As far as moral victories go, we'll take it.

For the Dodgers, moral victories are not worth much.

Even in their transitory state, they are in a very winnable division and they are still one of the cornerstone franchises in baseball, Frank Mc Court mis-adventures aside.

That being said, going up to Milwaukee and taking one out of three wasn't bad at all. they played tough in all three games, and were in position to win all three. They pitched well, they hit the ball well, and at leat in one case were victimized by a brutal call.

''Really, we came in and could have got swept - but we could have swept them just as easily,'' coach Don Mattingly said.

You can say that it is something the Pittsburgh Pirates or Oakland A's would say, two bad teams who happened to play competitively on the road, but the Dodgers, not so much. But to a team that won 9 out of it's first 10, the naysayers (including the skeptic in my gut) said well........they beat up on two bad teams. True enough, though wins are wins last time I heard, and bad teams often play spoiler to good teams's playoff hopes.

This was the Brewers........granted the Cecil Fielder-less Brewers, but still a more than viable playoff contender in a stronger division than the Dodgers. in Game 1 they overcame a great start by Yovani Gallardo, beat up Francisco Rodriguez, only for Javy Guerra to blow a save, his only one this year.

You saw another strong start by Chad Billingsley, who overcame some early trouble and you saw Andre Ethier hit a homer and double, the homer a two-runner that chased KRod. These are two guys who need to perform this season for the Dodgers to have a shot.

Thursday saw Chris Capuano match up with Zack Greinke on two quality starts, only to see Nyjer Morgan score on a bad call when he tagged up on Ryan Braun's foul ball. Mattingly said after the game  ''I had the luxury of seeing the replay.... we should still be playing.'' he went on to call it "another argument for instant replay"

Facing a sweep, they followed up with Matt Kemp and Ethier getting two hits apiece (including a Kemp homer) to win 4-3. Among the highlights were two great defensive plays by newly acquired utility guy Jerry Hairston, throwing out Alex Gonzales from 3rd on an off-balance throw in the 8th, then in the 9th charging a bunt and throwing out Travis Ishikawa> I was personally sad they let Jamey Carroll go, but Hairston seems like a younger, more athletic version of Carroll.

So moral victories do not mean much, but playing a good Brewers team to a standstill on the road, shows this Dodgers team has some steel.

Kemp remains unbelievable with 7 homeruns in 13 games, with 18 RBI's and hitting .45, you also have to like Ethier's 4 HR, 5 2B, 18 RBI and .300 average. Dee Gordon has 8 steals, but he does need to get on base more. a .192 AVG and a .263 OBP will not get it done.

Billingsley and Clayton Kershaw seem to be staarting off as a nice 1-2 punch, and it was nice to see Ted Lilly come back and pitch well. Guerra, despite blowing the recent save has been successful in all of his other save attmepts, and the rest of the bullpen has been looking good.