francisco Giants after blowing a two-run lead when they were six outs from winning the World Series in 2002. The St. Louis Cardinals after the Don Denkinger call in 1985. The Angels lost two more games in 1986 after Dave Henderson homered off Donnie Moore.

I figured Kenny Lofton could provide a good perspective on both sides. He was on that Giants squad that lost to the Angels. And he played for the Cleveland Indians team that overcame a 12-run deficit to win a game against the Seattle Mariners on the way to winning the American League Central in 2001.

“I don’t look at one game taking you over a certain hump,” said Lofton, who walked to set up Nomar Garciaparra’s game-winning home run in the 10th inning Monday night.

To Lofton, the importance of the game was that the Dodgers took down the Padres after San Diego won 13 of the first 17 meetings.

“If we can come back and beat them in that fashion, that shows you that they can be beat by you,” Lofton said.

That’s relevant because the Dodgers could meet the Padres in the playoffs.

As for the teams that come away feeling like a blues singer in these games, Lofton doesn’t think you can attribute subsequent losses to the instant onset of depression. He notes that all of the teams in my example had to play their next games on the road.

“You go into Game 7 like that, the home-field advantage, that’s tough to overcome,” Lofton said. “But I always say, if it was meant to be, it was meant.

“You go out there and play your butt off and you don’t win, then you weren’t supposed to win.”

Here’s where things started to get deep. He was on the Cubs when the Steve Bartman fan interference play tinkered with their World Series hopes in 2003, and with the Yankees when they blew a 3-0 series lead to the Red Sox the next year.

“I think it’s more fate than momentum,” Lofton said. “Momentum can only take you so far.

“Life is pretty much scripted out already,” Lofton said.

So someone, somewhere ...?

“Has the answer,” Lofton said.

This could have serious ramifications for the Dodgers. If the center fielder believes in fate, and he happens to have been on the wrong side of some of the most notable twists of fortune in baseball history, does that mean the Dodgers are doomed? Did Ned Colletti sign the baseball version of Schleprock?

It’s like the joke about the airline traveler reassuring a fellow passenger that the plane won’t crash if it’s not their time to go. The response: “What if it’s the pilot’s time?”

In Lofton’s defense, the one time he went to the World Series, he had three hits and drove in the winning run in the deciding game of the 2004 National League championship series.

So does he think this team has destiny on its side?

“You can’t really answer that,” Lofton said. “I always say you can’t answer a thing until it’s all over.”

This series with the Pirates continues tonight, but we know the Dodgers have lost it. And we know they’ve lost whatever momentum they had, if ever so briefly.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande, go to latimes.com/adandeblog.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Late in the game

Earned-run averages in September for key members of the Dodgers’ bullpen:

*--* Player Sept. Season Joe Beimel 1.08 3.06 Jonathan Broxton 2.80 2.79 Takashi Saito 3.86 2.25 Aaron Sele 9.00 4.59 Brett Tomko 9.95 5.01

*--*