Dodgers, 2010 Giants advance to NLCS

If you're not laughing a little bit, you're not thinking this through.

The Dodgers are going to the National League Championship Series, where they'll probably face and beat the Pirates. The Pirates, the organization that's partial responsible for the last two Giants championships, will suffer a cruel fate. The Dodgers will chew through them like locusts, eternally in search of an inner peace they'll never have, insatiable, unstoppable. The Pirates' miracle season will be ruined. Brian Wilson will throw the last pitch of the series, and his hat will fall off when he celebrates.

Or maybe the Dodgers will face the Cardinals. You'll say "Come on, Matt Holliday" without a trace of irony or self-awareness before realizing what you just uttered. And then ravens will fly in your ears and peck out your soul.

This is the baseball gods charging interest. You would have accepted all this before 2010. You would have accepted this cost. Cody Ross going to the Diamondbacks was just a minimum payment in a tight month.

It was a carefully negotiated cost, too. It's Juan Uribe, not Buster Posey. It's Brian Wilson, not Matt Cain. It's distasteful, but not the worst-possible scenario. It could be even more awful.

Like, you could think about how Bill Mueller works in the Dodgers' front office. But don't do that.

The good news is that I don't really believe in prewritten narratives and fate, and I still think the Dodgers moved from a 12.5-percent chance to a 25-percent chance. Which is way too much of a chance if you want to feel comfortable. Still, while things can get much, much worse, they don't have to.

And, heck, maybe they will. But wait until then to really freak out. Until then, the Dodgers just had one of the greatest moments in their long franchise history, and it was Juan Uribe who crawled out of purgatory to make it happen. Gross. Brian Wilson was the winning pitcher. Double gross. Yasiel Puig climbed the foul pole and swatted at biplanes before exploding into pure energy and reforming at home plate. Don't know how to feel about that one.

The Braves lost, though! The Braves lost. Look for those silver linings, everyone. But if you didn't think the universe was trolling you before tonight, you know it is know. Brian Wilson was the winning pitcher. Juan Uribe hit the winning home run. That is some excellent trolling, at least.