Monthly Archives: September 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2008 NL West Champions

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Somewhat anticlimactic, since the final blow was delivered about 1500 miles away in St. Louis while the Dodger players weren’t even at the stadium yet, but who cares – we’ll take it! Can you believe this day has actually come? This has been an absolutely unbelievable season of ups and downs. For every Nomar walkoff dinger, there’s Rafael Furcal having back surgery. You have Andruw Jones being the most disappointing player ever, but you also have Andre Ethier becoming one of the most solid outfielders in baseball. Really, what can sum this up better than an eight game losing streak followed by an eight game winning streak?

We’ve loved Manny, and we’ve panned Pierre. We’ve praised Torre, and we’ve really hated Torre. We’ve watched Chad Billingsley grow into a bona fide ace, and we’ve seen former ace Brad Penny be nearly useless. We’ve watched Chan Ho Park resurrect his career and Blake DeWitt and Cory Wade come out of nowhere to start theirs, and we’ve seen Mark Sweeney struggle along like a horse on its way to the glue factory.
And here’s the best part: the Dodgers have a real chance in this thing. Yesterday I posted that a large debt is due the Diamondbacks and the rest of the crappy division for allowing the Dodgers to be in this position, and I still believe that to be true – if the Dodgers played in any other division, we’d have given up playoff hopes long ago. It’s not only a fact, they’d likely have been so far out that the Manny and Blake trades would never have even been made.
But what I did not mean to imply was that the Dodgers are somehow impostors, undeserving of the chance to compete. The fact is, the Dodgers of September 25, 2008 are markedly different than the Dodgers of May 25, 2008. That team didn’t have Manny Ramirez. That team still gave serious playing time to stiffs like Jones and Pierre. That team had just lost Furcal, rather than just regained him. That team still counted on Brad Penny, while this one has seen Andre Ethier emerge. That team watched DeWitt, Nomar and Andy LaRoche scuffle around third after DeWitt’s hot start, while this team has Casey Blake solidifying the position – horrible trade for him aside.
Need proof? The Dodgers are the best team in baseball since September 1, and it’s not even particularly close. They have 16 wins, while no other team has more than 13. The pitching has been excellent, as their 2.99 ERA tops the game – as does the .643 OPS against. But we always knew this team could pitch. That’s not the exciting part; the fact that their offense has been so good is. During September, they have the third best OPS in baseball at .826, and the only teams topping them are noted bashers Texas and Florida. Thanks mostly to Manny and Russell Martin, they are walking a ton, as their OBP of .378 tops the NL and is only .001 behind Texas’ mark.
When the playoffs get going, we’ll be seeing plenty about how the Dodgers have a mediocre offense, as their season OPS is only 21st in MLB on the season, between Houston and Cincinnati. They’ll say the Blue have no power, since they rank 22nd – behind Pittsburgh. And those people will be wrong, because this Dodgers team has changed remarkably over that time. Call it seeing things through blue-color glasses if you must, but no team in baseball is playing better on both sides of the ball right now.
This is the year we forget about Jose Lima forever. But probably not his wife.
In the four games remaining, this team needs to accomplish two things and two things only:
1) Rest the guys who need it. Manny has yet to take a day off since coming to LA. You probably don’t want to do that tonight since the home fans want to see him, but he’d better get at least one day off in San Francisco. Ditto for Martin, who’d better be seeing pine in at least two of the four games. The same goes for Chad Billingsley, although I believe the plan is to start him on Sunday just for a few innings to get his work in and have him be ready to go for game 2 of the NLDS. Can we please see Eric Stults out there?
2) Sort out your injury concerns. Can Jeff Kent contribute? If he can’t play defense at all, he’s unlikely to make the postseason roster. He did get a base hit last night in his first game back, and while he was immediately lifted for a runner, he didn’t seem to be limping at all while running back to the bench. Possibly more important is Rafael Furcal, who got an at-bat and an inning at shortstop last night. Even if it’s not realistic for him to be a 9-inning shortstop in the playoffs, just the thought of him back at the top of this lineup makes me drool. On the pitching side, Takashi Saito seems to have proven his health, so the only concern lies with Hong-Chih Kuo. If he can’t get into any of these remaining games, I have a hard time thinking he’ll make the playoff roster.
Playoffs start in six days, baby! Enjoy it!

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

Anyone Still Worried?

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Amazing what a little ten-run outburst combined with an Arizona loss can do for your outlook on life, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure we won’t be seeing as much hand-wringing and worry around the intertubes as was going on yesterday. Despite the exhortations from FireNedCollettiNow  to avoid saying the “P” word, I’m going to be the one to say it: the Dodgers are going to make the playoffs. There. It’s done.

That said, Let’s go Mets! Anyone here prefer to play the Cubs over the Phillies in the first round? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Well, we’re going to Chicago if the Brewers manage to pull out the wild card, so here’s to CC Sabathia finally breaking down from overuse tonight. And not after we give him a 7-year, $160 million deal in the offseason. Ugh.

So here’s what I’m most interested in right now: Rafael Furcal. The latest update, from today’s LA Times, seems to be a positive one:

Rafael Furcal said the pain in his surgically repaired lower back has diminished to a point where he is no longer hesitant about venturing onto the field.

“I’m ready for however they want to use me,” Furcal said, adding that the only physical discomfort he’s experiencing these days is some mild tightness in his hamstrings.

I know, I know; counting on Rafael Furcal for anything is a little bit like depending on Jason Schmidt. But I say, it’s time to throw him out there, because what’s the downside? I know this is going to sound pretty inhumane, but what’s the worst that can happen – he gets hurt again? He’s a free agent after the season, so it’s not like the Dodgers are on the hook for paying him if he’s injured. But isn’t it worth the chance to see if an 80% (I’m just guessing on that) Furcal is better than a 100% Angel Berroa, even despite Berroa’s recent improvement? So put Furcal out there. If he shows some semblance of his former self, then great – now you’ve improved a dangerous offense even further by putting him at the top of it and having the 8th spot be occupied by Blake DeWitt rather than Berroa. If it was too soon and he gets hurt again, the only effect is that you’re in the same position you’ve been in for months, which is not having his services. No downside there, to me.

* Also, I’d like to address this right off the bat, because I know everyone hates the Yankees and claims “East Coast bias!” and so on….

Yankees Senior VP Hank Steinbrenner isn’t all that impressed that Joe Torre has the Dodgers on the brink of the playoffs in his first season managing in L.A.

“I’m happy for Joe, but you have to compare the divisions and the competition,” the bombastic Baby Boss says in a guest column in the new Sporting News magazine, which hits newsstands this week.

“What if the Yankees finish the season with more wins than the Dodgers but the Dodgers make the playoffs? Does that make the Dodgers a better team? No.”

Hank is, believe it or not, absolutely right. Don’t forget, not only are the Yankees likely to end up with as many or more wins than the Dodgers, they’re doing it in what might be rightly called the toughest division in history. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that the Dodgers politely decline a playoff invitation, and if they should win it all that flag’s not going to fly any lower because of the weak division they came out of. It’s just something that we all need to keep in mind – in any other division, the Dodgers are a third place team.

* Finally, a quick update on yesterday’s story about Hong-Chih Kuo, from the same article as the Furcal quote:

Hong-Chih Kuo played catch and said his ailing left elbow is responding well to treatment, but admitted that he didn’t know if he would be able to pitch in the postseason. Kuo, who has undergone four elbow surgeries, has pitched twice in the last three weeks.

Not good!

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

It’s Time to Be Worried About Hong-Chih Kuo, Right?

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It’s relatively common knowledge that Hong-Chih Kuo has been held out with “elbow soreness” for a while, but I didn’t realize until today that it’s now been 9 days since his last appearance. Not only that, he was terrible in it, giving up 4 hits and the game’s only run in the September 14th 1-0 extra inning loss to Colorado. Before that, it had been 7 days since he pitched, and 6 days before that. It’s September 23rd, and he’s only pitched three times this month, worrying that club enough that he was given an MRI last week on his jigsaw looking elbow.

Today, there’s this from Baseball Prospectus injury guru Will Carroll:

Rob Moore
Is Kuo going to contribute any more this year, or are you getting the feeling that he’s done?

Will Carroll BP staff
Leaning to done.

You can’t overstate the impact Kuo has had on the Dodger bullpen this year. His ERA+ of 207 is second only to Joe Beimel, but unlike Beimel, Kuo is striking out more than a batter per inning (96 in 80 IP). More importantly, with a likely playoff berth looming, his domination of the Mets is legendary (I wrote about this in June, and it’s really worthwhile to go take a look at those stats again). He’s nearly as effective against the more likely matchup of Philadelphia and their lefty boppers of Howard and Utley, giving up just 2 hits over 8.1 scoreless innings. Losing a weapon like that could be crippling to what ought to be the Dodgers’ biggest strength in the playoffs, their bullpen.

On the other hand, that magic number is still stuck at 5. Let’s get into the playoffs first, shall we?

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

Nothing Is F***ed Here, Dude

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The Dodgers have won 16 out of their last 21. They’d won 6 series in a row before dropping 2 of 3 to San Francisco this weekend, and it could have very easy been 7 series in a row with just one well-placed groundball on Sunday.

So why’s everyone acting like the sky is falling? Just look at the headlines.

“Dodgers make pennant race interesting at the end”, Los Angeles Times.

“Dodgers lose game and precious ground”, Los Angeles Times.

“Dodgers’ NL West lead continues to shrink”, Los Angeles Daily News

“Any Dodgers pressing?”, Riverside Press-Enterprise

Yes, the Diamondbacks have played better lately. I get it, they’re not going to just completely give up and die. But let’s not act as though the Dodgers have reverted to the Little League outfit they became during that 8-game losing streak just yet, shall we? The odds are still squarely in the Dodgers favor – 94.7% to 5.3%, in fact, according to the latest Playoff Odds Report on Baseball Prospectus.

* Being as it’s an off-day, I’d like to continue what would be an epic jinxing by updating the playoff roster predictions I made earlier in the month. At the time, I included Brad Penny, Rafael Furcal, and Jeff Kent. We’ve got the latest news on the three, also from Baseball Prospectus and Will Carroll’s invaluable “Under the Knife” report:

The Dodgers seem ready to slide into the playoffs, but there’s as much work to be done by Stan Conte and his staff as there is for Joe Torre and his field staff. The Dodgers are waiting to see if they’ll have Kent and Furcal back, but putting either on the playoff roster would be a real gamble. Kent still can’t run, but can hit, giving LA scribes an easy comparison to Kirk Gibson. Torre, for his part, won’t commit to having Kent on the roster for the Division Series, with most indications being that Kent would be left off while continuing to rehab. The news isn’t as good with Furcal, who still has back problems, including pain shooting into his leg, after his back surgery. His addition to the lineup looks extremely unlikely, though he too will continue to rehab. A Kent/Furcal keystone combo is certainly better than what they had out there on Sunday (Blake DeWitt and Angel Berroa). The news is clearer on Penny—he’s done for the season after another cortisone injection in his pitching shoulder, and will be shut down.

The loss of Penny, combined with the news that Torre will in fact use 4 starters, means that I’m going to replace him with Greg Maddux, who I’d initially left off. I’m also going to say that either Furcal or Kent makes the roster, but not both, so as horrified as I am to entertain this possibility… you might actually see Pablo Ozuna out there. I know, I know. I just can’t see them going with Chin-Lung Hu over him, or ever allowing Delwyn Young to play second base again.

* Speaking of looking ahead, Cubs fans are already discussing who they might face in the playoffs. It’s starting to look almost certain that it won’t be the Dodgers, unless the Brewers turn it around and overtake the Mets for the wild card. The Chicago Tribune ranks the Dodgers #2 in terms of preferred opponents, harder than Arizona yet more preferable than New York or Philadelphia, saying:

Reasons to believe: Los Angeles was a sub-.500 team as recently as Sept. 2. For the season, the Dodgers rank 13th in the NL in runs and home runs. The injury to closer Takashi Saito unsettled the bullpen. Saito has returned, leaving Joe Torre to choose between Saito and Jonathan Broxton in save situations.

Causes for concern: No NL team has been hotter than the Dodgers, who have gone 16-4 since Aug. 30 as Manny Ramirez (above) and Andre Ethier have turned around a stagnant lineup. Derek Lowe is the hottest starter in the NL, going 5-1 over seven starts with a 1.14 ERA since Aug. 15. Torre’s teams have gone 16-9 in postseason series, winning four World Series.

Frankly, I’d rather play the Mets and their disaster-a-second bullpen than the Cubs, anyway. Cubs blog Wrigleyville23 looks at it another way…

All of the teams have bats, but pitching wise:

1. The Brewers are what they are, which is CC and a bunch of nothing if Sheets is hurt.

2. The Mets are Santana, Pelfrey and … absolutely no bullpen?

3. The Phillies are Hamels, Myers, Lidge and a bunch of crap.

4. And the Dodgers are way out there on the West Coast. Long way to fly.

I’m not sure whether to be pleased that other people think the Dodgers offense is suddenly on par with bashers like the Phillies and Brewers… or insulted that “pitching wise”, the biggest strength of the team that’s still leading the National League in ERA is flight time.

* This isn’t Dodger-related, but I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read it, regarding the Mets signing up with Buffalo to be their new AAA affiliate:

“Of all the organizations, I don’t know of one that is more baseball-oriented than the Mets,” Bisons president and owner Bob Rich Jr. said.

Because while the Mets focus on baseball, the Dodgers spend 20% of their time on their indoor volleyball team? The Cubs worry about their used-car dealership?

No game tonight. Let’s go Cardinals! Especially because I really like the picture I found for what would be magic number 4.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness msti-face.jpg

Sunday Bloody Sunday

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First off, let me begin with an unrelated note: I’d also like to personally send my Happy Birthday wishes to a great guy and bloggist, MSTI!  My gift to you?

An article!

The downside?  It had to come on one of the most craptastic days of the Dodgers’ season. So, it’s sort of akin to saying: “Happy Birthday!  I bought you a car!  Downside?  The car is totaled!”

Or… “Happy Birthday!  Guess what?  I bought you a hooker!  Oh yeah… she’s also 80… but she KNOWS things…”

Yes, I REALLY don’t want to talk about this afternoon’s horrible abortion of a game, so…

Hey, did you know the Dodgers won 10-7, last night?  Manny hit 2 more HR’s, had 5 RBI’s, and while an ugly game, we won and reduced that magic number to 5!!  YEAH!!

(tries to find another diversion)

Say friends, did you also know that, yesterday, the Dodgers activated Jeff Kent?  You know, the one who just had knee surgery TWO weeks ago.  He’s not actually really going to play, but he’ll be available in a pinch hitting role.

Yeah… so…

(crickets chirp)

Oh yeah!  Did you know that, last week, Juan Pierre hit a H…

ARGH!!  O.K….

As you can tell from the title of this article, I have started to grow… shall we say, disenchanted with Sundays?  Perhaps this could explain why…

This time last week: lamenting over an extra inning 1-0 loss.

Today: throwing the neighbor’s cat over the fence… over an extra inning 1-0 loss.

Because of these misfortunes, be prepared for me and MSTI to go to Congress soon: that’s right, you heard it here first.  We’re going to push to ban Sundays.

But, seriously, talk about a crushing loss today, and in many respects.  While both losses were incredibly disappointing, this one bothers me a lot more, but there actually was some good.  The first of which would have to be Derek Lowe.  Lowe continues on his tear, going 7 scoreless innings, giving up 5 hits, walking 3 and striking out 7.  Stellar outings have been mostly the norm for Derek Lowe lately, and I would outline just how effective he has been this year and throughout his entire Dodger career in general, but my partner in crime does a very good job of that, right here.

I would also be remiss not to give some props to Cory Wade, who came in and shut down the Giants for two innings.  Wade has been incredibly effective this year and has been arguably the most reliable person in the entire bullpen.  A very good story that doesn’t get the attention it should.

But that’s about all the good I can think of with this game… well, maybe that and being thankful that today’s game didn’t send James Loney into an asylum.  When you look at the box score, you will note that it says Loney went 0-4, but it most other sane universes, that actually would have been 3-4, with at least a couple of RBI’s tagged on.  Loney got completely robbed in his first 3 at-bats by the Giants defense, who felt that somehow we were in the 7th game of the World Series.  In fact, many Dodgers fell victim to good defense today, but still, they had their chances.  In particular, the 1st inning, when they were left scoreless in a bases loaded, 0 out situation. They also might have had a chance to get a run in if Larry Bowa hadn’t sent Angel Berroa home on a play when Manny Ramirez was going to be the hitter, where Berroa was thrown out.  Yeah… nice one, Larry.

I could keep going, but, more than likely, you know the story.  Great pitching and really poor hitting, mixed with some great defense from the other side.  But the troubling thing to me is that, despite the Dodgers success lately, they have looked very lackluster throughout the past week, at least going back to the 2nd game of the Pittsburgh series.  In other words, the wins that have been coming have been wins that they have had to battle for: a 4-3 12 inning victory on Thursday, an ugly 10-7 win on Saturday… against the Pirates and Giants.  These should be beatdowns, but instead, the Dodgers drop their first series in almost a month to the lowly Giants.  That’s really what’s so frustrating about this team, if you think about it.  On one hand, they’ll go out and beat the crap out of Brandon Webb and Dan Haren twice in a week and flash what they’re capable of which, of course, gets our hopes of and maybe makes us start to believe in this team a little bit… then they’ll come back and do something bonehead like this.  Losing a series to the Giants is simply inexcusable at any time at this point, but especially in late September.  What’s scary about this is that this is the second straight series the Dodgers have dropped to them and with 6 games left remaining on the schedule, three of them are in San Francisco.  Because of this, would I be surprised to see 1982 all over again?  No, not at all.  Nonetheless, they need to get their asses back in gear.

So the magic number remains at Choi.  However, the consollation in all of this is that Arizona begins a four game set against the St. Louis Cardinals, a team they haven’t been too successful against.  While they play St. Louis, the Dodgers will be off to San Diego to face a team they have handily beat, this year.  So, the advantage lies in the Dodgers favor.  The problem?  Jake Peavy is pitching the first game.

Can we beat him, finally?  Just once?

- Vin vinscully-face.jpg