Random rantings and ravings about the Los Angeles Dodgers, written by a small consortium of rabid Dodger fans. With occasional comments on baseball, entertainment, pop culture, and life in general.
Hiroki Kuroda gave up four home runs to the Nationals (including a pair of homers to Nats 1B Michael Morse), which doomed the Dodgers as early as the bottom of the first inning (when three of the Nats' HR struck, giving Washington a 4-1 lead after one). Kuroda, now 11-15, is all but guaranteed a losing record this season.
But it's not like it's all Hiro's fault; the Dodger offense pitched in with its typical lack of run support during his starts, reverting to its pre-August state. Matt Kemp doubled in Jamey Carroll in the first inning for his 106th RBI (one behind league-leaders Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard), and Justin Sellers doubled in A.J. Ellis in the top of the ninth. But that's all, folks. Dodgers will have to scramble to capture our sixth straight series (this is a four-game series in the District).
Hiroki Kuroda (11-14, 3.03) vs. John Lannan (8-11, 3.54).
Weekday holiday morning baseball! If the Dodger offense is still in compensation mode for its complete lack of run support for Kuroda for most of the season, expect them to provide him with a bundle to play with today (they've scored 32 runs in his past four starts). Despite yesterday's walkoff loss to the Braves, the Dodgers are still on a (bread) roll and 32/37 man Matt Kemp remains a bacon of hope. I mean beacon. Sorry, haven't had breakfast yet.
Clayton Kershaw (17-5, 2.45) vs. Randall Delgado (0-1, 3.60).
Question: Who the hell is Randall Delgado? Answer: A spot-starter for Jair Jurrjens. Question: Who is Clayton Kershaw? Answer: Only this year's probable NL Cy Young winner. Believe it or not, the Dodgers have won five straight series (even if one of them was a single makeup game against the Pirates) and are going for their fourth (technical) sweep out of five chances. The Dodgers are on fire! Now, who's ready for the season to begin?
One night after a high-scoring come-from-behind victory, the Dodgers also proved they could grind one out against the Braves, winning in extras. The Dodgers take today's game thanks to a leadoff double in the tenth by Spee-Dee Gordon, who then was sacrificed over by Free James Loney and home by Juan Rivera. Nathan Eovaldi has a nice quality start (6.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 5 BBs and Ks each), but Mike MacDougal walks away with the win and Javy Guerra gets the save.
Plus, the Diamondbacks' 7-2 win over the Giants (Lincecum goes 5.0 IP with 9 H and 5 ER, taking the loss) puts the Dodgers only 4.5 games out of second place. The 11-out-of-12 run has the Dodgers only two games under .500. Meaningless goals, perhaps; but meaningful achievements against the context of this season, to be sure.
Nathan Eovaldi (1-2, 3.46) vs. Mike Minor (4-2, 4.37)
Well, Nathan, this is it. Today will be your last start of the year (given your innings limit--you're at 26.0 IP going into today's game--and the rest of the year will be bullpen work for you). Given that your last start, a loss against the Rockies, was the only time you had given up more than two ER in a game, as well as your shortest outing (not to mention the Dodgers' only loss in our last 11 games), I'm sure you have a lot of pressure to make this last outing a great start.
We'll be watching, of course; and hoping that your opponent (making his first start in ten days) doesn't get any Minor miracles today. Let's take this five-game win streak to six, Nate!
One of the perks of getting to cover the Dodger game as media is that you get access to the Dodgers' clubhouse. It's basically a narrow corridor, wider than a hallway, lined by players' lockers along the long walls and some couches and seats and clothes hampers in the center. There are flat screens hanging from the ceiling, as well as reminders of the Dodgers' six world championships along some of the wider rafter spaces along the ceiling.
Still photography is forbidden.
I got down there before the game started and while the players were eating dinner and having their pre-game meeting. Pleasant odors wafted from their kitchen but I pressed on into the abandoned room.
And one thing I thought was interesting was how the players' lockers were organized, given it's probably not random and they want to put certain players next to others. So I spent the time to list the locker order (based on the stickers above the lockers), which I figure I should post now before the September call-ups happen in earnest. Extract your own conclusions:
Stadium side, left to right:
Juan Uribe, empty, Matt Kemp, Rod Barajas, empty, A.J. Ellis, Justin Sellers, Tony Gwynn, Aaron Miles, Juan Rivera, Trent Oeltjen, blank, Nathan Eovaldi, Andre Ethier, blank, Casey Blake, Jamey Carroll, [clubhouse attendant] Jose Castillo, [clubhouse assistant manager] Alex Torres, [clubhouse manager] Mitch Poole.
Concourse side, left to right:
Dee Gordon, Eugenio Velez, Javy Guerra, James Loney, Kenley Jansen, Hong-Chih Kuo, blank, Scott Elbert, Mike MacDougal, Matt Guerrier, Jonathan Broxton, Ted Lilly, Blake Hawksworth, Vicente Padilla, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, Jon Garland, Hiroki Kuroda.
I guess all the pitchers go together. I must have missed Josh Lindblom and Russ Mitchell somehow, too (I was typing on my iPad so it might have auto-deleted or something inexplicable, as often happens).
I also noticed that many of the players had a couple of bobbleheads on the top shelf in their lockers. Kuroda's, at the end, had a ton stashed up there: two Duke Snider bobbleheads, two Don Mattinglys, two Hong-Chih Kuos. Garland, who walked by pre-game after doing what appeared to be a workout session (his upper body was wrapped with an icepack on his shoulder), had five bobblehads out of the boxes on his shelf (Guerrier had some out of box as well). Kershaw had a number of bobbleheads in their boxes, but had his own bobblehead as the sole bobble out of box.
At first I just started laughing, that San Francisco (which also doesn't have a real newspaper in addition to not having a real MLB team) couldn't even support its own DJs, and instead has to pipe them in from the real California. But now I'm thinking, how are Kevin and Bean able to do their LA-based show without sounding LA-based? Have the Los Angeles references been excised altogether, so that other markets (which apparently include Fresno, Reno, Boise, and Iowa City) don't notice that their morning DJs aren't locals?
(And yes, I know Bean lives in Seattle so he isn't even LA-based.)
I was on the aisle and I ran up to look at the kid, who was still wailing and being cradled by his father. From the looks of things it probably had glanced off his face so he was more shocked than actually stung. But he was crying pretty intensely nonetheless.
The poor guy across the aisle was surprised to be holding the ball himself. He wasn't motioning to his friends about his new-found loot or crowing to anyone that he had caught the ball; rather, he just sat there with the ball in one hand on his chest.
The crowd started yelling "give the kid the ball!" at the poor guy, who took all of fifteen seconds to think about it before reaching across the aisle and handing it to the kid. Very cool of the guy. Kid is still too shocked to show much appreciation, but takes the ball anyway. Rounds of applause from the crowd. Everyone goes back to watching the game.
Kid is still crying, but by this time the medical staff has brought him an icepack and he's sitting in his father's lap, holding the baseball in one hand. Guy who gave up the ball is still sort of expresionless, with the whole "how did I get into this situation in the first place" look.
I felt kind of bad for the guy. Again, I've caught balls before (never on the fly, however), and I know what a thrill it is. And this guy didn't even get a chance to revel in that glory, not for more than thirty seconds or so.
So after sitting back down with my friends and finishing my (second) beer, I went up the row and back to the concession stand, bought the guy a baseball, and came down and handed it to him while saying, "hey, man, that was cool of you to give that ball up." He smiled, sort of sheepishly and thanked me. And I went back down and watched the rest of the game (with my third beer in hand, btw).
Orel told me that he was going to buy the guy a beer. I think the ball was less expensive, for the record.
Anyway, at the end of the game, one of the guys in his party gave me his business card. "I was with the guy that you gave that ball to," he said. "That was really cool of you." And he handed me his card. Wow, now we're into some weird cosmic pay-it-forward thing, right?
Well, shoot, I'm going to continue it. I don't know if that guy wanted me to call him, or wanted to offer me a discount on his business services, or what. But if you're in the market for photographers, Steve Cohn Photography seems like as good a place as any to start your inquiries.
The Dodgers were down 5-0 through three frames and it was looking bleak, not just for Chad Billingsley (who only lasted 4.0 IP and gave up all five runs, 3 ER, with 3 BB and 3 Ks in the no-decision), but for the Dodgers, winners of four in a row. Barndon Beachy of the Braves was coasting...
....and then, the suddenly plucky Dodgers rallied, scoring two in the fourth off a Juan Rivera bases-loaded single, then one in the sixth off another Rivera single, before blowing it open with five in the seventh on a ten-batter inning. The Dodgers in the seventh beat Arodys Vizcaino to a bloody pulp (0.1 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 1 K), and if not for Rod Barajas (who accounted for all three outs in the inning, striking out to open it and GIDPing to close it), the Dodgers would still be out there, scoring runs. Credit James Loney for a bases-clearing double to right, an IBB to Matt Kemp and an Andre Ethier single that scored Loney and Kemp for the high five (runs).
Oh, and credit Justin Sellers and Dee Gordon for turning a sweet double play in th ebottom of the seventh inning. Highlight is here since mlb.com won't let me embed it.
And while you're at it, credit all you guys for a spontaneous INXS-themed GameThread. Cool. Now someone get that rope untied from around Josh S.' neck. (And put some clothes on him, for pete's sake!)
Chad Billingsley (10-10, 4.08) vs. Brandon Beachy (7-2, 3.31).
The Dodgers have won nine of ten and are smoking hot, but enter the tomahawk-chopping, pre-alignment house of horrors in Atlanta. The Braves lead the Wild Card by 8.5 games (over St Louis; the sorry Giants are 9.5 GB). And I would write more but I've got a barbecue grill to tend. Gotta run, people!
Happy Labor Day weekend. So before you leave, here's a situation to consider. I'm curious to know how you would react, before i tell you what really happened.
Tuesday night, I went to the Padres @ Dodgers game and sat behind home plate on the field level. Early in the game, a foul ball clears the protective fence (pretty quickly) and arcs right back into the face of a poor kid, probably three or four years of age. The ball ricochets off the kids face and across the aisle to a guy just standing there.
Kid is wailing. His father immediately picks up the poor kid and cradles him in his arms as the red mark starts to appear.
Guy across the aisle with the ball is kind of flabbergasted. He didn't do anything to deflect the ball into the kid's face--he was across the aisle for pete's sake--and just sort of ended up with the foul ball after the errant bounce. The guy looks genuinely surprised to be in this situation in the first place.
Crowd is looking staring at the kid, and also staring at the adult.
Question 1: If you are the adult who has the ball, what would you do?
Question 2: If you are in the vicinity of the incident but not related to either party, what would you do?
I wasn't the one who caught the ball but I did end up involving myself in the situation. I'm eager to hear how you would have responded, however. Don't think about this too long; in the heat of the moment, what would you do?
Fame and success has brought Chad Billingsley more than fortune and admiration. It's also made him the answer to yesterday's puzzle.
The puzzle's title ("Now Batting...Josh Bard") refers to Shakespeare, and the lines are from Shakespeare's sonnets. Missing words are represented by pictured players, which you had to identify by sight, browsing team rosters, working backwards, or (if you were really crafty) looking up their MLB.com profile URLs using the numbers in the picture file names.
Filling in the clues gives us:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak [relief (Javy Guerra)]Sonnet #34
dot
null
And they are [rich (Harden)] and [ransom (Cody)] all ill deedsSonnet #34
And they shall live, and he in them still [green (Shawn)]Sonnet #63
They that have power to [hurt (Frank Thomas, a.k.a. The Big)] and will do noneSonnet #94
comma
dash
And that fresh blood which [young (Eric Jr.)]-ly thou bestow'stSonnet #11
[Mark (Reynolds)] how one string, sweet husband to anotherSonnet #8
dot
To the clear [day (Darren O')] with thy much clearer lightSonnet #43
Doth spot the beauty of thy [bud (Norris)]-ding name!Sonnet #95
Yet who knows not conscience is [bo(u)rn (Michael)] of love?Sonnet #151
Combining the sonnet numbers with the supplied punctuation results in:
34.0346394, -118.4395151
...which looks suspiciously like GPS coordinates. Google those coordinates and you get the location of Billingsley's Steak House in West L.A. (Not affiliated with Chadley, as far as we know, but a good place to go if you like your beef bloody and your restaurants retro.)
Congratulations to the solverati, a highly secretive organization consisting of BCCSweet and Mr. Customer. Updated rankings will post soon. Next puzzle, Monday, Sept 19, at 7 a.m.!
Dana Eveland's Dodger (and 2011) debut was solid enough to earn a well-deserved win, thanks in large part to a three-run first inning before he even took the mound. Eveland went 8.0 IP with 1 ER and 6 H against 3 Ks and no walks, for a 1.13 ERA. Outstanding spot start!
Dee Gordon added a two-run double in the eighth and the Dodgers bullpen ended up needing it, since Blake Hawksworth gave up two runs without recording an out, and then Kenley Jansen gave up another run before getting his third save. Dodgers move on to Atlanta for the weekend.
1. Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers SP. Has outside chance for pitching Triple Crown in NL, though he's slightly behind for wins (ranking second, with 16) and ERA (third, 2.51) at present.
2. Roy Halladay. His usual season -- 15-5, 2.56 ERA, league-leading marks for complete games and strikeouts per walk, only nets him second place here.
3. Cliff Lee, Phillies SP. Close to a dead heat with teammate Cole Hamels and two-time winner Tim Lincecum
As for the NL MVP race:
NL MVP
1. Ryan Braun, Brewers OF. Terrific all-around players gets slight nod over teammate Prince Fielder. His .999 OPS is tops in the NL.
2. Prince Fielder, Brewers 1B. If this is his going away party, it's been a special one for the free-agent-to-be. He has 29 home runs and 102 RBIs for the NL Central's first-place team and gets points for being a leader in the clubhouse, too.
3. Justin Upton, Diamondbacks OF. Another great trade not made, Upton, whose name was talked about last winter, is the clear star of the upstart D-backs. Upton leads first-place Arizona in batting average, home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage and slugging and is tied for the team-high in stolen bases.
4. Shane Victorino, Phillies OF. His superb all-around season has gone mostly under the radar until lately, but he is eighth in the league in OPS and second in triples.
5. Matt Kemp, Dodgers OF. Best position player in the league following his disappointing 2010 season. His .320 average is 71 points higher than a year ago and he leads the league with 31 home runs.
Heyman even has Halladay, his #2 best NL pitcher, ranked #7 in the NL MVP race (Kershaw doesn't even make the top ten). Weird.
I'm a little behind in reading my Sports Illustrated issues (which all should change now that I've got their nifty iPad app), but I would be woefully remiss if I didn't link to a great article by Ben Reiter called "Matt Kemp Is Just Killing It (August 8, 2011 issue). Click to read the whole piece, but here's an excerpt, picking up in the lobby of a Minneapolis steak house on a Tuesday afternoon:
Then a young man entered the lobby. He pushed his aviator sunglasses up to his forehead, where they would remain for the next hour and a half. He was tall, 6'3", and strong, with muscular arms, the left one covered with a sleeve tattoo, extending out of his gray, fashionably gauzy V-neck T-shirt. With each stride his suede shoes revealed lacquered red soles, the trademark of the French designer Christian Louboutin. Both his teeth and a diamond in his left ear gleamed.
The ladies in the Murray's lobby clearly did not know the young man's identity. What they knew was that this was somebody who was somebody. "Oh," one of the ladies whispered. Their conversation stopped abruptly—cue the needle screeching on the record—so that they could devote their attention to watching him.
The man was Matt Kemp, the 26-year-old Dodgers centerfielder who has this year emerged as baseball's best all-around player, and a shining light amid an unprecedentedly gloomy year for L.A. The Dodgers' season has included not only losses (they were 48--59 through Sunday) but also plunging attendance, the brutal beating of a fan in their parking lot and a protracted battle between the club's owner, Frank McCourt, and Major League Baseball, as McCourt holds on to his tendril-thin control of his bankrupt team.
Kemp, though, ranks near the top of the National League in each of the Triple Crown categories—first in RBIs (82) through Sunday, second in home runs (26) and fifth in batting average (.317)—and he is also third in stolen bases, with 28. No one has won a Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and the last player to do so while also stealing as many bags as Kemp has this season was Ty Cobb in 1909. It is a season that is shaping up to be on a par with Willie Mays's very best.
Kemp's gifts are of the type that is both a blessing and a curse, in that they are so immediately obvious, to strangers in a restaurant and baseball fans alike. He is extraordinarily athletic. He can not only dunk a basketball but also leap, pass the ball between his legs and then slam it, a move that most baseball players couldn't execute in a video game. That is a gift that made the chunky boy from Midwest City, Okla., who was obsessed with Air Jordans ("You can imagine what that can do to a brother's pocket," says his father, Carl), a big leaguer for good by age 22. There he has made enough money to comfortably afford nearly 200 pairs of shoes, including one that has spikes. ("Spikes!" says his mother, Judy Henderson, for whom Matt has purchased a house and a Mercedes. "They look like they could be a weapon.")
Kemp's athleticism inspires his teammates and coaches to wax both superlative and poetic. "There are only two guys I would put in the same category as Matt Kemp as far as athletic ability," says Brad Ausmus, who last fall retired as a Dodger after 18 years as a major league catcher. "One would be Bo Jackson, and two would be Carlos Beltran. The one thing that they can do that most ballplayers can't is this: They can do everything."
If you've got the print edition, you also have some outstanding photos of Kemp by Robert Beck, some of which you can see at his gallery here (Beck took the photo at the top of this piece, as well). There are some great photos all over west coast locales featured on Beck's website; I also was fond of this one, of the Giants' Aubrey Huff faceplanting into the Dodger Stadium outfield wall.
Free food, drinks, and plenty of snark. And a Dodgers / Giants game (on television) to boot. And prizes! Plus, this is the first SoSG Fest with an attendee from out of state!
That's right, SoSG Fest 2011, set for Saturday September 10, 2011 somewhere in Los Angeles, is almost completely full. If you have not already emailed us AND received a response, please send us an email to let us know you are interested in attending! Details on how to apply (and what this is all about) are here.
This year the National League as a whole has averaged 4.18 runs per game, its lowest mark since 1992. The league ERA is under 4.00 for the first time in that same period. NL pitchers have compiled a 2.32 strikeout-to-walk ratio, the senior circuit's best of the modern era. One would expect, then, a great tangle of worthy Cy Young candidates and some tough decisions facing the BBWAA down the stretch. With only a month of regular-season baseball remaining, though, it might already be a two-man race. [...] [I]t's Clayton Kershaw and Roy Halladay who have built a bit of separation from the rest, in both traditional and advanced metrics.
Besides [the Reds' Johnny] Cueto, who lags well behind both in innings pitched, Kershaw and Halladay have the two lowest ERAs in the National League, at 2.45 and 2.47 respectively. Kershaw has been striking out hitters at a greater rate (27 percent) than any qualified pitcher in the league besides Zack Greinke. That well outpaces Halladay, who has whiffed 24.4 percent of his batters faced following Tuesday night's nine-strikeout performance in Cincinnati. Doc, for his part, has been stingier with his free passes. For the second straight year, he has the lowest walk rate of qualified NL pitchers, at 3.2 percent. Kershaw has posted twice that rate (6.4 percent), and also trails Halladay (and two other Phillies starters) in strikeout-to-walk ratio. For Cy Young voters with an eye toward history, Halladay's 7.64 figure in that category merits consideration; just 11 other qualified pitchers since 1950 have managed a ratio of seven or higher. Only Curt Schilling, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez have done it twice, as Halladay is set to do.
Viewing the race from a more traditionally tinted lens, it's still difficult to divine a leader. Kershaw, as noted, only holds a two-point advantage in ERA. Most voters will still look at win totals, but there isn't an obvious edge there -- Kershaw has logged 17 in 28 starts, Halladay 16 in 27. Halladay has two more complete games than Kershaw, but Kershaw has two more shutouts. The raw counting stats that traditional voters tend to gravitate toward reflect the same offset that we observed in the per-batter versions: Kershaw has fanned the most batters in the league, and Halladay has surrendered the fewest walks. If neither pitcher separates himself from the other over the remainder of the regular season, we could be looking at a very close vote come November, particularly considering the usual variety of unpredictable selections that will work their way into the second and third spots on many ballots.
Glancing at the remaining schedules, each pitcher appears to be in line for five more starts (although, with rotation shuffling and double-headers, it's impossible to know for sure). Kershaw may have an easier go of things. Assuming regular rest, three of his remaining starts will come against the two worst offenses in the league by runs per game, the Giants and Padres. Entering play Tuesday, Kershaw's probable remaining opponents had hit a collective .242/.307/.372 (.679 OPS). Meanwhile, Halladay's likely slate sits at .261/.326/.400 (.726 OPS). It includes the Mets, Brewers, and Cardinals, all well above-average offenses. Don't be surprised if Kershaw emerges from the 2011 season with his first piece of hardware. Either way, the NL Cy Young vote figures to be hotly debated and narrowly decided.
Can a player with a losing career record, making his Dodger debut in Pittsburgh, have enough stuff to win today's one-game series (a make-up game from May 12), not to mention the first of 11 road games? Certainly not if opposing pitcher Lincoln logs a lot of Ks against us this afternoon, I assume; but we can debate that in this thread (please use the conventional basic time schedule 6-3-7-3-4-6-3).
Puzzle Rules: The solution to the puzzle is a current Dodger.
Comment freely in the thread, but if you have the solution, please don't give it away to everyone in the comments section. Instead, do the following:
Email us the solution, along with your reasoning. Submitted answers without the reasoning, or those submitted with the incorrect reasoning, will count for participation only, even if the answer itself is correct;
Please include your screen name somewhere in the email; and,
Post a comment simply saying you have emailed your solution attempt. We may not be able to reply to your original email promptly, so please be patient and check back on the comment thread for the latest news; we may confirm correct answers there.
You have until midnight PT tonight to submit your answer. Good luck!
Not familiar with SoSG's off-day puzzle competition? Read up here. And join the fun!
It's good to get all types of media on the Matt Kemp for MVP bandwagon. The kind of season he's having has been so remarkable, it would be a pity if the McCourt circus caused the press to miss out on Kemp's remarkable season. Well, Yahoo! Sports' Tim Brown hasn't missed a beat on Kemp:
This is what happens when a 26-year-old, toolsy, strong safety-sized center fielder reaches his spiritual, physical and emotional prime on the same winter day: .321 batting average, 31 home runs, 101 RBIs, .969 OPS, 35 stolen bases and solid – sometimes breathtaking – defense.
September calls, and he remains Triple Crown feasible, first-to-third hell-bent, and standings blind.
In a season in which the organization has collapsed around him, in which the city has lost hope, in which the nine batters to have hit behind him are James Loney, Marcus Thames, Juan Uribe, Jerry Sands, Jay Gibbons, Rod Barajas, Casey Blake, Juan Rivera, and, in nine games, Aaron Miles, isn’t there – I don’t know – value in that?
In a National League field where more than a dozen players will draw votes, and maybe half possess the more traditional – big statistics, contending team – claim to Most Valuable Player attention, Kemp is the season’s anti-establishment candidate.
3/27 vs. AZ (W, 6-4): AC
4/11 vs. TEX (W, 8-7): Sax
5/11 vs. SF (L, 3-9): Sax
5/25 vs. COL (W, 5-3): Sax
6/11 @ PIT (W, 8-6): Sax
6/15 vs. TB (W, 4-3): Nomo
7/4 vs. SD (W, 3-0): Orel, Sax
