Daily Archives: April 28, 2010

Why the Dodgers Are In Last Place

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I was going to react to the lunacy of Ned Colletti calling out Matt Kemp, and then Chad had to go make a flow chart about it and render anything I had to say irrelevant. So instead, I thought I’d see how far down the list of reasons why the Dodgers are in last place ”Matt Kemp is a mediocre baserunner and outfielder” is. Hint: it’s not very high.

  1. Frank McCourt.
  2. Jamie McCourt.
  3. The club broke camp with not one but two Ortizes.
  4. Ramon Ortiz is still with the team despite a 6.39 ERA.
  5. Ramon Ortiz has been allowed to throw more innings than any reliever.
  6. Ten Dodgers have as many or more innings pitched than Jonathan Broxton, supposedly your relief ace.
  7. Broxton has thrown 38 pitches in the last 13 days, proving that Torre truly does not understand how to run a bullpen.
  8. Joe Torre is intent on sending Ramon Troncoso to his death.
  9. Eric Stults was sold to Japan for absolutely no good reason at all.
  10. The team has played just six home games so far.
  11. Randy Wolf and Orlando Hudson were allowed to walk in the offseason without so much as an arbitration offer.
  12. Vicente Padilla was the only signing for the pitching staff.
  13. Jamey Carroll was the biggest free agent acquisition of the winter.
  14. Jamey Carroll is your backup shortstop.
  15. Jamey Carroll has a .603 OPS with underwhelming defense.
  16. When just one starter (Padilla) went down, John Ely was the best you could do to replace him.
  17. Padilla, Manny, & Jeff Weaver all hit the DL on three consecutive days.
  18. Hong-Chih Kuo missed most of April with an arm injury and has pitched just 0.2 innings.
  19. Ronald Belisario couldn’t get himself to camp on time.
  20. George Sherrill was a disaster for nearly the entire month.
  21. Chad Billingsley has been consistently inconsistent.
  22. The pitching staff has the 5th-worst ERA in baseball.
  23. When the hitters hit, the pitchers fail – and vice versa.
  24. Charlie Haeger hasn’t lived up to expectations.
  25. Rick Honeycutt has nothing of value to offer a struggling staff.
  26. James Loney still has zero homers, and a .312 OBP.
  27. Rafael Furcal has missed time with a strained hamstring.
  28. Blake DeWitt has shown a good eye, but has just one extra base hit through the first month.
  29. DeWitt’s been a “work in progress”, to put it mildly, on defense.
  30. The entire defense has been atrocious, with the most errors and worst fielding percentage in baseball.
  31. Garret Anderson – hitting .135 – is supposedly your big bat off the bench, and no steps have been taken to replace him.
  32. Ronnie Belliard is your backup first baseman.
  33. Though he’s performed well, Casey Blake no longer has the power of the beard.
  34. Joe Torre is seemingly more interested in his horses than his baseball team.
  35. Half the team was forced to go to Asia for a money-making venture.
  36. The lack of home games means no Vin magic.
  37. Ned Colletti calls out his best player as being the biggest problem.
  38. Matt Kemp has shown indifferent defense and subpar baserunning.

And so on. But, Ned’s right. Your All-Star center fielder who’s leading the league in homers really is the biggest problem here.

Well, That Was a Bust

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Want to know how my trip to Queens to see the Dodgers was yesterday? You can get a simple recap from these Tweets, after arriving during the 7th inning of Game 1:

First pitch I saw was a 2 run Mets single, Dodgers are getting shut out, and its freeeezing. Hooray?

Then, early in Game 2:

Its like ice station zebra out here. Literally too cold to tweet. Had to retreat to team store.

And after Jamey Carroll’s botched throw to home:

I’ve never left a game in the 6th inning before, but its painfully cold and the Dodgers look pathetic. Time to go.

Remember, you’re talking to a guy who braved Boston in January to watch an outdoor hockey game at Fenway Park, and this was nearly as bad (in no small part because in January, I was far more prepared with gloves, hand warmers, and whiskey.)

With that in mind, I can’t even pretend to be horribly upset about getting swept. I couldn’t even feel my hands while holding a hot chocolate, so I can’t imagine what it must have been like to pitch. That’s not to pretend that this team isn’t in trouble; it is, and it starts at the top, because Joe Torre has completely gone off the deep end.

In each game, 4 relievers entered after the starting pitcher. In Game 1, following Hiroki Kuroda were Jon Link, Ramon Troncoso, George Sherrill, and Ramon Ortiz. After Charlie Haeger left in Game 2, you saw… Troncoso, Link, Sherrill, and Carlos Monasterios. I’ll forgive the usage of Link, who we all knew was getting sent back down to make room for John Ely today anyway, but Torre’s abuse of Troncoso is bordering on the ridiculous. He’s on pace to get into about 115 games this year, and Dylan Hernandez’ constant usage of the ‘paging Dr. El Attrache’ hashtag on Twitter has gone from “humorous” to “terrifying”.

Even beyond Troncoso, Sherrill was brought into both games. Yet Ronald Belisario never appeared. Hong-Chih Kuo never appeared. Perhaps worst of all is his infatuation with Jonathan Broxton never entering unless it’s a save situation, because you’re constantly putting in lesser pitchers while your best reliever watches. Broxton’s pitched just 7 innings, which is exactly as many as Russ Ortiz, who was cut over a week ago. He’s entered one-half as many games as Troncoso. He hasn’t pitched since Saturday, and before that hadn’t pitched since the previous Sunday. What that means is in the last 12 days (since April 16) your best reliever has thrown all of 38 pitches. It’s just unfathomable.

Finally – and we’ll touch more on this soon – Jamey Carroll cannot be your shortstop if Rafael Furcal’s hamstring is serious. Not only did he show zero range on a grounder up the middle early in Game 2, his terrible throw home not only cost the team a possible 6-2-3 double play in a big spot, it blew the game wide open and basically ended the sweep right there. But hey, at least he’s hitting .214 and is signed through next year!

John Ely gets the start today, as we all knew he would. Let’s hope that someone – bats, gloves, or bullpen – shows up to support him.