The Dodgers Should Go To Vegas

Trailing the Diamondbacks 6-1 in the seventh inning on Tuesday night, the Dodgers scored five runs in the blink of an eye to tie the game, thanks to big hits from men named Jerry Sands, Tony Gwynn The Younger, and Bobby Abreu. The bullpen briefly relinquished the lead, but Ivan De Jesus, he of one career RBI, hit a two-out, two-run double in the ninth inning to seal the Dodgers' 30th win of the season. They're the first team in baseball to reach that plateau. And they've got a seven-game lead on the closest team in the NL West. How are they doing it? Is this really happening? Just how little sense does it make? The unsatisfactory answers to these questions only breed more questions. The factors behind L.A.'s success can't really be explained:

• Matt Kemp has been on the shelf for the past ten days, yet the Dodgers have still won six games in a row without him. That streak includes a three-game sweep of the defending champs from St. Louis, a series capped off by a 6-5 win that featured a clutch three-run homer from Scott van Slyke, who had never hit a major-league home run before in his life.
• Former part-time catcher A.J. Ellis has already amassed 2 Wins Above Replacement (his career total before this season was 0.3) thanks to a ludicrous .327/.448/.491 line. Only Joey Votto, Adam Dunn, and David Wright have a higher walk rate. This guy was backing up Rod Barajas last year.
• 35-year-old utilityman Jerry Hairston Jr. is hitting .315 and his defensive play is turning him into a regular on late-night highlight reels.
• Andre Ethier had 62 RBIs all of last year. He now leads the National League with 39 already in the bank.
• Ted Lilly, 36, is 5-0 with a 1.79 ERA and 0.90 WHIP. Chris Capuano, 33 and a rare survivor of two Tommy John surgeries, is 6-1 with a 2.25 ERA.
• Bobby Abreu's OPS with the Angels: .592. And with the Dodgers: .889. Right.

None of this makes much sense. Given all this good fortune, one would think that the Dodgers are a prime candidate for regression, especially because A.J. Ellis is not Mike Piazza and Ted Lilly is not Justin Verlander and Andre Ethier is not Iron Man. But with these Dodgers, it looks like the conventional rules don't apply. Don't bet against them, because their division is miserable, their karma is great, and their pixie dust seems to be military-grade.