Category Archives: Chad Billingsley

There’s Finally Real, Live Dodger Baseball Today

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Well, as “real” as any game that will include at least five pitchers who have just about no shot of seeing any actual meaningful time for the big club this year can be. Still, for the first time since last September, we’ll have Dodger baseball against another team in a game that, if not actually meaningful, will at least be played under the normal rules of Major League Baseball. If it’s not quite Game 7 of the World Series out there, at least it’s something.

Of course, the tendency in our current 24/7 Twitter age is to place an overabundance of importance on early spring games just because it’s the first new on-field data we’ve had on players in months, and it’s important to remember how unrealistic it is to expect players to be in mid-season form on March 5. Different players arrive in different states of fitness, and batters & pitchers don’t always get up to gear at the same speed; even if they did, the focus is less on winning games than getting loose and getting your timing down. Hey, maybe Chad Billingsley throws two shutout innings today. Or maybe, as he attempts to tweak his mechanics this spring, he gives up six homers, like Atlanta’s Julio Teheran did yesterday on a windy day in Florida. It’s important to keep in mind that none of that matters right now. (Except for every Juan Uribe oh-fer. That’ll always matter.)

With that in mind, here’s today’s lineup, which isn’t that far off from what we expect to see on Opening Day other than at third base. (Though it is somewhat odd that Uribe is the only starter who isn’t in this lineup…) Since the Dodgers are the road team today against their Camelback Ranch co-tenants Chicago, the designated hitter is in use.

1) Dee Gordon SS
2) Mark Ellis 2B
3) Matt Kemp CF
4) Andre Ethier RF
5) Juan Rivera LF
6) James Loney 1B
7) Adam Kennedy 3B
8) A.J. Ellis C
9) Tony Gwynn DH

Again, spring training, so no complaining that Gwynn (who can’t hit) is DH while Rivera (who can’t field) is in left. Most of these guys will only play the first few innings, and by the end of the game the Dodger lineup will look more like Chattanooga’s JV team. (Update: according to Eric Stephen, the reserves are listed as well. Expect to see appearances from Justin Sellers (SS), Ivan De Jesus (2B), Trent Oeltjen (CF), Scott Van Slyke (RF), Alex Castellanos (LF), Josh Fields (1B), Russ Mitchell (3B), & Tim Federowicz (C). Nathan Eovaldi will follow Billingsley with two more innings, and they’ll be followed by one inning apiece from non-roster guys Fernando Nieve, Wil Ledezma, Angel Guzman, Ryan Tucker & Scott Rice.

Today’s game won’t be televised, but tomorrow’s “home opener”  against the Giants will be shown live at 12:05pm PT on Prime Ticket and starting at 1pm PT on MLB Network.

******

Over at Baseball Prospectus, the continuing division-by-division preview continues, with Jay Jaffe joined by Geoff Young (formerly of Ducksnorts) to join the chorus of voices not nearly convinced that Ned Colletti’s offseason plan was in any way the right one. Two snippets:

3. Beyond Matt Kemp, who is going to provide offense for this team?
JJ: Andre Ethier and nobody else. That infield—James Loney, Mark Ellis, Dee Gordon, and Juan Uribe—is going to be the least productive in baseball, unless you’re counting Gordon’s steals for your fantasy team.

GY: Agreed, assuming Ethier is healthy. It’s incredible to think that a team would miss the bats of Jamey Carroll and Rod Barajas.

JJ: It truly is. What drives me nuts about Colletti isn’t that he bought low on so many guys—there’s a value strategy that can work in there—it’s that he went for the backloaded second year, when the first one might be a disaster.

5. How does left field unfold between Phony Gwynn, Juan Rivera, and Jerry Sands? Is the latter ever going to get another shot?
GY: You’ve got a guy in his prime who will never hit big-league pitching, a guy past his prime who can’t play a position, and young kid who has dominated the minors. Which one do you make sure never sees the light of day? Not that Sands is great, but it seems to me he deserves a chance.

JJ: I agree. And don’t think at my age that I’ll live to see it, at least under this regime.

Winter Meetings Day Three: The Search for Offense

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For about five minutes last night, the Dodger corner of the internet exploded into panic when Jon Heyman reported that they were about to sign soon-to-be-34-year-old catcher Josh Bard, owner of a .217/.282/.332 cumulative line over the last four years, to a $750k deal. The questions were immediate: another terrible veteran? Another catcher? Was A.J. Ellis about to be traded? Were they really going to try to set the all-time record for backstop futility by pairing Bard with Matt Treanor? Were my jokes about trying to assemble 2006′s best team suddenly not jokes?

And then Dylan Hernandez reported it was to be a minor-league deal, one that’s not even completed yet. So, crisis averted. For now.

Bard-gate aside, there was actually some juicy news coming, as Molly Knight reported the Dodgers might have interest in Chase Headley, and Tony Jackson & Ken Gurnick expanded on Hernandez’s tweet that the Dodgers were persuing offense via trade.

Jackson:

Tamin said two of those were the Dodgers’ hitting against lefties and what Tamin referred to as “ballpark effect.” By that, Tamin explained, he meant the fact the Dodgers play almost 100 games each year in three pitchers’ parks, those being Dodger Stadium, San Diego’s Petco Park and San Francisco’s AT&T Park.

Colletti also said, when asked if the player he is trying to acquire is an everyday player, “He has been.”

That would seem to suggest a veteran in the twilight of his career, a right-handed hitter and a guy who is more of a gap-to-gap, line-drive hitter than a power hitter. Colletti specifically said he wasn’t looking for a flyball hitter. The player likely would be a corner outfielder who could fill in for right fielder Andre Ethier against certain left-handed pitchers.

Okay, so righty outfielder, good against lefties, more of a doubles type than a homer bat, not named “Jerry Sands“. We can do some investigative work on that, right? Let’s fire up the list of outfielders with at least 100 plate appearances against lefties in 2011, an admittedly arbitrary bar. That gets us 93 results, so let’s remove lefties, free agents, players who have never been everyday starters, and the guys who obviously aren’t available – Jose Bautista, Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, etc. Now we’re down to 14, and wouldn’t you know it, the three guys who I had in my head at the start of this exercise are all on the list. We’ll cut out the bottom five, all of whom were terrible against lefties last year (so long, Marlon Byrd!) and that leaves us with 9 names, sorted here by wOBA against LHP in 2011:

Carlos Lee
Jason Bay
Jeff Francoeur
Torii Hunter
Vernon Wells
Ryan Raburn
Alfonso Soriano
Delmon Young
B.J. Upton

A list that mostly comprises over-the-hill, expensive veterans? Well, now I know we’re on the right path. (If you’re wondering who the three I had guessed at were, it was Lee, Bay, and Young.) But we can do better. Eliminate Hunter & Wells, since the two Los Angeles teams haven’t paired up on a trade since 1993, and that gets us down to seven. Francoeur is someone I’ve expressed interest in in the past for exactly this role, though he signed a two-year extension last year and Dayton Moore loves him, so I find that unlikely. I also doubt Raburn, generally a utility player, is the kind of move Colletti is looking to make, and that leaves us with a final five:

Carlos Lee
Jason Bay
Alfonso Soriano
Delmon Young
B.J. Upton

My lord, that list is the most Ned thing that ever Ned’d. Can we go further? Upton’s in his prime and would take a massive haul to acquire, whereas this sounds like more of a complimentary piece. Soriano is a noted flyball type, which doesn’t seem to fit… and that leaves us with Lee, Bay, and Young. (I swear I didn’t rig this to end up with those three.) The obvious issue with Lee & Bay is that they’re both very expensive, since Lee still has $18.5m coming to him in the final year of his contract, while Bay has $16m in each of the next two years, plus a vesting option for 2014 – though each team is awful and should clearly be very motivated to move those salaries. Young is arbitration-eligible and will probably make $6-7m in 2012, though he’s a very un-Ned-like 26. Despite the negative connotations all bring, they all did well against lefties last year, so as long as we’re talking about “platoon player” and not “everyday starter”, there’s some chance of value there. Obviously, this is all far from scientific on my part; I’ve assumed that James Loney is staying put, and that the bat being looked at isn’t an infielder like a Placido Polanco. If Loney is potentially traded or non-tendered, then that opens up discussions to players like Mark Reynolds and others.

Since we’re talking about salaries, now’s an ideal time to bring in Gurnick’s contribution:

Without offering a name, he said one player he is targeting has been a starter at his position and would be “payroll neutral,” indicating that either the player he would send would be of similar salary or the other club would pick up part of the incoming salary. Colletti said he didn’t expect a deal while at the Meetings, which end Thursday.

Now things get interesting, and let me be clear – what follows is rampant speculation on my part, as this entire post has been. The Dodger roster is constructed in such a way that there’s not a whole lot of money that can be moved. None of the recent free agent signings are eligible to be traded before June, and of the players making big money, you’re obviously not moving Matt Kemp or Clayton Kershaw – and I’d argue that the club has no interest in moving Ted Lilly or Andre Ethier, either. That leaves players with very little trade value (Juan Uribe, James Loney, Matt Guerrier)… and Chad Billingsley. As infuriating as he can be sometimes, I’d argue that he’s underrated by Dodger fans, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that Colletti just locked up two more veteran starters through 2013. Just a thought, of course, and you’d have to do better than Lee or Bay or Young to make it worthwhile.

As for Headley, if it’s at all true, I love it. He’s a good defender who is under team control through 2014 and made just $2.3m last year, though he hit only four homers while putting up a .289/.374/.399 line. Of course, he’s one of the players who is greatly affected by Petco, putting up an .864 OPS at road and just a .674 OPS at home. He’s not a superstar, and I don’t know what the Padres would want in return, but remember: all you have to do is pass the “is he better than Juan Uribe” test, and that’s not a high bar to clear. I suppose a dream scenario here would be to package Uribe and a mid-level young pitching prospect to Houston for Lee, thus saving the Astros a few million and opening up a spot for Brett Wallace, and then acquiring Headley to play third. Even that’s not perfect though, because Lee’s money is all due in 2012 while Uribe has two more years, though I’m sure some financial shenanigans could make it work.

Of course, there’s no way any of that is happening. Aren’t the winter meetings fun…ish?

MSTI’s 2011 in Review: Starting Pitchers, Part 2

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Chad Billingsley (C-)
4.21 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 7.3 K/9, 4.0 BB/9

Billingsley just never makes it easy on us, does he? When he signed a new contract just before Opening Day that ties him to the Dodgers through 2014, most of us roundly applauded it as being a reasonable deal for both sides which give the Dodgers some degree of stability in their starting rotation. Through the first half of the season,that seemed to be working out well for all involved, as Billingsley threw out mostly consistent starts with a few outstanding ones (11 Ks over 8 scoreless against St. Louis in April, for example), though the medicore Dodger offense meant he was rarely repaid with victories, picking up just two in his first ten starts. That meant I was dropping lines like this on a consistent basis:

(Obligatory: 11 K’s, 8 shutout innings, and no win. This is why he’s going to end up 13-11 and people are going to say he was just okay this year.)

Billingsley began June with a bit of a rough patch, failing to go more than five innings in any of his first three starts, allowing four, six, and seven earned runs, though he still got a W in the first one because he homered, doubled, and walked. He turned it around by allowing just four earned runs over his next four outings – just about the time A.J. Ellis started catching more of his starts, though I’m loathe to put too much credit there – and by the time our midseason reviews rolled around, we were relatively happy with him:

Chad Billingsley (B) (8-7, 3.87 ERA, 3.41 FIP)
Over at Baseball Prospectus this morning, Geoff Young of DuckSnorts offers the opinion that Billingsley “should be a star, but isn’t”. And that’s true. 26-year-old Billingsley is walking more and striking out less than 23-year-old Billingsley did in 2008. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because he’s still a very valuable asset and the extension he signed over the winter was welcomed, but he’s also not going to be a Kershaw-level star like we’d once hoped he would be. Again, that’s not to get on Billingsley, it’s just seemingly who he’s going to be – a durable #2 or 3 type who will be consistently inconsistent (3 starts this year of at least 8 IP and 1 ER or less, 3 starts allowing 5 ER or more). That’s not a star, but it is a quality pitcher we should be happy to have.

But in his first start after the break, he allowed five runs in San Francisco. He bounced back by striking out 10 Nationals in next start, yet he bottomed out by not striking out a single hitter on August 10 against Philadelphia as the Dodgers blew a huge lead to lose, 9-8:

As for the bad news, let’s start at the top: Chad Billingsley never had it today. You’ll almost certainly read stories about how Billingsley “can’t pitch with a lead”, but that’s BS: he threw 30 pitches while struggling through the first inning, before the Dodgers even came to the plate. This is the fourth time in Billingsley’s career that he’s failed to strike out a single batter, and the first time this year, but it continues a disturbing trend: he’s struck out just six over his last three starts, after whiffing 10 Nationals on July 24.

While seven runs should always, always be enough for a starting pitcher, it’s also not like Billingsley got a whole lot of support from his defense. In the top of the fourth, he had two outs and Michael Martinez up; Martinez grounded to first, where it went off of Loney’s glove and putting Martinez on second. Worley, the next batter, singled home Martinez for the third Philly run. Should Billingsley have been able to retire the opposing pitcher? Absolutely he should have, but he’s also out of the inning if Loney fields the ball.

The same situation happened in the fifth, as with one out and two on, Billingsley got Hunter Pence to hit a soft grounder to Casey Blake at third – the kind of ball that turns into an inning-ending double play 99 times out of 100. The ball kicked off of Blake’s glove into the outfield, and rather than getting out of the inning without any damage, Billingsley saw a run score on the error and then another when Kuo got Ryan Howard to ground out. None of this absolves Billingsley; nor should it be forgotten.

His seasonal inconsistency wasn’t limited to various starts, however; he would show it even within games, such as in his next time out on August 16:

All that being said, let’s not ignore the performance from Chad Billingsley, who got off to a rough start by allowing five baserunners in the first two innings (one, granted, on a Juan Rivera error), generally throwing a lot of pitches, and looking for all the world like he wouldn’t last beyond 3.2 innings. He then turned it around to retire nine in a row in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, ending up allowing just one run over seven innings. Coming off last week’s “99 pitches, no strikeouts, and unable to hold a 6-0 lead in 4.1 innings” disaster against the Phillies, being able to come back from an uneven start to keep the club in the game against a tough opponent was a pretty nice accomplishment.

And then again in his next start, on August 21:

Of course, all this focus on Loney obscures the bizarre day Chad Billingsley put forth in picking up his tenth loss of the season. With the bullpen in shambles, Billingsley absolutely, positively had to put up innings, something which has traditionally been tough for him in Colorado. When he allowed a Mark Ellis single and a Carlos Gonzalez homer within the first three batters of the game, you could almost hear the wheels turning to get Loney out to the bullpen. But Billingsley got Troy Tulowitzki and Jason Giambi to end the first, and then faced just one batter over the minimum through the next five innings. In fact, Billingsley went 7.2 innings, and allowed just one hit after the first frame; unfortunately, it was a Seth Smith homer to right, following a walk to Giambi, in the 7th inning. The non-Loney Dodgers managed just four hits against the corpse of Kevin Millwood, and that’s how Chad Billingsley allowed just three hits while going into the 8th inning in Colorado, yet still came away with the loss.

And that’s how it went. Billingsley managed to end the season by not allowing more than three earned runs in four of his final five starts, which is good, but never managed to look good doing it. With his velocity down and his strikeout rate heading in the wrong direction, many of us wondered if he was injured – he claimed it was “mechanical issues” – and even Don Mattingly called him out to continue to improve following the season.

Yet as unsatisfying as it all seemed, Billingsley’s 3.83 FIP ranked comfortably alongside names like Jon Lester, Derek Holland, Ryan Dempster, Shaun Marcum, and Hiroki Kuroda. I don’t know if Billingsley will ever be more than he is – if he can’t curb the declining whiff rate, he might even be less – yet nor was this season the disaster that many will think.

Billingsley remains a conundrum, consistently inconsistent.

 Rubby De La Rosa (A-)
3.71 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 8.9 K/9, 4.6 BB/9

Remember, while Rubby De La Rosa was the 2010 Dodger minor league pitcher of the year, he also had all of 8 AA games under his belt entering the season, so needless to say, we weren’t expecting a whole lot from him. But de la Rosa got off to such a good start in Chattanooga (52/19 K/BB in 40 innings) that he started to seem like a viable option as the injuries mounted in Los Angeles, to the point that we actually wondered why Scott Elbert got the call over him in May.

At the time, Ned Colletti claimed that RDLR would be the next man up if a starter was needed, but that he was not likely to be recalled to work out of the bullpen. Less than two weeks later, RDLR was indeed called up to join the relievers, reminding us once again that the public comments of any GM (not just Colletti) are never to be trusted. RDLR’s debut, May 24 in Houston, was notable because it featured Javy Guerra‘s first save and Jerry Sands‘ first grand slam. But let’s not forget how we felt about RDLR that night, when asking who had the best evening:

Rubby De La Rosa, who not only was recalled to make his major league debut, but held a one run lead in the 8th by blowing away the heart of the Houston order in Hunter Pence, Carlos Lee, and Brett Wallace?

RDLR made his first three appearances out of the bullpen, allowing just four of the 18 batters he faced to reach base, before being asked to join the rotation with a start in Philadelphia on June 7, which just so happened to also be the debut of Dee Gordon. As you might remember, we were excited:

Tonight in Philadelphia, Rubby De La Rosa will make his first MLB start. (As Joe Block notes, it’ll be just his 24th professional start since arriving in America.) Dee Gordon will likely make his first start at shortstop, though that’s not confirmed yet. (Update: now confirmed. He’s leading off, and Jerry Sands is in there too.)It’s a momentous day for both, and I’m trying to remember the last time we’ve looked forward to a Dodger game with such high anticipation. Ignoring Opening Day or other special events, when was the last otherwise nondescript regular season Dodger game that drew such interest? I suppose we have to mention Clayton Kershaw‘s debut in 2008 – “Like Christmas in May“, as I referred to it at the time. There’s also Manny Ramirez‘ Dodger debut later that year, or his return from suspension in May 2009. Other than that, though? Seeing Gordon and de la Rosa appear at the same time has to rank pretty high. This is all totally unscientific, of course, so tell me where this ranks for you.

His starting debut wasn’t the smoothest thing in the world, since he walked five of the first eleven Phillies and missed the plate with 11 of his first 19 pitches, but with some good luck and good defense he managed to make it through five innings allowing just one earned run. He continued that pattern of wildness over his first four starts, striking out 22 in 20.2 innings, yet also walking 15 and allowing 14 earned runs.

On June 29, something seemed to click, and sure, that “something” may very well have been the atrocious Minnesota offense:

The first batter Rubby De La Rosa faced in the bottom of the first inning of today’s matinee in Minnesota, Ben Revere, hit a triple to the right-center gap. The next batter, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, grounded out to score Revere and put the Twins up 1-0… and that was it. In what was unquestionably the most effective outing of his young career, de la Rosa pitched 6 2/3 shutout innings following Nishioka’s out (7 innings total), scattering just six hits over the day. Most impressively, de la Rosa issued just two free passes. It was both the first time in his career that he went more than six innings or walked less than three, and he did it against an American League lineup. (Yes, I know, the Twins are one of the worst offensive teams in the AL, but still.) Even better, he improved as the game went on. After escaping from danger in the second after allowing three men to reach, he set down 16 of the 20 remaining Twins he saw – one of which was an intentional walk to Revere.

Of course, he still collected a loss, as the Dodger offense was shut out. RDLR then walked just one Met on July 4, followed that up with six one-hit scoreless innings against San Diego on July 9, and then didn’t walk a single Giant on July 19. In the midst of that stretch, we started wondering about how many innings the Dodgers should let the young starter collect; two weeks later, we’d learn it didn’t matter.

On July 31, the Dodgers played a day game against Arizona, a game that few paid attention to as it came in the midst of the trading deadline craziness and the fallout of the Trayvon Robinson / Tim Federowicz deal. De la Rosa left after four innings, complaining of elbow tightness. We immediately thought the worst, and a few days later it was confirmed that he’d need Tommy John surgery and would likely miss most or all of 2012. At the time, we looked into whether this could have been avoided, and concluded that it probably couldn’t have been.

A few weeks ago, I looked at how far the club would let de la Rosa go, considering he was nearing his career high for innings pitched. At 100.2 combined this year, he didn’t even match 2010′s 110.1, though there’s evidence that MLB innings are more stressful than MiLB frames. Either way, I find it hard to blame the Dodgers for their handling of the young pitcher. He threw 100 pitches or more just three times, and only once did he go above 113; even on Sunday, he was still hitting the upper 90s and got six of the twelve outs he  managed via strikeouts. Though we probably will never know for sure, the injury likely happened during de la Rosa’s tough outing on Sunday, and there wasn’t really anything that anyone could have done about it. Young pitchers get hurt, unfortunately. It happens.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that Tommy John surgery is nearly routine at this point, with an overwhelming success rate. Just to cherry-pick two recent examples from Washington, Jordan Zimmermann had his procedure in early August of 2009, returned to the bigs in late August of 2010, and has been one of the club’s best starters this year; Stephen Strasburg went under the knife in late August of 2010, and has reportedly been hitting 95 in bullpen sessions with a small chance that he sees MLB time in September. Nothing is guaranteed, but it’s in no way the death of a career like it was for decades, or even the risky procedure it was up until the last 10 years or so.

Remember, the Dodgers hadn’t yet started their second-half rebound yet and had just lost Kenley Jansen to his cardiac concerns, so this seemed like an unnecessary kick in the pants from the baseball gods. While it’s likely that RDLR returns intact, his loss opens up another hole in the 2012 rotation.

Dana Eveland (B)
3.03 ERA, 3.19 FIP, 4.85 K/9, 1.89 BB/9

As I probably said one too many times in September, “Dana Eveland… doing Dana Eveland things.” You remember how we felt when he was signed to a minor-league deal last November, right?

Eveland’s not, you know, good. His fastball doesn’t top 90 often, and if he was that valuable he wouldn’t have ended up on 19 different teams before his age-27 year. Still, it’s a no-risk deal, and the Dodgers have had good success with guys like Chan Ho Park, Jeff Weaver, and Aaron Sele in the past on signings like that. For the low, low price of almost nothing, they’ve managed to bring in a guy who’s entering his prime, has seen action in 95 major league games, and does a good job of keeping the ball in the park (0.65 HR/9) and on the ground (50%). More than likely, he’s ticketed for depth in AAA rather than the rotation, but it’s depth worth having, and a deal worth making.

And that’s exactly what happened. After hurting himself on the first day of big league camp, Eveland had a decent enough year in AAA, getting named to the PCL All-Star team and eventually getting called up when rosters expanded to start the September 1 rainout makeup in Pittsburgh. With de la Rosa injured, John Ely ineffective in ABQ, and Nathan Eovaldi at his innings limit, Eveland stuck around to make five starts of varying quality in September, the first four coming against the offensive powerhouses of San Francisco and Pittsburgh. When I say “varying quality”, I mean it, since the first two were excellent (1 ER over 15 IP), the next two were brutal (9 ER in 9 IP), and his final was solid (5.2 shutout innings in Arizona).

Eveland’s not unfamiliar with getting off to good starts, of course, because his first three starts for the 2010 Blue Jays comprised 4 ER over 18.2 IP. He then followed that up with 28 ER over 26 IP in his next six starts, leading to him losing his job. But that’s really what you expect from a guy like Eveland, isn’t it? There’s a reason he’s bounced around on four teams in the last three seasons, unable to even stick with the Pirates, and that’s because he’s got flashes of talent sandwiched around a whole lot of just not being good enough, as reflected in his career marks of striking out too few (5.94 K/9) and walking too many (4.50 BB/9). You always need guys like that to come up and eat up a few starts every season, and that’s fine. But it’s not fine to start your season off with Eveland or someone like him in the rotation, because if he’s one of your five best options, you’re in big trouble when you inevitably need to use your 6th, 7th, and 8th best options.

******

Next! Ted Lilly gave up a stolen base while you were reading this! Hiroki Kuroda loves the Dodgers to a disturbingly large extent! And John Ely looks for Ely-mania at the salad bar of the local Albuquerque Sizzler! It’s starting pitchers, part 3!

Chad Billingsley Tries to End His Season on a High Note

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Apologies for interrupting the well-deserved lovefest over Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, and Kenley Jansen (and the freakshow that is Eugenio Velez‘ march towards futility), but let’s take a break to check in on another topic for the moment: Chad Billingsley‘s final start of an uneven season.

Billingsley’s given us a lot to worry about this season, as his K/9 rate has fallen for the third year in a row as his BB/9 rate is up over last season, and he’s run off a string of high-pitch count, low-satisfaction starts in the last month as his velocity has dropped. He’s been claiming that it’s “mechanical issues“, rather than any injury, and that’s something we’ll need to look into deeper in the offseason, particularly since his second half (.764 OPS against, 1.53 K/BB) has been clearly worse than his first half (.711 OPS, 2.04 K/BB). But he did bounce back to allow just one earned runs over five against the Pirates last week, which was both encouraging and slightly disappointing that he couldn’t go further in a 15-1 victory, and it’s hardly like his season has been a John Lackey-eqsue disaster – his 3.81 FIP is 29th in the National League, ahead of Hiroki Kuroda and Wandy Rodriguez.

Billingsley has somehow made it through the entire season without pitching in San Diego, though he did hold the Padres scoreless over eight innings in Dodger Stadium on July 8. (Yes, he allowed five walks that day, but two were intentional.)

One generally meaningless start in a game between two non-contenders really shouldn’t hold that much importance, and maybe it doesn’t. But a solid start to finish off 2011 would do a lot towards helping our outlook on Billingsley headed into the winter.

Dodger Offense Bails Out Another Poor Billingsley Start

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I don’t usually include WPA (Win Percentage Added) charts from FanGraphs in these posts, but, yeah, tonight’s an exception:

You can chalk up the fact that the Braves were at something like a 95% chance of winning through three innings to Chad Billingsley, who continued his disconcerting second-half slide by allowing twelve baserunners and five runs (three earned, thanks to a Dee Gordon fielding error) while completing just four innings, getting yanked after letting Chipper Jones single to lead off the fifth. I would really like to see A.J. Ellis start the next time Billingsley goes; I hardly need to tell you that Catcher’s ERA is among the most useless stats around – yes, even worse than pitcher wins or RBI – yet the difference in Billingsley’s performance this year with Ellis back there as opposed to Rod Barajas or Dioner Navarro is striking. That’s not an excuse, of course; Billingsley has been lousy for over a month and it’s his responsibility to perform regardless who he’s pitching to. But if there is something there, it’s worth looking into.

Anyway, for an overwhelming majority of this season, the storyline on a night like this would be “starting pitcher gets hit, team rolls over with a whimper, nothing to see here.” But not the new Dodgers, who apparently hated Navarro even more than we did – this is their 9th win in ten games since he was cut (10 of 11 overall), scoring 71 times in the ten-game span. Tonight’s heroes in coming back from the 5-0 deficit were the same two who have been helping Matt Kemp carry the offense for a month, as Juan Rivera and James Loney combined to reach base five times and drive in six. Gordon also attempted to atone for the error by setting a career high with three hits and stealing two. Not to be forgotten is the bullpen, which came through with five innings spoiled only by Dan Uggla‘s solo homer against Javy Guerra in the 9th. The performance of the bullpen over the course of the season, coming back as it has from the decimating injuries, is a sorely overlooked bright spot of the year so far.

With the win, the Dodgers pull to 67-70, and a .500 season is now well within reach, though it’s too little too late for any sort of playoff run. It almost makes you wonder what could have been if the generally solid pitching had received any sort of similar support for the first four months of the season.