What a Day! « Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

What a Day!

August 29, 2007 at 5:00 pm | In Esteban Loaiza, huge wins, roster moves |

Not a bad day to be a Dodger fan, right? Let’s start with the new pitcher; updating yesterday’s post about how I thought getting Loaiza would be a good idea, the Dodgers have in fact claimed him off waivers. You can refer to what I wrote yesterday to see why I was okay with him coming to town, but the news gets better. A) he’s only paid $6.5 million next year, not $8 million as I thought yesterday; and B) rather than having to send any prospects to Oakland, the Dodgers got him for the low, low price of “on the house.” I don’t think people realize just how insane the pitching market is going to be this offseason - don’t be surprised to see guys like Kyle Lohse and Carlos Silva getting 4-year deals. So this could work out very well. We’ll see on Tuesday in Chicago, as he’s taking Eric Stults’ spot in the rotation.

On to the more exciting news.. what a win! I’m sorry to say that I did not get to watch just about all of it, only getting home for the 12th inning. But what a roller-coaster. Brad Penny giving up 6 runs on 8 hits in 5 innings to Washington? Ugh. Mark Hendrickson following to give up 2 more runs? Thanks for showing up, Lurch.

But heroes abound. How about James Loney with 4 RBI? How about Matt Kemp with a game-tying homer after Seanez and Beimel gave up the go-ahead run? How about Jeff Kent hustling face first with the winning run? (shown at right) How about Scott Proctor with three shutout innings to get the win? Finally, how about.. Shea Hillenbrand (?!) with 3 RBI of his own, including a 2 run homer in the 6th inning comeback and the game-winning sac fly.

What a comeback, and what a win. Could amount to nothing, but just saying.. this could be one of those wins you look back upon and say, “that was a season changer.” Blue are 3 out of the wild card and 4 out of the division, with San Diego and Arizona playing again tonight. Makes this upcoming series vs. the Padres a little more exciting, no?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

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If this season amounts to anything I’ll look back as David Well’s comedic bunt hit as a season changer.

Comment by dodgergabe — August 29, 2007 #
MSTI, I have a question. What is the most amount of starting pitchers allowed in a rotation?

Comment by James — August 29, 2007 #
There’s no rule on it, James. If you really wanted to, you could have 162 starting pitchers - a different one for every game.

Most every team now has a 5 man rotation, with the 5th (or worst starter) occasionally getting his turn skipped due to off-days in the schedule.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness — August 30, 2007 #
[Old coot]

Ya know, in the old days there was none of this five man rotation kiddy stuff. In the old days, pitchers went out there whenever they had to, they pitched a ton of innings on command, the best aces like Koufax pitched key championship games on 2 days rest, and they didn’t have access to the kinds of physical training equipment and knowledge that we have now.

Buncha pansies pitching today, if you ask me. BE A MAN AND GET OUT THERE AND PITCH DAMMIT!

Comment by shmolnick — August 30, 2007 #
Shmol, I like where your head’s at! Except, I couldn’t help but notice that you followed “pitchers went out there whenever they had to, they pitched a ton of innings on command” with “they didn’t have access to the kinds of physical training.. knowledge that we have now.”

Maybe that’s why they don’t send guys out like that anymore!

Well, that, and the fact they’re making so much money.

Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness — August 30, 2007 #
Well now, sounds good. Five pitchers is too little though. The Dodgers should re-sign Randy Wolf because he was a murderer out there. He just started playing a little bad when his shoulder was starting to fail. Jason Schmidt from what I heard was good. But, what about Yhency Brazoban?

Comment by James — August 30, 2007 #
I’m just thinking pitching because I feel like if the Dodgers don’t make the playoffs, that’s why.

Comment by James — August 30, 2007 #
Brazoban is consider a reliever. If I’m not mistaken he’ll be out of options next year, so unless he’s on the DL, he’ll have to go through waivers if the Dodgers can’t have him on their 25 man roster at any time next year.
As far as Wolf, his option is for 9 million, no way should the Dodgers pick that up considering he only pitched decent the first 2 months this year (he really should have gone on the DL earlier to have a chance at coming back this year as a starter). Now by all means if he’s willing to sign a one year deal at 5 million or less, I’d like to see him come back next year.

Comment by Thowdeuce — August 30, 2007 #
Randy Wolf was a good pitcher. Before he left he was 9-6. The Dodgers were playing 12 games above .500 when he was here according to what i’ve seen so yea. Brazoban, okay. I thought he was a SP but apparently not. Thanks for the response.

Comment by James — August 30, 2007 #
Well, James, I wouldn’t quite say Wolf was a murderer out there, but he did have a FANTASTIC May and did have a few great starts, such as his 11 K performance. I also enjoyed the fact that he was striking a lot of people out, but a big issue that Wolf had this season was getting through the first inning. Often he would get shelled in the 1st and then completely turn it around for the rest of the game. However, despite some of his inconsistencies, his loss has hurt us.

As for Schmidt, he only really had about six starts and maybe about 1 of them was truly good, when he came back in June against SD. The problem he was having - and why he’s out for the year - is that he simply lost the velocity on his fastball to be a good pitcher. In his prime, around 2002-2004, he was hitting 96-97 on the gun and while the Dodgers were expecting him to maybe hit the low-mid 90’s now, he was routinely in the low-mid 80’s.

Also, as I know you’ve said that you’re just getting into the game and learning it this year, so here’s a little tip regarding pitchers: don’t pay too much attention to W/L records. You’ll see many people at ESPN - or the people we make fun of - trying to hype up wins as the most important thing for a pitcher, but always remember that a pitcher’s win and loss record is very team dependent. I always use this example: in 2006, Randy Johnson won 17 games with the Yankees - who have a sick offense - but had an ERA of 5. To compare, Roger Clemens in 2005 had an ERA of 1.87, but only won 13 games because he had almost no run support. Who had the better season?

To contrast that, Randy Wolf this year had an average of 6.57 runs per game in run support, which would rank him second with NL pitchers who have pitched at least 100 innings.

Comment by Vin Scully — August 31, 2007 #
Man, I get great insight from this website. haha. thanks. Well, I certainly wish that the Dodgers get their pitching staff set in stone, ya know? Well, I saw Randy Wolf at the Ravine earlier this year. He did great. I never saw Jason Schmidt. But, well now, I watch SportsCenter too. So, I’ll take your word over theirs because they’ve said many things but inconsistently and without much to back their statements. Thanks for the insight. Damn. I ask so many freakin questions.

Comment by James — August 31, 2007 #