The Los Angeles Dodgers aren't the team they were for two-thirds of the 2009 season.

Their clutch hitting has evaporated.

Manager Joe Torre seems to have run out of smoke and mirrors.

And Jim Tracy, that cast-off Dodger manager, now skipper of the Rockies, looks like a genius, General Patton in front of the Third Army.

Things are pretty bleak, with the Dodgers grasping a slippery two-game lead over the Rocks, a team that they go mano-a-mano against during the next two days.

But all is not lost, and why?

Look at the standings. Baseball's best teams win about 60% of the time, and the worst, about 40%.

This means the Dodgers can fall out of first place and then nearly fall out of contention for the wild card but there will be respites, circuit-breakers, at least some victories between now and then.

My very rough calculations indicate that the Dodgers can lose ten of their next 16 games, and still enjoy a potential one-game lead in the wild card race, presuming other teams don't get hot in the meantime.

Even the worst teams, like the Nationals and Pirates, Jim Tracy's last employer, win approximately one-in--every-two-and-one-half games, sometimes more.

That ratio will limp them along nearly through the second week of September before they have to navigate their way to their navels.

If they play 60% ball after that, they just might survive to reach the post-season.

Isn't that a cheerful and uplifting prospect?

But they can't play .400 baseball, which they've spent most of August treading around, between now and the first week of October; not completely.

If they do that, well they'll be joining that chorus of other teams that forces a smile and says, "Wait till next season!"