Pitching and defense win championships, the old saying goes. But you also have to score some runs, and that means that as a team you have to get on base and move around to score. Which means you have to hit, or at least bat effectively.

The Dodgers play very good defense. They play the field aggressively, they turn the important plays, they make very few errors.

They pitch well enough, although I don't think their pitching intimidates anyone. Billingsley has come apart some, Kershaw has never quite come together this season. Both pitchers are young, I know, and probably have long careers ahead of them. But neither one has his head together yet. Kuroda may not quite have his head back together yet after being hit there by a line drive earlier this season; he couldn't finish the second inning yesterday. Randy Wolf had a pretty good season; Vicente Padilla has proven to be a valuable late-season pickup. The bullpen has been reliable, the best in the National League this season, so if the Dodgers can get the game to the seventh inning with a lead or down by just a run or two, they're in pretty good shape.

It's the hitting, the effective batting, that seems to be a problem now. In three games in the National League Championship Series they've scored just eight runs – and six of those were in a losing effort in game one. In those three games, they've left 27 runners on base. And although the Dodgers swept the Cardinals in the Division Series, they left 31 runners on base in those three games.

That's 58 runners left on base in six games. Their opponents left 39.

I am not an insider; I don't have access to the Dodgers clubhouse. But I know the Dodgers coaches, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt and batting coach Don Mattingly in particular, know their craft, and I'm sure they tell their young players what those players need to be told: trust your fastball, Mr. Kershaw, and remember you have a whole team on defense behind you; be patient, Mr. Kemp, and make sure it's in your zone before you swing....

One of the criticisms of the team last year was that the younger players didn't listen to the coaches or the older players. Some of the younger players came back saying We don't need to listen to them. To me, that seemed like the wrong attitude to have. I hope that as October and postseason play continue, that attitude hasn't snuck back in under the Dodgers' caps.