It's time for Dodgers to set it right

The calendar reads September. The lineup is fit for June.

This would be a good time for the Dodgers to determine their best position players and, well, play them.

They have had 144 games to evaluate. They have 18 games left to pass two teams, make up 3 1/2 games and seize the wild card. The time for rest days is over. This is the time to end the daily game of musical chairs -- three corner outfielders, two spots -- with Matt Kemp, Luis Gonzalez and Andre Ethier.

Gonzalez and Ethier started Tuesday, after an off day. Ethier and Kemp started Sunday. Kemp and Gonzalez started Saturday.

Hitting is about timing. The more you play, the better your timing.

"Usually," Gonzalez said.

Usually, Gonzalez is happy to talk at length, whatever the subject. This was a subject he did not care to discuss.

If Kemp had come up from the minor leagues and flamed out, as he did last summer, this would not be an issue. But Kemp is batting .338, with the best home-run-to-at-bat ratio on a power-starved team.

In September, Kemp has either batted third -- the spot generally reserved for the best hitter on a team -- or not started at all. Ethier has batted third. He also has batted eighth.

Kemp has started eight games this month. So has Ethier. Gonzalez has started six.

"Most of it," Manager Grady Little said, "is based on our matchup sheets."

For Gonzalez, a 17-year veteran, that makes sense. For Ethier and Kemp, each in his second season, the track record is so short as to be virtually useless. In the case of Kemp against Cy Young Award candidate Jake Peavy, who beat the Dodgers as usual Tuesday, the track record is literally useless.

"Kemp has none against Peavy," Little said. "It's my guess he'll have none after this game too."

Peavy won't face the Dodgers again this season. Little did not agree that a set lineup for the final 18 games would give the Dodgers the best chance to win.

"I look at each game individually, and how we're going to try to win that game," he said. "You put a lot of stock in numbers. You don't put total stock in them."

And that means . . .

"It's just like that lady in the bikini at the beach," he said. "They show you a lot. They just don't show you everything."

The numbers you would check first don't help at all. You wonder about a platoon, but Kemp, Gonzalez and Ethier all are hitting left-handers better than right-handers this season.