Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

Somewhere In New York, MSTI’s Jaw Has Dropped

Tonight at 7:10 P.M., Jason Schmidt died again. 

After the 1st inning, he, once again, rose from the dead: 

Ever have one of those moments when you joke around with someone and then give this crazy hypothetical situation and laugh because you know it’d never come true? 

Tonight was something like that.  As Jason Schmidt was self destructing in the first inning, in order to humor ourselves through the pain, it was fun to joke with some friends at the possibility of him actually somehow 1. finishing the 1st inning and 2. going four more innings and win the game. 

Except, well… it actually happened. 

As you are aware, Jason Schmidt started off tonight’s game about as badly as you could have imagined.  He wasn’t fooling anyone and I honestly didn’t think he was going to get an out, much less make it out of the first.  It wasn’t pretty at all, but somehow Joe Torre stuck with him and it paid off.  The offense put on a nice display, but the story of tonight is Schmidt.  He went 5 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, and 2 K’s and was far from what you’d call dominating, but managed to settle down significantly after the first and get out of some jams to pick up his win which, on a side note, somewhere Randy Wolf is cursing out the Dodgers offense screaming: “You help give Jason freaking Schmidt a win, but not me?!”  Nonetheless, the array of pitches for Schmidt went anywhere from a mid-80′s fastball to a curve ball in the high 60′s and Schmidt mixed up his pitches well enough to where, while he gave up quite a bit of fly balls, he only allowed one hit after the first inning. 

While he could end up easily imploding from here on out, tonight’s game was definitely a success and, sans the first inning, a nice return from Jason Schmidt.  It’s been an incredibly rough road and, sure, while he’s making a ton of money, I still can’t imagine it easy to go back on the mound knowing you are a shell of what you used to be, but Schmidt has tried to make the adjustments and all of the hard work over the past two years finally came together and proved successful… at least for tonight.  Again, if tonight is his best, then it’s not something that you’re going to find to be particularly reliable over the long haul, but what he did tonight at least warrants some props.  It’s definitely one more win than I thought we’d ever get out of him, and, for that matter, one more start than I thought we’d ever get out of him, but overall, a nice game that could have ended far differently after that first inning. 

Well done, tonight, Schmidt. 

And That’s That

As I write this, Jason Schmidt is self-destructing on the mound in the first inning. It’s pretty clear that he’s got nothing; his fastball is topping out in the mid-80s, the Reds aren’t fooled by any of it, and as Vin mentioned, we’re still waiting on our first swing-and-miss by a Cincinnati player. (To be completely fair, the defense isn’t helping; Manny got crocodile arms on a foul pop, Martin threw a ball into center field, and Kemp & Ethier just watched a ball fall between them – none of these things are good).

Schmidt just collected his first out – yes, I’m writing this stream-of-consciousness – but it wasn’t even thanks to him, as the out was made at second after the botched fly to right. With a fly out to center and a walk, Schmidt is now up to 33 pitches. I don’t know what his pitch limit is, but at this rate I’ll be shocked if he makes it through two innings.

The point is, it’s time to pull the plug on him, and I’m not talking about just this game. It’s 3-0 at the moment, and the Dodger offense is more than capable of overcoming that. We’ll see. It’s just that while I completely agreed with Jon @ DodgerThoughts that Schmidt deserved the start, he is showing absolutely nothing to justify that faith. I know, I know; first inning in two years. Got it. This isn’t rust. This is, I’m sorry to say, a man who has nothing left. Joe Torre already announced that Schmidt was going to get a second start, but I can’t see any way you can run him out again and ruin the bullpen even more (James McDonald is already warming up).

So what do you do with him? I don’t know. It almost seems pointless to send him back to the minors; perhaps you can stick him in the pen and see if the velocity comes back if he’s only asked to go 1-2 innings at time; but you can’t let him start any more.

Know this; any GM with available starting pitching is rushing to their phone right now.