Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

Me neither. So why does Rotoworld think we do?

Broxton might have a lat strain similar to Rich Harden’s. He’ll miss at least tonight’s game. If he’s forced to the DL, the Dodgers could call up Yhency Brazoban or Ramon Troncoso. The decision to cut Rudy Seanez at the end of the spring is looking more foolish by the week.

Really? It does? I don’t remember a single Dodger outlet - blogger or traditional media - complaining about letting Seanez go. Not one. And as you may or may not have noticed, we love to complain about things!

Besides, the Dodger bullpen has, on the whole, been outstanding this year.

2008 MLB Bullpen ERA
1. Tampa Bay 2.56
2. Florida 2.56
3. Arizona 2.56
4. Philadelphia 2.77
5. Oakland 2.82
6. Dodgers 3.18

Sixth out of thirty teams. Fourth in the National League. The bullpen is a problem how? Every reliever currently on the team has an ERA below 4.00 except for Scott Proctor’s 5.14 - and even for him, all 8 of his earned runs this year came in 2 disastrous outings, leaving him with 10 scoreless appearances. Sure, Rudy’s been good thus far in Philly (although, while a 1.00 ERA in 9 appearances looks nice, the 8 walks vs. 3 strikeouts in 9 innings certainly doesn’t back it up, so I can’t imagine that nice ERA stays anywhere near that low.)

Besides, if another arm is needed to bolster the ‘pen? Yhency Brazoban’s been dominating the minors (0.83 WHIP and a .591 OPS against), Ramon Troncoso had four scoreless outings in LA before getting hit hard in his last two, Jon Meloan (yes, he’s starting again in AAA, but there’s no reason he couldn’t come back to the pen if needed) has a 2.49 ERA in notorious hitter’s haven Las Vegas - and it’s by no means out of the question that uberprospect Clayton Kershaw (currently allowing batters a .482 OPS - not a typo, that’s OPS) in AA couldn’t follow the Johan Santana career path and debut in the bullpen.

No, you’re right, Rotoworld. We definitely should have held onto the almost 40-year-old reliever who’s masking the fact that he’s nearly walking three times as many as he strikes out behind a pretty (lucky) ERA.

What were the Dodgers thinking?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

… thank whomever it is you might pray to that it’s not three times worse:

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Zito was demoted to the bullpen Monday by the San Francisco Giants, who hope the former ace can correct his problems by working in relief.

The move was first reported by ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.

Zito, who only 16 months ago signed a $126 million, seven-year contract with the Giants to lead their rotation, was informed of the move in a meeting with manager Bruce Bochy.

“I’m certainly not happy with it, by any means,” Zito said. “But this is the bed that I’ve made. I have to lay in it for the time being and I have to overcome. I trust management and I trust what their decisions are.”

The left-hander has lost his first six starts this season and has a 7.53 ERA that jumped considerably after Zito was tagged for eight earned runs in a 10-1 loss Sunday to Cincinnati.

The 2002 AL Cy Young Award winner with Oakland, Zito lasted just three innings against the Reds and was booed frequently by the crowd at AT&T Park during his shortest outing of the year.

“It’s good sometimes just to back off,” Bochy said. “It’s happened to a lot of great players, position players and even pitchers. We just felt at this point it’s time for him to sit back, miss a start and help us in the pen.” (ESPN)

I think most people realized that this was a terrible deal at the outset but… he made it all of 39 (awful) starts before being dumped. While we’re wondering what we’re going to do with 4 more years of Juan Pierre, what do the Giants do with 6 more seasons (and $111.5 million!!!) of Barry Zito? Move over, Mike Hampton, and take a seat, Darren Dreifort. We have a new undisputed champion of worst contract ever.

Looking around some Giants blogs (and yeah, I feel plenty dirty now) it seems that Zito (shown at right caught red-handed stealing money) is like Juan Pierre times a million. Much as we dump on Pierre, he’s at least got some value. Zito? Well…

It can’t be stressed enough. It just can’t. Barry Zito is probably my least favorite topic to think about, discuss, or devote any brain power to. On one hand, I feel bad for watching a once talented pitcher dissolve in front of our very eyes. It’s a metamorphosis none of us thought would happen this soon or this completely. Nobody expected Zito to do what he’s doing right now and I think even the most hard boiled critic of the Zito deal assumed that he’d be alright for the first couple of years and then slowly start to decline. The decline is now and it’s frightening. (Bay City Ball)

Let’s get some stats!

The line on Zito so far this season is pretty pathetic to say the least. He is 0-6 in his six starts this season, with a 7.53 ERA, 15 walks, 11 strikeouts and has given up 30 runs. Lefties have hit .348 off him and righties have hit .333. He’s averaging only 4 2/3 innings per start and taxing the bullpen every time he takes the mound. (michaelnewjr.com)

Brutal! How about the fantastically named El Lefty Malo?

The weekend brought several developments, none of them good. The biggest and least surprising was the continued horribleness of Barry Zito, prompting Giant brass to wonder aloud if Zito can remain in the rotation. Did you catch J.T. Snow on the radio broadcast yesterday? Instead of sticking to the fraternal code of ex-ballplayers — Thou Shall Not Embarrass Thy Brothers on the Air — J.T. basically said Zito has nothing. He wasn’t rude, but he was blunt: No velocity, no command, no confidence. Either he or Flemming, I can’t remember which, called Zito’s pitches “batting practice fastballs.” Batters are comfortable against him; even the outs he got yesterday were pop-ups because the Reds were swinging too hard, Snow said. In other words, no respect. Go up there and have fun, boys.

If I sound like I’m enjoying this well… I guess I’m not quite sure how to finish that sentence. Not that the Dodgers haven’t made any stupid signings in recent history, because they certainly have - just not on this magnitude. I think I’m going to enjoy the next half-decade or so of watching our most bitter rivals suffer.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

So, explain this to me: Ned Colletti is sitting in his nice, cozy office at Dodger Stadium and pondering the future of Blake DeWitt. Now, with Nomar about ready to come back, he sends him down for Cory Wade, because we somehow NEED a 12 man pitching staff. Now remember, Chin-Lung Hu, Delwyn Young, and the rest of the team? They don’t play third base. So, knowing this, Nomar will become the full-fledged starter for at least the next three weeks or so, until Andy LaRoche gets back..

Yeah… here’s how that worked out:

Top of the 9th inning:

• T Saito relieved J Broxton
• C Hu at second base
• R Spilborghs hit for M Corpas
• R Spilborghs walked
• W Taveras ran for R Spilborghs
• S Podsednik doubled to left, W Taveras to third
• G Bennett catching
• R Martin to at third base
• W Taveras scored, S Podsednik to third base on passed ball by G Bennett

What the…?

That’s no typo. For those who didn’t tune in, as Podsednik doubled to left, Nomar popped his calf trying to get the ball, thus removing himself from the game and bringing in our backup third baseman Bl… uh… An… oh wait, Russell Martin.

Once he goes to third base, Bennett comes in to catch and on the very first pitch from Saito, Bennett botches it, bringing in the tying run.

Now, you see, this begs a much bigger question: just how fucking brain dead do you have to be to send down your young, hitting third baseman when he’s the ONLY POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE??!! It is beyond stupid to put yourself in this position with any third baseman, but the Stupid Meter goes up infinitely when that third baseman is a man who has been DL’d about 29238472309482903840923983488^2 times in the past few years and is expected to man the position every day for the next three weeks. Not only do you kill your depth, but this lack of depth caused the team to have no other choice but to move their starting catcher to third base, only to have their backup catcher come in and give up the tying run in the 9th inning. Now, sure, I don’t think anyone expected Nomar to go down THIS soon, but you should never put yourself in this position to begin with. It’s like Theo Epstein one day saying: “You know what? We don’t need any other right fielders for now… we have Drew to hold fort!” The good news is that, DeWitt will be able to be called up immediately, rather than waiting the standard 10 days. The reason is that Nomar will almost certainly have to be DL’d with what Joe Torre said was a pop in his calf, something similar to last year.

Thanks, beautiful.

Have to say, I did not see this coming. From Josh Rawitch’s official team blog:

As for tonight (back to the short-term), it’s another big game against Arizona. Joe Torre and the baseball staff believe we need to add another pitcher, so Cory Wade will be in uniform and Blake DeWitt has been optioned, surely with his head high. What an impressive job he’s done and he’s made a ton of people take notice (not the least of which are in Sikeston, MO, his hometown that named this Blake DeWitt month).

Cory Wade? Really? Well, first things first: DeWitt. I can’t say I’m totally surprised here, and I’m probably happier that he’s going to be getting some more regular playing time in the minors. But know this: Nomar is playing every single day for the next three weeks until Andy LaRoche comes back. I suppose the benefit in that is that at least we’ll know exactly how much he has left when LaRoche returns to make this a real competition. Also, I wish there was some way to split Chin-Lung Hu in half so that he could sub in on defense for both Nomar and Kent simultaneously.

As for Cory Wade: I’m extremely surprised. I think we all knew that Torre preferred to have 12 pitchers and that DeWitt would get sent down for a pitcher. Fine. But didn’t we all think it would be Yhency Brazoban? He’s rocking AA, striking out 11 in 8.2 scoreless innings. Even Tony Jackson said it would be Brazoban, saying:

Yhency Brazoban is being promoted to Triple-A because club officials want to get a look at him there before calling him up, but Torre hinted that the club isn’t going to stick with an 11-man pitching staff for too long, so that could mean Brazo gets the call in the next few days.

He later amended that to say that Brazoban hadn’t gotten the call to AAA yet, but would soon. So why Cory Wade all the way from Jacksonville? So far he’s given up a hit per inning in AA, with a 4.40 ERA in 14.2 innings, although only 1 walk. He’s 25 and now in his 5th season of minor league ball, with a 4.22 career ERA. I’ll admit to not knowing much about him, but that’s probably because legitimate prospects make it out of A-ball before they’re 24. In Feburary, Baseball Prospectus listed their top 11 Dodgers prospects, plus three more that just missed the cut: Wade wasn’t mentioned. In fact, I couldn’t even find a better picture than his “official headshot” shown at right. I can’t imagine he sticks for more than a week or so, or however long it takes for Brazoban to prove his readiness.

In other news, former major leaguers Mike Koplove (31 with a 0.96 AAA ERA), Greg Jones (31 with a 3.00 AAA ERA), Mike Myers (39 with a 3.48 AAA ERA) and Matt Riley (28 with a 4.26 AAA ERA) can be found tonight at the nearest bar to Cashman Field in Vegas.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

We’re all familiar with the list of regrettable trades our favorite team has made, no matter who you root for. In case you feel the need to get some scabs ripped off of past injuries, Ross Newhan has a list of the five worst trades in Dodger history. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Pedro-for-Delino tops the list, as it should. There’s also “lots of 80s young pitchers for no one good” at #2, “Maury Wills to Pittsburgh” at #3, and “FOX sells Piazza to Florida”at #5. All well and good. Can’t argue these. This article sort of writes itself.

Oh, I missed #4, you say?

No.4 – It is hard to overlook the 1998 trade that cost the club Paul Konerko for Jeff Shaw or the April 4 deal in 2004 that brought the destructive Milton Bradley for Franklin Gutierrez, who has since fulfilled his promise in the Cleveland outfield, but Paul DePodesta may have compounded Bradley’s eventual chemistry implosion four months later when he traded Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota and Juan Encarnacion to Florida for Brad Penny, Hee-Seop Choi and Bill Murphy, the Dodgers never regaining the roll they had been on at the time.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. Let’s go in order!

1. “Franklin Gutierrez has since fufilled his promise in the Cleveland outfield.” Well, that’s true. But only if his “promise” was to generate an 89 OPS+ over parts of 4 big league seasons, with a seasonal high of 271 at-bats. He’s only 25, so he may yet turn out to be something. But let’s not go giving him MVP votes quite yet, shall we?

2. “Paul DePodesta may have compounded Bradley’s eventual chemistry implosion four months later…” What exactly is Newhan trying to say here? Hey, far be it from me to defend Milton Bradley. In fact, feel free to take a quick look back at one of my favorite posts on this blog, from last September, after he blew out his knee arguing with an umpire. If you’ll notice, that post contains a near-exhaustive list of all of his public incidents up to that point. None of them contains any problems with Brad Penny, Hee-Seop Choi, or Billy Murphy. How does this trade cause Bradley to start freaking out? Is Newhan really suggesting that the absence of Dr. Paul LoDuca’s honorary master’s degree in Chemistry really the reason that Bradley never behaved? Really?

3. Oh right - there’s the fact that the trade which dumped an overrated steroid-using catcher for a young ace who’s started two All-Star games in a row somehow makes a list of bad trades. I’ll admit it came as a shock, because LoDuca was popular; and I’ll admit that DePodesta did screw up royally by not having another deal in place to acquire a catcher. But does anyone besides Bill Plashke (and his opinion doesn’t really count, because he’s Bill Plashke) really still think this deal was a bad idea? Brad Penny’s the ace of the staff, and Paul LoDuca’s been exiled to Platoon-ville, DC. SportshubLA did a good review of how well this trade turned out for the Dodgers a few weeks ago, if you’re interested in the exact details.

Sorry, Ross. You couldn’t be more off-base on this one.

And I’ve actually gotten way off-topic here; I didn’t even intend to have this post be about Newhan’s article. Everyone’s got their own opinions on trades that have been made, but what’s really juicy is when you hear about trades that could have, but didn’t, happen years after the fact. Like this nugget from former GM Fred Claire, from an interview he did today with MLBtraderumors.com - and yes, this is what’s going to make you cry:

MLBTR: Could you tell us about the biggest trade you seriously considered but ultimately did not make?

Claire: I think a “near” trade that comes to mind quickly is a deal in my final year (1998 ) as the GM of the Dodgers where I felt we were going to be able to acquire Randy Johnson from the Mariners with Hideo Nomo as part of the package. I believe the Seattle front office was willing to do the deal but that Mariner ownership stepped in and stopped the trade in the final stages. I could be wrong because you never know exactly what is happening in the other front office but I had the feeling this deal was a real possibility.

Fantastic. I almost wish I didn’t know that. Johnson was traded on July 31, 1998 to Houston, while Nomo ended up being traded on June 4, 1998 along with Brad Clontz for the immortal Greg McMichael and Dave Mlicki. Hey, those guys are almost as good as Randy Johnson, right? It’s not like he won the next… four… Cy… Youngs… in… a…. ROW… right?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

How many errors can you make in one sentence? From the Cincinnati broadcasters (not sure which one) in the top of the 1st of tonight’s game:

Andre Ethier came over from Oakland three years ago and made quite a splash, helping the Dodgers to a division championship in 2006. They’ve been trying to replace him ever since, bringing in Juan Pierre two years ago and Andruw Jones this year.

1). The Dodgers won the Wild Card in 2006, not the division.
2). Juan Pierre was signed one year ago, not two.
3). The signings of Pierre and Jones had absolutely nothing to do with “replacing” Andre Either. Pierre was brought in to play CF after J.D. Drew opted out and Kenny Lofton was not re-signed, leaving the outfield short handed. Jones was brought in to add power and replace Juan Pierre.

But hey, it’s not like these guys are paid to talk about baseball, right?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

- Chip Caray, in the top of the 7th inning on TBS in today’s game, relating what Nomar Garciaparra requested of him in the clubhouse on Saturday.

Because of his right hand. Which still has a microfracture. I think we all knew that Nomar was pushing it a little to get back before Andy LaRoche does, but that surprised me quite a bit to hear that it was still hurting him so much.

Nomar’s now 1-for-10 since his return. You can sell me on the small sample size argument at the plate, but have you seen him in the field yet? 2 errors in 3 games - but even that is misleading, as on Saturday he misplayed two crucial balls that didn’t go down as errors, which could have easily changed the outcome of the game. So he’s not hitting, he’s not fielding… how is he helping?

And it’s not just me, the lowly jaded blogger, who’s asking this question. Tony Jackson writes,

Just a thought, but I think the question has to be asked whether Nomar needed a longer rehab assignment. He is 1 for 10 (zero for his past nine) at the plate, and yesterday, he made three fielding gaffes (only one was an error, but one of the non-errors cost the Dodgers two runs). After the game, Torre said Nomar was “still getting his legs under him.” When I pressed him and asked if that suggested he should have had a longer rehab — because, really, when you come off the DL to play in games that actually count, your legs should be under you by then, IMHO — Torre seemed to push it off on Nomar, saying that with veteran players, you have to trust them to tell you when they’re ready.

Considering that Blake DeWitt - you know, the rookie who we all feared would have a severe case of deer-in-the-headlight-itis if he had to play every day - has played exactly 110 more innings than Nomar while committing one less error, I think it’s pretty fair to say that Nomar is in no way prepared to be the everyday third baseman.

I don’t want to place all the blame on this team’s current woes on Nomar. It’s obvious that Andruw Jones has been a disaster (3 more K’s today!), Martin’s still under .200 (though he did take one deep today), and no one seems to be able to hit with men on base. The fact is, though, that this team has enough issues going on right now. Blake DeWitt, while by no means an All-Star, is not currently one of them. Why create another new one? I’ll accept that it’s because of Nomar’s hand, even though he hadn’t been good before that in quite some time. But if he’s not even healthy enough to shake hands with a guy who looks like this, how can we expect him to perform at the highest level?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

Via Deadspin, I can’t tell if this blog post is a joke or not:

Here’s what I want to do next spring. I want to return to 1955 and listen to every game played by the Brooklyn Dodgers, in real time, several games a week through to the end of the season.

I don’t know what happened to the Dodgers that year. I have no idea whether Brooklyn did well or badly. So if someone can contrive to play the radio broadcasts over the week and send me newspaper clippings at the appropriate intervals, I can live the entire season with each inning, each game, and the season outcome as a complete surprise. Within certain limits I can experience the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1955 as if I had found a seam in time, stolen back in history, and managed to come upon these boys of summer as they played a season completely unaware that there was a time traveler in their midst.

This is actually kind of a romantic idea, and I think it could be kind of interesting. Except that…

The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers? Really? Probably one of the most well-known champions in MLB history? Does anyone who counts themselves as more than a casual baseball fan - which, I imagine you’d pretty much have to be if you’re really going to listen to 154 50-year old games - not know the one year the Brooklyn Dodgers finally brought the trophy home? Maybe if he’d said the 1940 Pittsburgh Pirates, or the 1976 Detroit Tigers, etc. There’s no way you know what happened to those teams if you didn’t look it up. (Which I just did to make sure I didn’t actually pick a pennant winner: the 1940 Pirates came in 4th at 78-76 and the 1976 Tigers finished 5th at 74-87. Just as non-descript as I’d been hoping.)

I hate to break the news, but…

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

After getting shut out on Sunday by San Diego, and kicked in the stomach by Pittsburgh on Monday, how welcome was last night’s romp? Matt Kemp - who as you may or may not have noticed, I have advocated allowing to play - scored three times. James Loney has now hit in every game this year (that’s 14 in a row, longest to start a season for LA since Steve Garvey in 1978. I believe “14 in a row in 1978″ was also Steve’s record for stewardesses, but we’ll save that for another time). Russell Martin finally gets something going with his first home run of the year, and even Andruw Jones showed some life with two hits. And what can you say about Rafael Furcal after a 2-5, 2 RBI night that pushes his average up to .364? Well, there’s this:

2008 MLB Leaders in VORP:
1. Rafael Furcal SS LAD 11.5
2. Hanley Ramirez SS FLO 11.4
3. Nate McLouth OF PIT 11.1
4. Pat Burrell OF PHI 10.9
5. Albert Pujols 1B STL 10.8

Is it too early to start the “Rafael for MVP” chant? For tonight’s game, Andre Ethier is going to sit in favor of Juan Pierre, according to Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, but since Ethier has yet to sit even once this year, I can’t get too worked up about that.

But here’s where things may get interesting. We have Nomar news, also from Hernandez:

Back in Los Angeles from a minor league rehabilitation assignment, Nomar Garciaparra is set to be activated in time for a five-game trip that begins Friday in Atlanta.

“You have steps throughout the whole process to get back and I’ve taken every step,” Garciaparra said. “Now, it’s go out there and play.”

Great! I’ve been more than thrilled with Blake DeWitt, but since the team obviously doesn’t view Chin-Lung Hu as more than an emergency option at 3B, DeWitt has played every single inning at the hot corner thus far. Think about that for a second - there is no Dodger who has played more this season than Blake DeWitt, other than James Loney, who has also played every single inning at his position. Mind-blowing. Anyway, I think this team could use the infield depth, not only to have another viable 3B option, but also because Loney can’t play every inning all year either, and Torre has already said he’d prefer not to start Mark Sweeney and lose his bat off the bench, going so far as to have Ethier take grounders at 1B in practice. I don’t think any of us want to see that experiment, so Nomar will come up, hopefully get some time at both corners (I’m thinking, two starts a week at 3B and one at 1B?), and keep everyone happy and healthy. Right?

Garciaparra said his preference would be to play “every single day.”

Oh. I suppose I can’t blame him for saying that; would you really want a guy who admits he doesn’t want to play every day? The thing is, DeWitt’s actually been surprisingly good. DodgerThoughts does a good job of breaking down the supposed “success” of DeWitt this year vs. the supposed “failure” of Andy LaRoche last season - although I might add, it seemed to me that most of the people who considered LaRoche’s debut to be poor were those who only look at batting average as an evaluation tool.

As for the corresponding roster move, Tony Jackson, on his blog, says:

And although I have been hinting that DeWitt is going back to the minors when Nomar comes off the DL, it now looks like they are at least considering keeping him and cutting back to 11 pitchers temporarily. That would almost certainly mean Ramon Troncoso is the odd man out.

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that the only possible move? There’s no way you can send down DeWitt just yet. Even if Nomar is handed the everyday third base job, which I can’t imagine happening right off the bat, the Dodgers obviously have no other third base solutions. There’s simply no way you can count on the fragile Nomar to play every single inning. With Tony Abreu suffering yet another setback (is it possible he’s going to make Nomar look like an ironman?) and Andy LaRoche just about to start his rehab assignment, DeWitt can’t possibly go anywhere. If he’s sent down, he has to stay down for ten days, and that’s a scary proposition to have to count on Nomar to be able to handle all of that immediately. It’s not that any of this is groundbreaking; I’m just surprised that Jackson would even consider that DeWitt gets sent down until LaRoche or Abreu are available.

Also, Joe Torre has an Iphone? I don’t know why that thought entertains me so much.

Finally, just to throw fuel on the fire, take it away, Buster Olney!

Nomar Garciaparra has rejoined the Dodgers, but if he doesn’t play regularly — and he says within this piece that he wants to play every single day — you wonder how long this situation will last. Blake DeWitt has done a nice job at third base, and you wonder if it would be best all for all involved for the Dodgers to cut ties with Garciaparra and move on.

Buster, I still don’t really have a problem with Nomar saying that - that’s what he has to say. Besides, this team is in absolutely no position to start dumping third basemen. Plus, as much as I like to be objective and focus on the stats, cutting Nomar would be a pretty big PR hit for a team that doesn’t need any right now. Here’s what I’d do when the injured start returning:

1. Nomar comes off the DL, Troncoso goes down. Nomar gets two starts a week at 3B and is available to give Loney a breather at 1B.
2. LaRoche comes off the DL, DeWitt goes down. DeWitt gets to play every day in the minors, which he wouldn’t with both LaRoche and Nomar around. LaRoche gets the majority of starts at 3B, Nomar available to spell both infield corners.
3. Abreu comes off the DL (assuming this ever happens), Hu goes down. Abreu’s now your middle infield backup, and Hu gets to play every day in AAA, which, considering how high I am on him, is very important, as I think he might be stagnating a little sitting on the bench every day in the bigs.
4. To get back to 12 pitchers: cut Mark Sweeney. I know, I know: Torre loves his veteran bat off the bench. Well, guess what? Sweeney has 1 hit in 10 pinch-hitting at-bats. He’s yet to touch his glove. Dump Sweeney, and make Nomar the new Big Sexy.

Of course, since this is what I’m proposing, none of it will actually happen.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

You mean, Lisa?

(You may have remembered I had a whole thing here about Matt Kemp only playing vs. lefties. Commenter-of-the-year “Elessann” points out that Micah Owings is in fact a right-handed pitcher, which sort of destroys that whole point. I think I was thinking of the Rockies’ Micah Bowie, who is in fact a lefty. So thanks for the heads-up, and let’s pretend all that other stuff never existed.. moving on!)

Regarding today’s game, I said earlier that I didn’t have a problem with putting Juan Pierre in the lineup because he’d had such great success against Greg Maddux in the past (he went 1-4) but that I did have a big problem with Kemp being nailed to the bench yet again, and that if anyone had to sit today, it should have been Andruw Jones. I’m not going to rehash those choices; what concerns me is what happened once the game was going on. (And no, I haven’t limited discussion on how awful Jones has been just because we backed the deal when it was signed - its because I can’t even think about just how hideous he’s been playing without wanting to eat my own face right now. Trust me, it’ll come.)

Here’s the problem I had today. If you have to have Matt Kemp on the bench, then at least you know you’ve got yourself a pretty good weapon to bring out at just the right time. In a tight game where your pitching staff is dominating (14 strikeouts!) yet you’re still down by a run, every decision looms large. So explain these to me - and remember, this is not meant to be Pierre-bashing, as I already said I didn’t mind him starting today, and also because Torre seems to regard Kemp and Pierre as two sides of a rotation, rather than Ethier and Pierre as we all had assumed it would be.

Bottom 6th. Padres up 1-0. LHP Joe Thatcher comes in to relieve Maddux, and after retiring Furcal, Pierre is allowed to hit. Now what’s that about? Not only is there a lefty in the game, but the Dodgers have been able to get zero offense going. Kemp’s got the ability to tie this game with one swing of the bat, while Pierre has no such chance. It’s not as though Torre doesn’t want to pinch-hit for Pierre with Kemp, because he’s already done it twice in this young season. Against a lefty, down by one… this is where you put in Kemp.

But that one is nowhere near as egregious as..

Bottom 8th. Padres up 1-0. Blake DeWitt (who really deserves a lot more press than everyone has been giving him for his stellar defense and acceptable bat so far) gets a single off RHP Heath Bell. After Mark Sweeney and Furcal both manage to make outs without advancing DeWitt, Pierre comes up. Remember, there’s already two outs. You need a guy with some power in this situation, if even only the ability to put a ball into the gap and possibly allow DeWitt to score the tying run. Instead, you leave up the guy who we’ve discussed ad nauseum is a mediocre hitter. Predictably, he grounds weakly into a fielder’s choice.

How does Kemp finally get into the game? As a pinch runner for James Loney after Loney doubled in the 9th. Kemp’s a pretty fast guy, so I don’t mind him running, but tell me it didn’t cross your mind that if he had been given the start over Pierre… you’d not only have had a better chance of four more productive at-bats, but you’d have Pierre available to do what he’s most suited to: run. Forget the Loney double. Imagine that situation in the bottom of the 8th if it had been Kemp at bat and Pierre inserted to run at 1st, rather than Pierre at the plate and DeWitt’s below-average speed at first. Just not the best use of assets.

On a somewhat related topic… who was going to play first base in extra innings if the Dodgers had tied the game in the 9th? Loney had been pinch run for after his double, and Sweeney had already been used as a pinch hitter. Delwyn Young had also been used to hit, which meant that the only players left on the bench were Chin-Lung Hu and Gary Bennett. Might we have seen Hu at 2B, pushing Jeff Kent to first base for the first time since 2006? Or left Kemp in, pushed him to RF, and given Andre Ethier his first career opportunity in the infield, as was discussed recently (it was on Tony Jackson’s blog, but since their redesign, his archive links don’t work anymore.) Just something interesting to think about; I’d like to know the answer to that one.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness