2009 July « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

Thanks For Stopping By, Deadspin

July 6, 2009 at 8:50 am | Posted in Bill Plaschke, Deadspin | 9 Comments

Oh, Deadspin. I thought we were friends? I read you every day, link to you occasionally, have even pulled a link back on your page. I’m pretty sure I even saw Will Leitch in a bar down the street from me here in NYC, once, and I give you full credit for presenting me with what remains one of the three funniest things I’ve ever read on the internet (slightly NSFW-ish).

So you can imagine my surprise when this story rolls up on my RSS feed, just now:

Professional grumpypants Bill Plaschke really hates Manny Ramirez. In fact, the only thing he hates more than Manny is people who refuse to hate Manny as much as he does. Why can’t they see what Bill Plaschke sees?

Okay: off to a good start here. As you may or may not have noticed, I can’t stand Bill Plaschke either! So seeing this get some more national recognition is a good thing, to be sure.

This whole situation is putting such a strain on Bill that there’s concern he may be starting to crack. Four of his last five columns in the L.A. Times have been Manny-centric–the fifth was his predictable harrumphing about the Ron Artest signing–with the overarching theme being that Manny has not been punished enough for his crimes against baseball’s humanity.

Yes! Perfect. Love it. Bill Plaschke is a joke of a “reporter”, and the more people who know this, the better. Go on…

Of course, all of these missives came after his brave Twitter stance that he was not going to be a party to this comeback charade.

I didn’t go to albuquerque, and I won’t go anywhere else he “rehabs.”.
He shouldn’t be allowed to touch a bat for 50 games period

His very next Tweet?

Just got to lake elsinore for second stop in manny rehab tour. Its
about 200 degrees. Poor manny. A teammate probably assigned to fan him

So I guess by “won’t go” he really meant to say “will definitely be at.”

Hmm… wait a minute. This all sounds slightly familiar to me. But why? Oh, yes. That’s because I did the exact same thing last week.

No, here’s what really caught my eye: the fact that Bill Plaschke drove out to Riverside County to watch Manny play for the 66ers. Because, if you didn’t know, Bill’s got a Twitter page, and this is exactly what he said just 4 days ago:

Yet here you are, just a few short days later, doing just that. It’s even better when you see his next post right on top of this one (Twitter posts are listed chronologically, newest at the top):

Such a short ride from “I refuse to go!” to “okay, I’ll go, but only to make fun of him and try to create a story that doesn’t exist”, isn’t it, Bill? If only the distance between “journalism” and whatever exactly it is you do was that short.

Boo, I say. Boo. Far be it from me to impede Plaschke-bashing in any form, of course, but: give a blog some love, no?

MSTI Special Feature: Mondays With Torgy (Season 2, Episode 6)

July 6, 2009 at 3:04 am | Posted in Mondays With Torgy | Leave a comment

Hello, all! Yes, it’s Monday and you know what that means: it’s time for another edition of Mondays With Torgy!

Take it, Torg Man!:

Sorry about not having a report, last week. Missed some good stuff. The fine professional debuts of Nick Akins, Mario Songco, Stephen Ames and Joseph Paxson. Also missed a great week by the ‘topes’ pitching staff as they found the joy of the humidor. With the exception of the PCL, all leagues began their second half of the season. None of the Dodger franchises took a first half title, so let’s hope that we get some continuation of the good play that finished the first half on the farm.

The Topes still lead the PCL American South with a 42-39 record and a 2.5 game lead over the RedHawks. Just for those who want to know, the Topes are 61 games from clinching. They are also in the midst of the three game winning streak, even though two of their last three games have been rained out. It is still pitching that is carrying the Topes. Jason Schmidt has managed to win his first two starts for the Topes and even more exciting, his arm is still attached to his body. Mind you, he is giving up plenty of hits, but he he is controlling the strike zone and keeping the ball in the park. Most reports have him working in the 90-91 range – much better than the 80-83 he was tossing, last year. Josh Lindblom made his first start at AAA and went six, picking up the victory. His command is still a bit spotty, but he keeps the ball in the park and I am thinking of moving up his ETA to September, after hedging my bets and thinking that next June or July would be more reasonable. Scott Strickland continues to amaze as a closer. He picked up his sixteenth save this week and has lowered his ERA to mid threes and his WHIP is down to 1.2. Lastly, on the pitching end, Charlie Haeger continues to impress. I am pretty chomping at the bit to see his knuckleball in the show.

The offense has been less than spectacular. With Hector Luna and Xavier Paul still nursing injuries and Mitch Jones in DFA Purgatory, the Topes offense has been mostly JD Closser (.396), Jamie Hoffman (.352) and Dee Brown (.306 with two bombs and eleven rbis). Still very disappointed in the offensive showings of Chin Lung Hu (.252/.297/.313) and Blake DeWitt (.246/.343/.406). As scary as it sounds, aside from Hoffman, Jason Repko might be the only other player worth a September call-up.

The Lookouts are in middle of the pack of the SL North with a 7-7 record in the second half. They are two games back of the DiamondJaxx. Lucas May finally came off of the DL and in today’s game, the Lookouts opened up the king size can of Whipass as Lambo, Russell Mitchell, Tommy Giles and Eduardo Perez all went yard. Quietly, Giles is having a very nice month after getting a fair amount of splinters sitting the bench. His numbers against right handed pitching are terrific. Unfortunately, his numbers against southpaws are nearly as bad as Ethier’s. Lambo is having an interesting last eight games. He is has a hit in each game he has started (he walked in his only at bat as a pinch hitter, four days ago), while cutting his strikeouts down (only two k’s over the past ten days) and he has shown some power. Also, newly signed Ramon Nivar (formerly of the Rangers and Orioles) is belting the ball all over the yard at a .412 clip and James Tomlin is having his usual mid-season renaissance by hitting nearly .400 over the past two weeks.

The problem with the Topes is that they are short-handed on starting pitching. Travis Chick, Jesus Castillo and James Adkins are the only pitchers who could be called starters with Alberto Bastardo and Tim Corcoran getting run out by necessity rather than skillset. The pen is still doing surprisingly well as it appears that Matthew Sartor has won the closer’s job. Victor Garate and JD Durbin have been strong as set up men, but Javy Guerra has struggled mightily with his command as he has walked twice as many has he has struck out since his call up.

The Sixers are off to a good start, this half. They are tied for first with the Mavericks in the Cal League South with a 7-4 record. There good start is based on a strong combination of improved hitting and some decent pitching. Leading the offense has been Scott Van Slyke and Elian Herrera, who are both hitting well over .400 for the past two weeks, while Trayvon Robinson has been on a power kick and Steven Caseres continues to impress with his plate discipline and power. Pedro Baez was named to the US/World All Star game. He wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice from the Dodgers, but he is having a good year and has quieted the talk about moving him to the mound.

On the pitching side, Tim Sexton is getting some support and has won his past three starts. Steven Johnson and the recently called up Alberto Bastardo were also very strong over the past few weeks. Chris Withrow, who had a run of five very good starts has now had three straight stinkers where he has not made it past the fifth inning. The Sixers are also suffering from a paucity of able starting pitchers as they have even had to run out the very awful Mario Alvarez and his one-pitch repetoire to take some starts.

The Loons are off to a bad start, 4-6 and five games back of the Tincaps. Right now, the problem is the hitting. Aside from Dee Gordon, the bats have gone pretty silent. Kyle Russell is still putting up a good season, but he also has reached a hundred strikeouts with Jaime Pedroza really close to catching up. I suspect they will get some reinforcements from Ogden and the AZL shortly. Recently signed Jeremy Wise along with Jerry Sands and Mario Songco shouldn’t waste too much time in the Pioneer League.

The pitching has been decent as Josh Walter, Jon-Michael Redding and Nathan Eovaldi have been very good over the past month, but it has been a bad month for Ethan Martin (walking nearly as many as he strikes out), Robert Boothe (his ERA against right handed hitters is over six) and Jordy Pratt (his usual June swoon that will likely continue until September). Geison Aguasviva and Cole St. Clair have taken over the closing duties since Javy Guerra got the call.

The Raptors, after starting the season 0-3 have won seven of their last ten games to be two games back of the Chukars at 7-6. Surprisingly enough the pitching has been better than I expected. Elisaul Pimentel has been very strong on the hill posting a ERA of two, while relief pitchers Joseph Paxson, Stephen Ames, Daigoro Rondon and Greg Wilborn have gotten off to impressive starts out of the pen Of course, anything below six is a good ERA in the Pioneer League.

The offense, as to be expected, has been strong. Jerry Sands and Mario Songco lead the team with five bombs, each. Brian Carvazos-Galvez and Austin Yount have also gotten off to good starts with Yount having a four rbi game this week and Galvez showing some speed to go along with his power. Jeremy Wise went 2-4 in his debut and also threw out a runner at second, leading me to believe his stay in Ogden will be short.

Lastly, the AZL Dodgers are tied for first in the AZL West with the Rangers and Mariners. The bats have been very good for the Dodgers, especially Nick Akins (.415/.467/.732), Pedro Tavarez (.500/.564/.529), Clay Calfee (.968 obs) and Michael Pericht (.348/.531/.739). The pitching has been fairly good, also. Carl Webster and Carlos Frias have been great in their first two starts while Roberto Feliciano and Bolivar Medina have good,
although it is a small sample size.

Thanks, Torgy. Until next week, this has been another week of “Mondays With Torgy!”

- Vin

Ever Think You’d Miss the Burger King Unis?

July 5, 2009 at 12:53 pm | Posted in ugly | 1 Comment

Red hat, on a team that has no red.

Green camouflage tops, which while their heart may be in the same place, just doesn’t look very good – especially on a team that has no other green.

Sand-colored road pants – at home – which don’t even match the tan of the camouflage.

Look, I get that two of these three things are meant to honor America and her servicemen, which is nice and all. I get that it wasn’t the Padres’ idea to wear these hideous red hats all weekend – and that even the Dodgers, who do have a slight bit of red in their uniforms, don’t look much better with them.

But man, we’re talking about the Padres, a team that has had more than it’s share of unfortunate color choices, as shown at right. Is it possible that this ridiculous collection of three completely non-matching uniform elements may in fact be the ugliest outfit of all time? At least the yellow monstrosities that Jake Peavy’s modeling from a throwback game last year matched.

Come on, Padres management. You’re already subjecting the poor people of San Diego to one of the worst teams in baseball (non-Washington division). Do you really have to assault their sartorial senses with this, too?

Manny Who?

July 4, 2009 at 7:25 am | Posted in Manny Ramirez | 1 Comment

As you probably noticed – unless you were living on Mars… in a cave… with your eyes closed… and your fingers in your ears… – last night marked the long-awaited return of Manny Ramirez. And thanks to him, the Dodgers put up 5 in the first inning and cruised to victory! By which I mean, “Manny went 0-3 with a walk, and the offense was really fueled by Matt Kemp and – of all people – Russell Martin and Rafael Furcal, the latter two of whom combined for six hits.”

It’s an interesting question, though. Manny did very little at the plate, yet the offense, which had struggled so much lately, turned it up immediately. Is that because of Manny’s presence? Because the atmosphere at what would have otherwise been a half-empty, dreary Petco Park was more like Game 7 of the World Series? Or maybe because Chad Gaudin clearly didn’t have his A game, and the lousy defense behind him wasn’t helping either? A combination of all of these things, I’d think – but if Manny really does play that large a role in getting the rest of the lineup going, then that’s almost worth more than anything he does himself.

In other news, today’s the 4th of July, so rather than go through a long, drawn-out review of Manny’s 0-3 day – which you can find at, oh, one billion other places - I thought I’d put up a nice picture of Dodger Stadium celebrating America, which you can see at right. In order to find such a picture, I went back to see what I’d written on the 4th of July one year ago.

You know how you get to an important date that comes around each year – maybe it’s your birthday, your anniversary, the start of school, etc. – and you say, “man, one year really isn’t as long as it seems. Everything’s about the same as it was.”? Well, let me treat you to what I was talking about on July 4, 2008:

But I implore you, make some time in your day to catch the Dodger game (1pm PST). Because as you should already know, both Nomar Garciaparra and Andruw Jones have sped up their rehab in order to be available today. Tell me you’re not interested in seeing Nomar playing shortstop for the first time since 2005! Especially now that it’s been another year and nine more injuries since “he’s too fragile to play third base” was offered as a reason that he couldn’t be shifted across the infield from first base to make room for James Loney. And you know you want to see if Jones is going to offer any glimpse of the player he once was, especially since his rehab was originally supposed to end a full two weeks from now on July 18th. I know it’s only 3 minor league games, but he did go 4-8 with a homer and a stolen base in Vegas – and zero strikeouts. Is it possible that the knee really was the source of his problems? I guess we’ll have to see. But if he can come back and be even half of his former self, that would still help this power-starved team and be a massive improvement on the guy who was approximately 1/100000th of his old self earlier this year.

Nomar playing short! Hope still being held out for Fatty Jones to be productive!! And then later in the article, I refer to rumors about the Dodgers getting CC Sabathia and David Eckstein.

My, how things have changed.

Enjoy the holiday, friends.

The Greatest Typo In The History Of The Universe

July 3, 2009 at 5:54 pm | Posted in Borasm, Scott Boras | Leave a comment

A caption from today’s My Way Sports News (typo highlighted below):

Now I’ve had several nicknames for this guy before, as you have too, I’m sure. From Bora$$, to the devil himself, while I usually just liked calling him Bebe Glazer. But this one tops it, I think. It’s wrong, dirty, and yet hilarious. From now on, I hereby dub the agent formerly known as Scott Boras as:

Borasm.

Tell all your friends. It’s the latest craze. Is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? No. Is it the Borasm? Yes!

- Vin

So… Anything Going On Today?

July 3, 2009 at 1:15 pm | Posted in Manny Ramirez | Leave a comment

No? Good to see we have a quiet holiday weekend going on.

Look, tonight’s going to be a circus clusterfark of epic proportions. We know that. Just look around the media – you’ve got the Los Angeles Times practically needing a change of pants, (and it’s not just me who’s pointing that out) FOX ready to break into the national games to show his at-bats tomorrow, and most of the mainstream establishment taking the Plaschke line of ”well I never!” disgust that most fans won’t be burning effigies of Manny. Plus, there’s whatever the hell it is that Kurt Streeter is doing.

As I said yesterday, I don’t think we’re viewing this situation through blue-colored glasses. We know that Manny’s a jerk for a variety of reasons, and none of us deny that. I just think the mistake here is viewing the reaction to Manny’s return as some sort of referendum on the moral fiber of America, as Mike Schmidt – who’s apparently just gotten over the fact that teenagers are “necking” now – hilariously tries to stress.

I love baseball more than just about anything in the universe, but it’s important to remember just that – it’s baseball. Rooting for a player who broke the rules and paid the price is hardly the same as rooting for anarchy, socialism, and terrorists, no matter how loudly some members of the media like to squawk about it.

Just keep that in mind; no matter how ridiculous this weekend becomes – and have no doubt that it will – it’s baseball. On this weekend of all weekends, it’s important to keep in mind what’s important, and what’s entertainment.

Now let’s all go off and drink until we can’t feel feelings. Happy 4th!

(*Okay, one baseball note: Manny vs. Padres starter Chad Gaudin - a 1.500 OPS with 2 homers in 14 plate appearances.)

Anyone Think It’s Time to Add A Hall of Fame Bat?

July 1, 2009 at 4:44 pm | Posted in Andre Ethier, Manny Ramirez | 7 Comments

(Yes, I know. Manny’s Hall of Fame chances may or may not have been torpedoed with his suspension. Whether or not he actually makes it into the Hall in 2016 or so is beside the point).

Here’s the good news: after a 1-0 victory over Colorado today, the Dodgers just took 2 of 3 from the hottest team in baseball, serving notice that no, they don’t really need to worry about the Rockies. The pitching staff, so maligned in the offseason, is statistically the best in baseball, leading MLB in batting average against and ERA, largely on the strength of the most strikeouts of any staff in the game.

The bad news? You need every last bit of that pitching when you’re scoring just 3 runs in regulation time against the Rockies. If the pitching had been anything less than superior – even if it was just “pretty good”, you’re very likely looking at a sub .500 June.

Looking around the June stats for the club, a few things pop out immediately:

Andre Ethier is trying to be Adam Dunn. 9 homers and a .619 SLG? Yes please. 0 singles in the last 8 games of the month (plus the first one in July) and 23 strikeouts in 26 games? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, Ethier’s power output was more than welcome in a month where everyone else acted like the bats were made of poison, but the fact that so much of it came in bunches (7 homers in 3 games) somewhat mitigated his overall impact.

Juan Pierre deserves the benching he’s about to receive. No, I haven’t forgotten how great Pierre was immediately after Manny was lost – all of the proper respect to Pierre for those first three weeks. But what so many have ignored is that his hot streak came to a screeching halt as May turned into June, because over the month of June he’s been even worse than usual. His .628 June OPS is nearly 100 points lower than his career average, and it’s not even like we loved his career average that much.

You want a reason that the Dodger offense sputtered in June? There’s plenty of fingers to be pointed, but having Pierre leading off every single game is a pretty good place to start.

Any time you want to pitch in, Volume 1: Orlando Hudson and Casey Blake each sputtered out in June – Hudson in particular, getting on base at just a .269 OBP. However, since each of them were so valuable earlier in the season, I’m willing to write this off as a slump, as compared to…

Any time you want to pitch in, Volume 2: Rafael Furcal and Russell Martin… you’re killing me. Martin in particular was somehow worse than he’s been all year, struggling to just a .190/.326/.241 mark. Joe Torre seems to have recognized this, giving A.J. Ellis and Brad Ausmus starts before tomorrow’s off day in hopes of energizing Martin, but geez. At this rate, the only way the return of Manny’s going to do anything for Martin is if Manny swaps out the #99 jersey for #55 each time the catcher’s spot comes up in the order.

Matt Kemp, keep it up. His .823 OPS is within range of his .838 season mark, and his season OPS has him as the 4th best hitting center fielder in the bigs. Considering that Carlos Beltran is hurt and may not be the same upon his return, there’s a pretty solid case to be made that Kemp is the best center fielder in the National League – not even counting his much-improved defense.

All of which brings me back to Manny. How many other struggling teams can say they’re picking up a supreme bat for nothing at the trading deadline, right? Look, is Manny a idiot? No question. Is he a jerk? Probably – I didn’t really like reading that he didn’t buy the spread for his minor league teammates, which is longstanding tradition for rehabbing stars who make approximately eleventy billion times what the kids do. He’s hardly my definition of an upstanding citizen, no matter how childlike and goofy he appears. I’d much rather root for a guy like Kemp or Martin, assuming Martin ever does anything worth cheering for ever again.

All that means, yes, you’re damn right that I will look upon Manny with some apprehension when he returns on Friday. But you know what else? I’m going to cheer when he injects the offense with some life and knocks the ball out of the park, because the only reason I care at all about these people is because of what they do for the team I’ve chosen to follow. What Manny did was disappointing – to say the least – but he’s served the punishment laid upon him, and will likely serve much worse in the public eye.

So call me a hypocrite if you must, because I sure as hell booed Barry Bonds and ridiculed Giants fans for standing by him - though as Jon Weisman said, we all hated Barry Bonds long before steroids came to public light. Fact of the matter is, this team’s offense has been brutal, and it need something. If that something just so happens to be a retarded man-child who can both crush the ball and push Juan Pierre to the bench, that’s fine by me.