Kuroda (91 game score tonight, 90 vs. the Cubs June 6) is just the 10th LA Dodger with two or more starts in a season with a 90+ game score. The last person to have a season with 2+ such starts was the aforementioned Odalis Perez in 2002.

Koufax had five such seasons, and 17 games from 1960-1966.

http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/9WX8

Amazingly, none of Hershiser's starts in 1988 featured a 90+ game score. His eight shutouts (plus the 10-scoreless-inning finale in SD) were in the 77-88 game score range.

SI.com had it up as soon as the game was finished.

They even gave a shout-out to Berroa for his play in the 9th (if Kuroda still had the no-no, just imagine...)

1. Kuroda striking out Chipper.
2. Nomar's home run
3. Kemp's single (maybe)
4. DeWitt's play
5. Texeira's hit
6. Berroa's play

http://tinyurl.com/5z4ge9

Sidenote- my first Dodger game was a 90 min 1-hitter by Bob Welch in May 1980.

The last rookie to take a perfect game into the 8th was Orel Hershiser in 1984.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198407290.shtml

Orel retired the first 23 batters, and ended with a 90-game-score, 2-hit shutout.

"Buckwheat's been shot!" revisited.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN198005290.shtml

[14 It's NFL Live.

Still, enough already with Favre. Make up your mind! The record is stuck.

Kuroda is simply the best (major) free agent signing of the Ned era.

Brought to you by Mutual Life: because you could die tomorrow.

http://tinyurl.com/5wfqvl

-----
failure
< 125IP ERA+ 96

break even
125IP-150IP ERA+ 96-106

success
150+IP ERA+ 106+
-----
Current numbers: 98.3 IP, 3.39 ERA, roughly 130 ERA+

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_9812507

Shortly after the Milwaukee Brewers finalized a trade for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia on Monday, the Daily News learned that sometime in the days leading up to that deal, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt nixed a trade that would have brought Sabathia to Los Angeles, along with Indians third baseman Casey Blake and utility man Jamey Carroll.

McCourt's reason was financial, according to multiple industry sources. But that is a charge McCourt flatly denied.

"It's just totally false," he said. "The players didn't match up, and that's just the way it was."

Awesome, I know I can always count on you Eric :)

So basically Kuroda is on target for great success.

I don't find any of that surprising.

I really don't know what to think after reading that.

And if that story is true, it portends bad things for Ned Colletti.

Except for the fact that McCourt is responding about it - but the buck has always ultimately stopped with him. Maybe he's enforcing that more now, though.

>>Dodgers' potential deal for Wilson dead?

I'm told that that it is very unlikely the Dodgers will be able to trade for Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson. <<

Article makes it out to seem as if it was going to happen but McCourt stepped in and saved Colletti from himself.

Is there another way that passage can be interpreted?

If anything's significant, it's that the buck stops with McCourt, which is different from what he's preached previously, when he says he just handles the business side.

I think this shows trouble for Ned, also. I interpret "nixed" to also mean that it was proposed by Ned, but wouldn't pass the approval of McCourt.

Well, we'll have to see if more details about this get leaked out. Whatever happened, I'm glad the trade did not.

Certainly it doesn't mean your going to get fired, but after other deals get seemingly approved with no issues, this one doesn't. I read a loss of faith in Ned, but I am probably reading too much into it.

http://tinyurl.com/558eq8

Night!

In the interest of fairness, just thought I'd admit it outright.

I can see some truth in that statement for myself.

Matt Kemp is only blocked by his apparently boundless stupidity.

Well our top prospect is McDonald or Elbert. If Elbert was fully healthy, he would probably be on the same page as Laporta in terms of value.

Kemp is not a prospect anymore!

McCourt has been saying for the last few years that he wants to have a team with a home grown talent and ultimately he has sided on that side of the issue when these types of deals have been brought up.

Mark Shapiro (Cleveland GM) said in his news conference today that ultimately he knew that he wasn't going to get young players in the league right now so he aimed for top prospects and LaPorta was among the top on that list.

I will never understand the fear but I guess it drives traffic to the site, so that's something.

I wasn't speaking in terms of blockbuster trades and didn't mean to imply that. I was thinking in terms of payroll dollars committed by McCourt based on deals inked by Nedco - Kuroda, and Andruw in the last year alone (of course Kuroda looks good at this point). Taking on Loaiza's contract last year. Those are deals that McCourt obviously approved of despite a high payroll what would be considered a pretty high payroll at the time.

The phrase "high payroll" is mentioned twice in the same sentence for emphasis - or maybe it is just poor editing. :)

1) McCourt, after claiming that he would let his baseball people make the baseball decisions, has stopped letting his baseball people make the baseball decisions. This is bad for Colletti because, while it might not mean firing is imminent, it means his boss doesn't completely trust him. That's never a good thing.

2) McCourt vetoed the trade because he saw it (perhaps rightly) as a last-ditch attempt by Colletti to save his own job by sacrificing the future of the franchise for a short-term playoff run. If this is the case, Colletti's job security is razor-thin.

It's gotta be one of those or the other. That or the monetary reasons are actually true, which I doubt. That would mean the franchise itself, and not Colletti specifically, is in trouble. But I can't imagine that money had anything to do with it. What's three months of pro-rated Sabathia? About 5 million? Even the Marlins could afford that.

I don't think money has anything to do with it. I believe McCourt was being truthful in saying the trade didn't match up well for the Dodgers.

HR: 0
RBI:35
2B: 17
AVG: 304
OBP: 346
SLG: 358
OPS: 704
Pittsburgh has 74 games remaining, my guess he plays 70

Nomar's projections not counting tonight

HR: 13
2B: 13
AVG: 268
OBP; 375
SLG; 463
OPS; 838

After tonight they have 73 games left, my guess Nomar plays 60-65.

Source of the stats is ESPN.

As fragile as Nomar maybe and understanding his limatitons on defense, if Nomar was able to hit 10 HR's and bring up the doubles to 15 and keep the OBP, SLG, AND OPS Close and game projections close to 60-65, there isn't much better available in the SS market then our current SS Nomar. If you end up adding up the stats of Furcal, Nomar Mazza and Berroa-our SS position isn't all that bad!

Here's Tony Jackson full article on the subject in question:

http://www.dailynews.com/dodgers/ci_9812507

Making absolute statements with little or no real information is right up there with the old "assume" adage.

1. At what point should you genuinely get excited and be in danger of a rule 9 violation. I personally get crazy thoughts of what could be after 3 innings, try to hold it in until 6 and then I am totally gripped by the end of 7. 8 and 9 are pins and needles all the way, Is this average?

2. Is there a color coded alert system for no hitters like there is for the cycle. For example yellow is seventh inning, orange is eighth and red is ninth?

But I'm no fun.

80 We can do both.

btw, who else thinks that with 3 hits tomight and that one defensive gem, DeWitt has shut out LaRoche from playing 3rd base for at least the next 2 months (even if he hits .200 in that span)?

>>Manager Joe Torre nearly ran out of superlatives describing Kuroda's effort.

"He was close to perfect. That's the only way to describe it. You can't get much closer to being perfect than that," Torre said. "He worked fast and threw a lot of strikes, as evidenced by his pitch count at the end of the game. That was about as robotic as you've ever seen any pitcher just throw one strike after another. He was like a machine. He kept us on the edge of our seats."<<

Emphasis mine. Hirobot?

I'm saving my pennies for Sheets. I don't think this was a good move for the Brewers. They don't have the back half of the rotation or the bullpen I think to pull off a playoff run. We shall see but I think in the end they get no playoffs and lose two players to free agency which will cripple an already thin pitching staff.