Daily Archives: July 20, 2011

Clayton Kershaw Continues to Own the Giants

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Earlier today, I wrote this, regarding Clayton Kershaw‘s history against San Francisco:

Kershaw historically owns the Giants; in nine career starts, he’s allowed just ten earned runs in 55.2 IP, and has a 60/16 K/BB mark. This will be the fourth time he’s seen them this year; he dominated in the first two (7 shutout innings on Opening Day, beating Lincecum, 6.2 scoreless on April 11) before running into trouble the third time (4 ER in 5 IP on May 18).

Now how about adding eight shutout innings with 12 whiffs against just three hits and a walk? By Game Score, which is admittedly imperfect, that was the third best start of Kershaw’s career. That it was also the third best start of his season should tell you a lot about just how good his 2011 has been so far, particularly now that he’s up to 23 consecutive scoreless innings and an MLB-best 167 strikeouts.

Back to the Giants, Kershaw’s mastery over them continues. This was his 9th career start against San Francisco, and only once in that time – earlier this year – have the Giants managed to score more than two runs.


KABC’s Joe Block tells us that the resulting 1.41 ERA (also including one relief appearance) against SF is the best in MLB history for a pitcher against them. They’ve been around for well over 100 years. That’s… kinda impressive. Despite his excellence, Kershaw wasn’t allowed to go out for the 9th, even though he had struck out the side in the 8th. At the time, it seemed odd to remove him for Javy Guerra in a one-run game, since Guerra’s last few saves have been rollercoasters; the decision made even less sense when Trent Oeltjen, pinch-hitting for Kershaw, merely used his at-bat to sacrifice. Fortunately, Guerra retired the side in order, and the Dodgers avoided the sweep headed into the off-day.

And then there was Dioner Navarro, who had one of the more bipolar days you’ll ever see. On one hand, he had two throwing errors in the first three innings (among three Dodger miscues on the day, leading KABC broadcaster Charley Steiner to bizarrely claim the Dodgers usually had one of the better defenses in baseball). On the other, his solo homer against Tim Lincecum was the margin of victory – and the second time a Navarro homer has led to a 1-0 victory this season.

Dodgers Fire Jeff Pentland

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Per the Twitters, the Dodgers have fired hitting coach Jeff Pentland and replaced him on an interim basis with Dave Hansen. Pentland had been the “secondary” hitting instructor behind Don Mattingly since 2008 before ascending to the primary job.

I realize that someone was going to have to pay the price here, and when the team can’t hit, the hitting coach is the first to go. Fine; I don’t have any particular sadness over the loss of Jeff Pentland. Just don’t forget the collection of players we’re talking about. With the possible exception of Juan Uribe, are James Loney, Rod Barajas, Dioner Navarro and the rest really doing much worse than you thought? How about Marcus Thames and Jay Gibbons, who didn’t even make it through July? We always expected them to be bad. They’re bad. No surprise there, and it’s hard to pin the fact that neither Casey Blake nor Rafael Furcal can stay healthy on him either. Besides, that doesn’t even include the fact that Matt Kemp is having the best year of his career, Aaron Miles has been surprisingly good, and even Tony Gwynn has been very good lately.

But yeah, you’re right. It’s totally on Jeff Pentland.

There’s Reason to Pay Attention to the Dodgers Today

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Despite coming back from a 2-0 deficit, the Dodgers lost to the Giants yet again on Tuesday, meaning… well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? The game-by-game exploits of the 2011, most of which end in failure, are hardly as important as they once were. Sure, a three-run second inning is nice, though when it comes in a game where the club manages just five hits, chances are it won’t end happily. That’s too bad for Rubby De La Rosa, who continued his excellent progression by getting through five innings without a single walk, though giving up nine hits in that time isn’t exactly great. (I had to laugh when I saw the box score, however; yes, Hong-Chih Kuo was awful in allowing the winning runs, but I know a lot of people will see “three walks in 0.2 innings!” and freak out – two of the three were intentional jobs).

Oh, and Andre Ethier sat thanks to a sore knee. So there’s that.

Still, there’s a lot of good reasons to pay attention to the Dodgers today. On the field, Clayton Kershaw tries to avoid the sweep when he faces off against Tim Lincecum in a marquee matchup this afternoon. You can most likely expect a 1-0 game that’s over in 2 hours and 10 minutes, though with the twisted sense of humor in the universe being the way it is, I’d say a 12-10 slugfest isn’t completely out of the question either. Kershaw historically owns the Giants; in nine career starts, he’s allowed just ten earned runs in 55.2 IP, and has a 60/16 K/BB mark. This will be the fourth time he’s seen them this year; he dominated in the first two (7 shutout innings on Opening Day, beating Lincecum, 6.2 scoreless on April 11) before running into trouble the third time (4 ER in 5 IP on May 18).

Of course, the fun is hardly restricted to baseball today. Before the game even gets going, the bankruptcy lawyers will be hard at work in a Delaware courtroom, and Josh Fisher of DodgerDivorce explains why in a piece over at ESPNLA:

On Wednesday, Judge Kevin Gross will decide whether McCourt can shepherd the Dodgers through their bankruptcy using McCourt-arranged financing. In McCourt’s favor is the strong deference bankruptcy courts usually show debtors who secure their own financing. Working against him is Major League Baseball’s proposal to fund the team’s operations at a much lower cost. Coupled with allegations of McCourt mismanagement, baseball could increase its influence on the Dodgers by convincing the court to deny McCourt his own financing.

Gross’ ruling on the issue has two layers of importance. First, from a technical standpoint, forcing McCourt to accept MLB financing paves the way for Selig to exert control over the Dodgers should McCourt fail to follow baseball’s terms. Second, because of the great deference typically shown debtors to exercise their own business judgment in these scenarios, a ruling against McCourt would be a strong message that Gross lacks faith in McCourt’s ownership. A pro-MLB decision Wednesday would not end the McCourt era, but it would be a damaging blow.

I have little inside info here, but fromwhat I’ve gathered, it seems that MLB has a slight edge here, since the cost of their loan is so much less than McCourt’s privately gained one. That’s the way we should be rooting, anyway. Hey, remember when we were just baseball fans?