Dodgers News: Ellis And Mattingly Remain Guarded Amid Early Success
Despite Tuesday’s loss to the San Francisco Giants, it’s hard to argue against the Los Angeles Dodgers being one of the hottest teams in baseball.
Their just-ended seven-game winning streak was second only to the New York Mets, who extended theirs Tuesday to nine games. The early success has very much been a byproduct of a surprising bullpen and depth that extends beyond the day-to-day lineup.
Suffice to say, the winning is preferred to losses piling up. However, manager Don Mattingly said what he was pleased with throughout the winning streak was the team’s modest mentality, via Ken Gurnick and Thomas Harding of MLB.com:
What I like about us right now is the day-in, day-out mentality we’ve had,” manager Don Mattingly said. “Nobody is getting totally excited, going crazy, we understand where we’re at in the season.”
Ellis has also kept the early success in perspective while acknowledging an improvement over last season’s team, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
We’re just banking wins right now. We know you go through rough patches and the wins get harder to get. This was a big homestand, because we had some come-from-behind wins, which we didn’t do last year.”
The Dodgers, who added players this offseason with great postseason resumes, such as Jimmy Rollins, have a nucleus of their own with several years of playoff experience to their names. Although it’s only two weeks into the season, this year’s team is already showing traits of being more resilient than the 2014 club.
Along with having their winning streak snapped Tuesday, the loss dropped the Dodgers into a tie with the San Diego Padres for first place in the National League West division.
[divide]Don Mattingly Discusses Dodgers Catching Situation
