Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Billingsley-Kershaw the Next Koufax-Drysdale?

Chad Billingsley is underrated and underappreciated, argues Andrew at True Blue L.A., and it's hard to disagree. Clayton Kershaw, on the other hand, has been well appreciated this season. Billingsley is 23. Kershaw is 20. If the Dodgers have got you down right now, think to the future.

I know, we've been thinking to the future for the past 20 years. But when was the last time the Dodgers have had two homegrown talents ready to anchor the rotation for years to come? Most of the Dodgers' recent pitchers of note, from Hideo Nomo and Kevin Brown to Brad Penny and Derek Lowe, have come from other teams (or countries).

Look at the ages of the NL West's premier pitchers: Brandon Webb is 29, Dan Haren is 27. Jake Peavy is 27. Matt Cain is 23, but Tim Lincecum is "already" 24. Yesterday's stellar outing by Billingsley shows what he's capable of, and don't worry about Kershaw's 0-1 W-L record—I'm looking at you, Steve Lyons. Once Kershaw starts getting some run support, he'll pile up the wins.

Billingsley & Kershaw. Kershaw & Billingsley. Get used to saying it, because (unless the front office pulls a Kazmir-sized boner) we'll be cheering both of them for a long time.

Billingsley photo by Jon SooHoo/Dodgers
Kershaw photo by Duane Burleson/AP

2 comments:

Eric Karros said...

Alert! Alert! I think Orel's account has been hijacked! Either that or the FD experience has awoken the long-dormant optimistic beast within.

I do agree though that the potential for the future on both sides of the ball is exciting.

Orel said...

Funny, the blog has kind of forced me to be more optimistic; readers can only take so much doom and gloom.