Octavio Dotel is an Albatross

I have decided what's been keeping this team down, lo, this last half of September and the end of the season.  It's clear that Octavio Dotel is an albatross this season, and brings nothing but misfortune and despair to whatever uniform he wears.

Okay, that's not much improvement, but maybe the Pirates just sucked this year. 

Dotel put on Dodger Blue on the 1st of August, when the Dodgers were 54-50, .519, 4 games over .500.  On the dayhe crossed over to the Rockies' clubhouse at Dodger Stadium on the 18th of September, the Dodgers were 72-76, or 18-26 over his tenure; this .409 stretch dropped the Dodgers from a qualified contender to a distant 4th in the division. 

Today, the Dodgers are 78-81, or 6-5 since the deal, which is surprisingly close to their win percentage on the 1st of August.

Since the 18th of September, when the Rockies started the day 81-66, as we are painfully aware, they've hit a free-fall, winning 2 and losing 10.  That's a drop from a .551 winning percentage to a stretch of .167, completely comatose baseball.  Ouch.

Yep.  It's clear that Octavio Dotel was not helping the Dodgers.  We all remember his wild-pitch-a-thon that gave the Rockies a come-from-behind win back in August, a month before he switched locker rooms.  He was the albatross that was aiding their travels, as they set course well north of .500, and clear of the cursed Dodgers once and for all. 

Then, somebody decided he'd look good in the locker room, rather than out breezing the club along with his missteps. 

Since that day, he has hung about the necks of the Rockies for their sin of sniping a competitor's reliever, and we've had to suffer and watch as comrades fall left and right, whether it's Jason Hammel's "dead arm," Street's abdominal injury, Giambi's biceps, or Olivo's head being a magnet for getting smacked.  It has truly been a living death to watch the team drop, one-by-one, and be crewed by the living dead toward the harbor of game 162. 

Will this be enough penance for the expiation of our sin?  Or will the Angel of Injury ask for another victim? 

Perhaps, now that we all know of the curse upon the team, our thoughts may change, in a direction perhaps more melancholy, but also perhaps more accepting of our fates:

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

It's been a painful run, but as they always say after losses, the sun will still shine tomorrow.  Though we may be sadder for it, perhaps we'll be wiser.