SS Izzy
LF Repko
CF Bradley
1B Kent
3B Saenz
2B Perez
RF Edwards
C Navarro
P Perez

vs

3B Sanchez
CF Duffy
LF Bay
1B Eldred
2B Castillo
RF Restovich
C Cota
SS Wilson
P Duke

Righties have shown a lot more power against Duke, but they're not that much better. Small sample size though. Either way, Perez will provide our offense from the left side.

Or, to make it easy, considering where you live, we just swap digs for a month :)

Mike Edwards -- God bless the guy -- is what he is... an adequate bench guy. Why not start Jason Repko?

Here's an idea... put Antonio Perez in RF and let Hee Seop get a start. Sorry for starting another Choi tirade here, but Tracy seriously needs to explain himself sometime...

With Duke on the hill there's bound to be more balls in left than right anyway, right? I suppose if hitter are late Edwards will get a work out, if they connect that is (Duke is 8+Ks/9 at home this year - ouch)

I tried to find an "out chart" for Duke but came up empty.

Lowry was incredible today for the Giants. Given all that crap the West has taken I was actually rooting for them against Houston. Randy Johnson got spanked by the BlueJays. Aaron Small is doing better then he is. Time stands still for no man, just ask Steve Carlton.

2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Dodger World Championship and the debut of Sandy Koufax in the major leagues. What better time to look back at Sandy's first victory?

The date was August 27, 1955 and a Dodger team comfortably in first place started Brooklyn native Sandy Koufax at Ebbets Field in a game against The Cincinnati Redlegs. Sandy gave up a single to Ted Kluszewski in the first and then preceeded to hold the hard hitting Redlegs without a hit until the ninth.

Leading 7-0, Sandy gave up a two out double to Sam Mele in the Cincinnati ninth. With the shutout on the line, Sandy retired former Dodger Rocky Bridges on a popup to Pee Wee Reese to complete an impressive 14 strikeout, 2 hit complete game shutout for his first major league victory. Not a bad outing for a 19 year old kid who would go on to many more masterful performances.

Thanks to the book Koufax by Ed Linn and Sandy, to retrosheet, Bob Timmermann and Jon

Stan from Tacoma

Edwards and Repko won't be in the field when Duke is pitching, right?

Seriously compare the minor league stats of Edwards and Tydus Meadows of Jacksonville, and tell me which one deserves to be on the Dodger roster... let alone getting weekly playing time.... Oh yeah I forgot Mike Edwards is so valubable because he can play 3rd base (along with 3 other guys on the roster)and be our emergency catcher.

14 these Sandy stories have been great Stan. Hopefully there'll be room in this town for both you and Bob when he returns.

Just watched the movie Primer for the third time. The two stars look a lot like Shawn Green and Darin Erstad. Spooky.

Is Saenz better at 3rd than Perez?
Shouldn't Repko be batting lower than 2nd?

He strikes out Delucci, Young, Teizeira to start the game. Then in the 2nd he walks 3 straight before a Delucci grand slam. Then he walks the next guy.

Final line:
3 2/3, 7K, 5BB, 5H, 8ER

Can we call this "ineffective dominance"?

Swinging bunt, or something far more sinisiter?

----------------------

Having said that, Beltre would have made the last play :)

Cue shot of empty seats...

He recovered nicely, however.

Today's position should have been:

Saenz 1B
Kent 2B
Perez 3B
Repko RF
Edwards LF

It seems that the Pirates are trying to hit everything to Saenz.

How is that Pittsburgh persuades fans to come with fireworks? They seem to have them often enough, and I can't think of any reason why they'd come otherwise

Saenz looked awesome on that cutoff... which is probably the memory of that will "stick" in Tracy's brain.

Sam, thanks. I have no intention of trying to steal Bob's thunder or job. He deserves lots of praise for what he has done all year. I find the writing fun but sometimes draining. I have lots of respect for Jon too for keeping at this for years. What a terrific job he does.

Stan from Tacoma

We were lucky they only scored 1 run in that inning. It could have been much worse.

Of course, he could always claim to be inventing a new brilliant managerial strategy of matching the infield to the current game conditions and/or current arm angles of the pitcher, or something like that.

At least he can't blame Choi or A Perez today.

poor perez. He's totally getting screwed by the defense.

thank god it's early.

98. tracy is an idiot, he puts a premium on screwing over choi and little else.

he said he wouldn't play saenz two days in a row, yet here he is again...

loneys batting .351 in the last 31 games.

Navarro's throw to first on the 'little nubber' had some pop to it.

Izturis should have stopped that ball but there's no way anyone would have thrown out the runner. That's why it was scored a hit. The run would have scored anyway because Odalis threw a beach ball to Bay.

Saenz is far from a defensive liability. He is a slow runner but he still has great reflexes. He's better at first but he's also better than A.Perez at third. Antonio is, by far, the worst defensive third baseman we've used this season. Saenz has a better Range Factor than Perez. He also has a better RF than Beltre this year.

So does Navarro

Navarro just needed a few more feet...

both :)

Tracy sure knew that the Pirates would hit lot of balls to LF so he put Repko out there. Funny how even Tracy's best moves backfire on him.

guzman up, bases loaded no outs.

Tommy Lasorda, high on life!

They're about the same over their careers. Beltre isn't as good as people think he is and Saenz isn't nearly as bad.

when edwards hits that groundball to sanchez you can hear tommy in the background "come on, throw it away!"

hahaha.

why isnt tommy a color commentator for the dodgers. i think it would make the games so much more fun.

Pads tied the game, 2-2

Lasorda has a good point, Steiner puts a lot of people to sleep

crap, saenz made another error as I was typing this.

anyways, and fielding declines pretty quickly. I'm glad we didn't resign beltre for the crazy money, but I think any career RF stats are not so applicable anymore and the current or recent sample size is too small.

still, I'd like to see saenz at 3rd and choi at 1st more often.

Figures, Perez gives up another run. Now Tracy will have to probably replace him this inning.

oops!!! jack with a jack.

speaking of the peanut vendor, anyone see the espn special on the peanut vendor at DS?

Playing C at 1B, 2B at 1B, 1B man at 3rd, RF at LF, LF at RF, .......

Kent better not get himself kicked out of this

Geo=Gas can
Tracy=terrible manager

He should just retire quietly.

We have Alvaraz coming in for Carrara?

Someone will get injured and Carrara will probably make it through the rest of the season.

I guess 3 runs is out of reach for us now.

Let's use Alvaraz today so Tracy can't use him for a week also.

Brilliant, Tracy, brilliant...

Guess we'll just have to sink or swim with Tracy this season.

shouldnt it be the other way around?

One of Tracy's endless mind games this season.

Carrara can join him also so he won't get so lonely.

Therefore, he will remain in his "newfound role as a pinch-hitter."

Blasted media that knows nothing...

I should be home tomorrow for some of the game. Which means I will be getting up in the wee hours of the morning.

Fearing Blue and I took in a Blue Jays-Yankees game at Rogers Centre, had a nice dinner and got to watch the bottom of the 8th and the top of the 9th.

We're in Acceptance.

All this stuff makes me want to throw up...

Good blog, but the quality of the comments is much lower since it's such a massive site.

So the only conclusion I can come to is that the DePo is letting Tracy drown on his own and at the end of the year will say he wants to go in another direction and put his own man in-perhaps Ron Washington from the A's, but it strikes me that DePo is not passive and by giving Tracy enough rope to hang himself, he can then choose his own man for manager!

I've been a Dodger fan for all but the first few of my 27 years, but I'll admit to drifting away starting with the Fox/Malone and then Daly eras. Mostly it was because I was starting to learn about statistics and saw that the team was, for lack of a better description, doing some pretty dumb things. So from 1998 until 2003, I slowly started watching Oakland more and more, and LA less and less. When Depo took over, I had hope once again that my long-time favorite team, in any sport, would start doing things in an interesting and intelligent way. It's better, at least in the offseason moves and the few trades, but they aren't using what they do have to its potential. I'm sure where the problem is, but until it's fixed, it's really hard to get into following the Dodgers.

Two of the Dodgers top 4 healthy hitters do not play very often (Saenz & Choi). The worst hitters on the entire roster play far more than Choi (Izturis, Robles, Repko, Phillips). There's just no way to rationalize that. It's stupid, plain and simple. And until it's fixed, LA is going to be a .500 or worse team.

This, combined with Oakland (who I'm guessing a lot of others here are fans of as well) going on another sick 2nd-half run, just makes talking about the Dodgers a little depressing.

It's the only reason I can think of that he left Gio in the entire inning.

264 - Tracy puts in Gio and Alvarez in games he believes we won't win