Daily Archives: April 8, 2010

Bring On the Replacements

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Who needs Manny, or Blake, or Martin? Or DeWitt, or Ethier? The Dodger bats exploded for 16 hits, and when I say “bats”, I mean “a lineup I was terrified of before the game.” Not to take anything away from the 7 hits that lineup regulars Rafael Furcal, James Loney and Matt Kemp contributed, but look at what the bench did:

Ronnie Belliard: 3-5, 4 RBI, HR
Reed Johnson: 3-4, 2 R
Garret Anderson: 1-3, 2 RBI, BB

Plus Jamey Carroll and Brad Ausmus chipped in with a hit each as well. Though at first I was a little surprised that the entire bench played, it started to make more sense once we found out that Ethier was held out with a mildly sprained ankle. It’s no surprise at all to see Manny and Blake held out on a day game after a night game, and even if he hadn’t missed all of camp Martin likely wouldn’t have played either. I would have liked to have seen DeWitt thrown right back in there after last night’s error, but with a lefty on the mound I can see the reasoning behind it.

I do wonder, though, why Johnson was playing in LF with Anderson in RF. It was, as best as I can tell, Anderson’s first game in right field since the final game of the 2000 season, which was long enough ago that he was sharing a lineup with Mo Vaughn and playing against Mariners Alex Rodriguez and Rickey Henderson. Anderson’s played 1360 games in LF in his career, while today was just the 155th in RF. This makes sense, since you always put your worst outfielder in left (see: Manny), so I’m not exactly sure how he ended up over there while the superior Johnson (when he wasn’t trying to kill Matt Kemp, that is) ended up in LF. (Sam points out to me in the comments that it’s because PNC Park has a much bigger LF than RF. Fair enough.)

We’d also be remiss if we didn’t recognize Chad Billingsley, who left the game in the 6th with zeroes on the board (though Jeff Weaver did allow an inherited runner to score), having struck out 7. It wasn’t all roses for Billingsley, who did walk 4, and required 107 pitches to not make it through 6th. That said, he did work his way out of a tough bases-loaded, one-out jam in the 4th by getting Andy LaRoche and Paul Maholm to strike out looking. Considering Billingsley’s poor finish to 2009 and the rotation’s poor start to 2010, this was a desperately-needed performance.

On to Miami.

At Least Russell Martin Homered

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When he wasn’t getting sandwiched by victorious Pirates…

Some short thoughts after a long day:

When you have a gift go-ahead run on 3rd with no outs in the 9th inning of a tie game, you must score. The Pirates were begging the Dodgers to take the lead, as Jamey Carroll got an easy double when Andrew McCutchen foolishly dove for his base hit, and then Octavio Dotel’s wild pitch pushed Carroll to third.

At this point, all you have to do is hit the ball to the outfield. Yet Rafael Furcal weakly grounded out to the pitcher, Matt Kemp watched strike three, and after an Andre Ethier walk, Manny weakly grounded out to second. Opportunity wasted.

Clayton Kershaw was killing me… After all the talk about how he should have been the Opening Day starter and how Vicente Padilla’s bad start wasn’t a big deal… Kershaw was brutal. He threw 109 pitches in just 4.2 innings and walked six – including the opposing pitcher, twice. If not for Jeff Weaver coming in to fix the bases loaded, two outs mess he left in the 5th, this could have been a lot worse. This wasn’t the Kershaw I saw dominating the Reds last week in Arizona; this Kershaw was wild and seemingly afraid to challenge. Though at this point, I’d be afraid to even make eye contact with Garrett Jones.

…but not quite as much as Joe Torre. I know the traditional move says to save your closer until you have a lead on the road, but I can’t express how much I hate, hate, hate that idea. You can’t get to a lead if you’ve lost the game beforehand, and watching undead Ramon Ortiz blow the game while Broxton watches is infuriating. I can’t restate this enough: your best reliever never entered the game, while three non-roster invites (two of whom, granted, performed well) did. I will never understand this.

Don’t forget the early game tomorrow (9:35am on the West Coast! How do you people do this?), but more importantly don’t forget this: tomorrow I will (through my relationship with Heater Magazine) be posting my first article in the new “Fantasy Beat” blog section over at Baseball Prospectus, focusing on relievers. If you’ve got a subscription, come on over to harrass me for talking about two NL West teams who aren’t the Dodgers.