Boys in Blue Pump Up on the Orange Crush

When hearing all this talk about the Freeway Series, have you ever wondered exactly what freeway?

At the end of an exhilarating carpool-lane of a weekend, the Dodgers made it clear.

For them, this summer, it’s the I-October.

If they end up in the postseason, the journey began Sunday.

If they are still cruising this fall, it will be because they first put the pedal to the metal that is the Angels.

Was that a sweep or what?

The Dodgers haven’t beaten the Angels this badly since they were roommates at Dodger Stadium in the 1960s, when Walter O’Malley charged Gene Autry for window cleaning even though the Angels offices had no windows.

In three games, the Dodgers outscored them, 31-7, and out-hit them, 45-24, and out-smiled them even by Grady Little standards.

Did you know Manager Stoic had teeth? He showed them late Sunday afternoon, just couldn’t help himself.

“The way we’re feeling, every time we come to the park we are expecting to win the ballgame,” he said. “That’s a good feeling.”

After the Dodgers’ first three-game sweep over the Angels since interleague play began nine years ago, it was an easy feeling.

On Friday, the Dodgers set a Los Angeles record for hits.

On Saturday, their biggest comeback win of the season.

On Sunday, a record for time of game.

The 7-0 victory lasted exactly 29 pitches.

By the time Ervin Santana had finished with his seventh batter in the first inning, the Dodgers led, 5-0, with steely at-bats by Jeff Kent and Willy Aybar followed by a three-run home run by Andre Ethier.

You could see it in the Angels’ eyes that once lighted up this town.

You could see it in Angels pitches that looked like batting-practice lobs and swings that looked like surrender.

They were finished. The game was finished.

This was the first Freeway Series with a Pig-Alert.

The Angels stunk.

Almost as bad as these automotive metaphors.

“They’re hurting a little bit over there, I can just look at them and tell,” Kent said. “I’ve been on teams like that before, there’s a certain rhythm about them, they’re really fighting it.”

With Derek Lowe pitching relaxed and Nomar Garciaparra hitting everything that those constantly tightened batting gloves can reach, the Dodgers strolled through the rest of the afternoon.

After Garciaparra’s two-run double in the seventh, the only thing to be decided was how Frank McCourt would publicly celebrate with wife Jamie.

After Saturday’s game, standing in front of their dugout-adjacent seats, they cuddled.

On Sunday, they actually -- yuck! -- kissed!

The Dodgers keep winning, who knows, pretty soon chants of, “J-D-Drew!” will be replaced with, “Get-A-Room!”

“I don’t know how exactly to describe what’s going on around here,” Kent said. “But it’s nice.”

As for the Angels, things were so bad that afterward, even Tom Lasorda visited his old catcher Mike Scioscia in the visiting manager’s office.

“We didn’t play well this weekend, we haven’t played well in a while now,” Scioscia said. “We got beat in every area of baseball this weekend.”

The promising thing for the Dodgers is, they didn’t do it with anything complicated.

In the first-inning punch, three consecutive two-strike successes made it happen, from Kent’s walk to Aybar’s single to Ethier’s blast.

In the seventh-inning offensive, it was all about consecutive two-out hits, from Kenny Lofton to Garciaparra.

Lowe threw 118 pitches that mostly wound up on the infield grass or in the catcher’s mitt.

And even Little showed resiliency.

He strolled to the mound in the seventh inning with two out and a runner on second as the bullpen gates opened for Jonathan Broxton.

But if you think Little’s Pedro Martinez past has given the Dodgers manager an itchy finger, you’re wrong.

Lowe talked him into staying for one more hitter. A couple of pitches later, Chone Figgins grounded out to end the inning.

“To give a starting pitcher a chance to make the last out before he leaves, that’s huge,” Lowe said. “Grady showed me a lot there.”

It’s all showing something to Kent, who had one request of management this winter.

“I said all I wanted was a workmanlike team, the kind of team that comes out and puts in a good day’s work every day, the kind that just plays,” he said. “Nobody getting real up or down. Everyone just playing.”

And?

“And that’s exactly what we have, a workmanlike team,” he said. “We’re not going to roll over anybody, but we’re going to play hard, and we’re going to do it for six months.”

To convert this into a postseason spot in a winnable division, though, the Dodgers need to roll over the Florida Marlins, Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates of the world.

“To win a lot of games, you have to beat the teams you’re supposed to beat,” Lowe said.

Rather surprisingly, the Angels are now one of those teams.

In a Freeway Series that began a top-down, hair-blowing drive into summer, the Dodgers treated them like it.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.