Some guys get all the breaks in life.

I was on the couch with my cat watching with Vin calling the action, although sometimes I switched over to KCOP.

My cup of yogurt during the game was quite tasty.

If this has already been hashed over, I apologize, but does anyone get why Broxton pitched the last two innings yesterday? If you don't give innings like that to Odalis, with a 7-0 lead, when does he pitch at all? And is Carter or Hamulack also not trusted with 7-0 leads?

I say right now that Broxton probably won't be available tonight, and, honestly, he is maybe our best reliever right now. So if the Dodgers blow a close game, you know one place to look for blame.

But staying positive...with Saito, Baez, Broxton and hopefully Gagne on the way, a once dismal pen is looking much brighter. Maybe Kuo will get re-called and find the strike zone to then give us a solid lefty. What a pen!

How does Hamulack avoid inclusion in the dustpan club?

2 - Devil's Advocate: Broxton had thrown only 30 pitches since May 11, then threw only 10 pitches in the eighth inning Sunday. So he wasn't near tired. He finished with 24 pitches in the game and 40 pitches for the weekend. I bet he could throw an inning tonight if need be.

If that's the case, Carter and Odalis have only given up one run each for LA since May 3rd. :-)

But I don't want to sound like I'm complaining; they were very attentive, and just great to work with. Helen's already talking about "next time"... heh. And of course, you're welcome, Jon.

How true. Many people, including me, forget that too often.

Odalis is the broom and dustpan janitor. The "dry" janitor if you will.

Carter is the mop and bucket guy. The " some drunk just had an accident all over the bathroom floor" janitor.

*

In DC news, I can't find the link right now, but I read over the weekend that the Nationals have offered to trade Livan Hernandez to the Mets for Milledge. Livan has next year at $7 million on his contract, pitched poorly to start the year but well his last two outs (against the woeful Cubs and Orioles).

Frank Robinson was granted an honorary degree from GW.

Dodgers are in town starting friday and wouldn't you know my mom decides to visit, likely scuttling my chances of getting to RFK. Grrrr. I mean, love you mom.

Starters - Tomko, Lowe, Penny, Sele, Seo.
Bullpen - Gagne, JBrox, Saito, Baez, Beimel, Carrara.

That bullpen immediately becomes the BEST in the league. We'll have the best closer in the league. I beleive Joe Beimel has established himself as the best left handed specialist in the league. We'll have 3 guys that can all get the job done in the 8th in Broxy, Saito, and Baez. Carrara can pitch in the blowouts without worries. Carrara can finish off a 5 run lead in the 9th.

lets not jump to conclusions. names and histories dont make a bullpen the best in the league, production does. gagne isn't throwing 97 mph anymore, and itll take time for him to adjust to that. I still think he will be effective, considering his bread and butter is the off speed stuff, however it'll take innings and time to get to that point. beimel the best in the league? the guy is showing us good things, but lets wait it out and make the guy prove it first. And Gio? Are we forgetting he was cut from the pirates, of all clubs? maybe he has something left, maybe he doesnt..but to claim that at this point of his career he is effective, more so than say a hamulack...

I agree with Bob pic's like that make little people like me jealous ;o)

retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08240LAN2003.htm

In losing that game, the Dodgers also lost their MLB Heavyweight crown (see Catfish Stew sidebar), and have not had a single chance at holding the title in the 2+ seasons since then.

catfishstew.baseballtoaster.com/archives/313860.html

Tonight, at long last, the Dodgers can grab h old of that revered title once again, when they face the current heavyweight champs, the Colorado Rockies.

Here's the deal: It's fine to come to conclusions such as those above. And it's even fine to do so based on subjective judgments (as opposed to, say, meaningful performance data), but back them up! Show your work. How is that you've reached the conclusion that Beimel has established himself as the best lefty specialist (let's assume that's a meaningful category of pitcher)? Who is in the comparison set? Do you watch games not involving the Dodgers? If you're going on subjective evidence, you'd better be watching every team, or how could you know? If you're basing such a conclusion on statistics, tell us what statistics back this up. How would the data have to look to show that you're wrong (I'm not saying you ARE wrong - just wondering about the standards of evidence).

For example, for Baez, you MUST be relying on something other than this year's performance, which has been mediocre at best. And that's fine too - his established career stats are likely much more meaningful than this year's small sample. But then you can't argue that small samples are meaningless for Baez, but meaninful for, say, Beimel.

So, the optimist in me would love to endorse your conclusions. But the skeptic in me wants to see the evidence before I do so.

GoBears, it's faith-based analysis.

ERA: 0.96

Hmmm, that's doesn't work. How about if we just keep it in the NL:

Chuck James: 2.38
Pedro Feliciano: 0.71
40 Year Old Rheal Cormier: 0.64

This was just from the first three teams I looked at. By no possible measure is Beimel the best lefty specialist in the NL.

The 1869 Cincinnati team went undefeated playing as the first openly all-professional baseball team. But they never claimed the pennant because they never played the team that owned it (which was a Brooklyn team). They opted to make a West Coast tour to make more money.

I won't go with "I believe he has established himself as the best LOOGY".

How in the world can anyone argue he's established himself? Who has he gotten out when I wasn't looking?

To believe he's the best, that's fine. But believing he's established himself is opening yourself up for criticism.

[rant] I gotta tell you though, it's no joke any more when trying to teach college students. It's amazing how many have not learned the distinction between beliefs and facts.

(Note: I'm not directing any of this at bluetahoe - this is a tangential rant.)

Forget questions about WHICH beliefs and WHICH facts - just the idea that the two are different is apparently too much for primary and secondary education these days. Apparently, if you really believe something, then that's just as valid as if it were actually true - because the most important thing isn't knowledge, it's a feeling of self-worth.

And we wonder why American education (and most obviously in California) is circling the bowl...

[/rant]

St. Louis presently has two lefties in the pen in Tyler Johnson and Randy Flores.

Herman Li is the best guitarist in the world because he ROCKS harder than anyone else.

Because, that's basically what you're argument is. I think I'm going to take a break now.

Right now, Beimel, Baez and Saito are his guys when the game is on the line. Broxton is someone he will use in a no pressure situation. Hamulack and Carter are both blowout guys.

Grady also believes (small sample) if the guy is effective (low pitch count) he has no problem sending him out for another inning.

If Gagne is ready next week, my hunch is that Carter should look into some summer housing in Vegas and once Kuo or Miller show that can keep their walk totals (Kuo) or be able to pitch on shorter turnaround times (Miller), Hamulack will soon join him.

As for the starters, only Lowe, Penny and Tomko are settled, somewhere between Sele, Seo, Perez and Billingsley, the Dodgers will need to find their other 2 starters.

Let's assume that Chad is untouchable, don't think the Mets wouldn't want Seo back to fill in their back end of their rotation. Sele is more likely to be a spot starter, long man candidate and Perez could be a tradeable asset if the Dodgers agree to either take on someone with a similar salary or agree to cover some of his contract.

Personally, the best case would be for Odalis and Chad to makeup the starting 5 because I think they are the best pitchers of the group, Sele has limited value because of his age and Seo, while tradeable, won't get you much and his salary makes him a pretty good asset

Defined how?

Great ERA.

What is it? Really, if you want people to be persuaded by your arguments, don't make them do the work of looking up the data. That's just rude (and unlikely to work).

Inherited runners don't score.

Data? You might be right, but show me.

He's got a win and a save.

So what? How are those measures of quality? Especially in comparison to other pitchers?

When he pitches the Dodgers win.

Again, so what? Unless you're asserting that he's the marginal reason they win, that they'd lose were anyone else to pitch those innings. That might be true, but convince me -- don't just expect me to swallow it.

Add to that he's another 'no name' discovered by Midas.

If this is true (and by Midas, I gather you mean Colletti), then it says something about Colletti, but nothing new about Beimel. Unless you claim that one piece of evidence that Beimel is as good as you say is that Colletti would not have picked him up otherwise. IOW, Colletti is Midas because he finds guys like Beimel, and Beimel is the best lefty specialist in the league because he was picked up by Colletti. That's circular.

Look, I hope you realize that I'm actually trying to take your conclusions seriously, but I'm asking for more than just bald assertions. Persuade me, don't bully me. If I really thought that the notion that Beimel and the Dodger 'pen are good were completely preposterous, I wouldn't have wasted the time to respond. I'm willing to be persuaded, but not if the "argument" is "because I said so!"

Beimel has done well this year but his career LH BA against is .283, so while he made Barry look bad, do you want him to pitch to him in late inning situation in September.

I think Ned and Grady want the best 6 pitchers in the bullpen, Gagne, Baez and Saito are the only ones that can count on being there, Broxton will stay unless he just doesn't get enough opportunities, maybe 2 out of these 4 (Beimel, Hamulack, Miller and Kuo) can also get ready to move chairs in the bullpen. If Broxton goes down, take your pick between Sele, Seo, or Osoria being the other guy.

His BAA is .204.

The way he pitches it doesn't surprise me that he may have more success against righthanders. His change up is FILTHY.

Only once has Beimel pitched kind of bad in a close game. And that was in Colorado. If not for Robles' error it would have been an outing of o.2 IP, 2 hits, and 1 run.

Beimel has been THE MAN, otherwise, when the game has been close.

In his 1st outings in tight games at Az he went 2.1 scoreless.

Against Milwaukee he came in with 1 out and runners on 1st and 3rd and got the GIDP.

He went 2.2 and 2.0 SOLID innings in SF.

When the games close Joe's THE MAN. I mean, c'mon. Anyone that watches the games knows this.

I think you're getting a LITTLE to excited over Beimel. The guy has only pitched 13.1 innings this year wtih a 2.70 ERA. That's not stellar. He's given up two HR in those 13 innings and only struck out four. Not to mention in 2001-2003 when he pitched a good amount of innings his ERAs were: 5.23, 4.64, 5.05

Maybe we should wait till Beimel throws more innings before annointing him the best lefty pen guy in the league because statistically he's not the best.

Do you guys from dodgers.com ever look at career stats?
Here is beimel's career stats in 275.2 innings.
10.15 h/9 0.98 hr/9 4.34 w/9 5.16 k/9 1.61 whip

The only thing i see decent there is hr/9.

Now i don't know if beimel has added a pitch since last season, if he did it could have the same effect as when sanchez added a changeup.
Anyone have any info on if beimel has added a pitch?

LIGHTS OUT, indeed.

I also know what I've seen of him this year. He looks GREAT. I have complete confidence in him. I don't know about you, but I actually watch the games on TV. I don't need to look at a stat sheet to know who's getting the job done and who isn't.

I can say "I believe Joe Beimel is the best LOOGY in the NL", and it would be unclear whether I was either:
a) stating my opinion, or
b) stating a fact, but I am uncertain I have my facts correct.

The Swedish language has two distinct words (tycka and tro) for these two cases, and a native Swedish speaker would never, ever mix them up.

"Tycka" is used when your opinion effects the truth of the statement. If I say "I believe Eric Gagne is ugly", whether or not Eric Gagne is ugly depends on whether I believe he is ugly or not.

"Tro" is used when the truth of your statement is independent of your belief. When you say "I believe 2+2=4", whether 2+2 equals is true or not does not depend on whether you believe it or not.

English speakers spend a lot of time arguing over things like this, when if we just had the right words to express ourselves, we could just move on to other things.

If bluetahoe says "I tycker Joe Beimel is the best LOOGY in the NL", nobody pesters him to back up his statement with facts, because it's clear he's just stating his opinion, and that's fine.

Also not a constructive comment. It's silly to even suggest that you're the only guy watching games. And since you use stats to justify your own arguments, your second sentence is both nonsensical and false.

Are the words "tycka" and "tro" both of the same mood? Or does Swedish even have moods for verbs?

It's almost like Swedish has a mood for verbs that is halfway between indicative and subjunctive.

It's like it's the indijunctive. Or the subjcative.

That message was brought to you by the Joe Beimel Marching and Chowder Society.

A Delaware Limited Liability Corporation.

Like the Hanso Foundation.

Maybe the Hanso Foundation isn't so evil after all....

If we're 25 years in the future, looking back at that lineup -- Rickey Henderson, Paul LoDuca, Shawn Green, Fred McGriff, and Adrian Beltre -- we'd probably be thinking, man the Dodgers must have had a great year that year! Of course, they weren't all in their prime at the same time. It might be fun to drag out other old lineups and imagine what might have been if only they were all in their prime at once.

Well, okay ... but more fun than arguing over Joe Beimel.

They don't strike me as a sports-loving couple, not like a Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

I don't think you're taking into account that Beimel has only thrown about 13 innings this year. I'm not ragging on him, I like how he's performed so far...but let's not get TOO excited over a guy who has only thrown 13 innings for us, and his previous years' numbers are sub par at best.

There are a few other lefties out there who have better numbers out of the pen than Beimel...going by the numbers, he's not the best left handed specialist in the league. Right now he's doing okay, but I'm not jumping on the bandwagon until he produces for a long period of time..which is something he's never proven in the past.

Exactly. If this is the best left handed reliever in the major leagues, then how effective are left handed relievers to begin with?

I'm sorry if you all od'd on this during the weekend, but how awful that was. Back here, the race ran around dinner time. I got my 5 year old and we sat down to watch and had this long heavy talk about how my dad's favorite thing to do was go to the horse races and he and I would go together alot. Seemed like a good chance to tell my boy a little about my Dad. So it a bit heavy. And then the fun part -- the race -- finally starts, and boom, they're talking about whether or not they have to put down that poor horse. It was wrenching, esp. for a kid.

Was anyone else watching the Foolish Pleasure/Ruffian match race? I remember that so clearly, I was stunned to be reminded over the weekend that I was only 8 at the time. Yick.

Gagne and Broxton have good potential.
The rest of the 4 are just time bombs.

However, my favorite part of the TNT package is the post game shows, love him or hate him, late night Charles Barkley is a crack up.

Swedish, being fairly closely related to English, has almost the exact same verb structure as English, with a few exceptions:

a) it has lost its subjunctive (British English has, as well: American English still retains it)

b) it has lost all its present tense conjugations (English still retains the "s" in 3rd-person singular)

c) it has a distinct passive form (In English, the perfect and the passive use the same form: he has eaten, he was eaten.)

d) it doesn't have a "is verb-ing" form; the present tense is used instead.

77 - With a two-tuner Tivo, it's easy. Watch, pause, flip, repeat. You'll have to forego 24 though.

I used to be fluent in Swedish...not so much anymore.

I have to agree with using the term "potential". Because we don't know what Gagne is going to do when he comes back after his THIRD elbow surgery, and his second in a year.

Barbaro's injury was indeed an awful thing to see, even if you've been exposed to horse accidents through your novel reading (I own all but one Dick Francis book).

Now we can focus the discussion on whether or not we think that this year is going to be different than his track record. Is 13 innings just an aberration, with reversion to the career mean just around the corner, or has he changed something that should make us believe he's "figured it out," and is really as good as these 13 innings suggest.

Absent any information about changes (a new pitch, a corrected flaw, whatever), the best bet is reversion to the mean.

Re: the Preakness thing, I was disgusted by how often the replays were shown on ESPN and elsewhere. Much worse than the infamous Theisman thing, if you ask me.

But looking forward, I'd be more interested in the question of "is this real?" than the comparison over 13 innings.

*162. LAT
I will be very suprised if Barbaro doesn't win the Preakness easily. Only a bad trip can stop him but with such a small field that is unlikly. Brother Derrick will have a better trip then the Derby and they will finish 1-2. I would use those two on top with everyone else on the bottom of the trifecta.*

I got into horse racing because I had a 5 foot nothing, 250 lbs, cigar chomping grandfather who loved the races. Took me to Hollywood Park as a kid. I remember seeing Laffit and thought he was the greatest jock ever. I didn't care about the Shoe only Laffit. I was there when he broke the record and still have the program and a half dozen winning tickets I won't cash.

Up until last year when Hollywood Park was sold, I used to do some of their regulatory work. Compliance with the CHRB and such. In fact, the last thing I did was write an opinion letter as to whether they could bar P. Val from riding after the CHRB had reinstated him (this was before he shaved his entire body to avoid a drug test). Nakatani had convinced some of the other jocks to boycott if Hollywood Park (Churchill Downs) let him ride because P.Val was reckless and a danger to the other jocks. Yeah they were in danger alright, in danger that he was going to take their prize money. P.Val is the Steve Howe of horse racing. If he could have stayed away from the drugs he would have been one of the best to ever. I digress. Yes, I am big fan of horseracing and yes to answer your question from another thread I rely heavily on Byer figures. Any baseball fan who likes stats would have died and gone to heaven reading the past performances.

I feel fortunate in that I haven't seen the replay yet (nor the Theisman play, believe it or not). That kind of thing just doesn't do it for me.

Moises Alou, Jason Kendall, Dave Dravecky, Bryant Young. Makes my stomach turn thinking about those incidents.

sure, why not?

I'm of full Swedish decent..that's where most of my relatives live. While I don't speak it very well anymore I can understand what they're saying when I talk to them...it's kind of bizarre.

off to work I go...I'll be missing the game tonight so I'll be looking forward to all the comments when I get home..

he's always had great control & with that sick change & curve, I'm sure he'll be just fine. Perez hans't pitched in about 5-6 days don't they wanna show case him.

Forgive me if this has been discussed to death already but I've been out of town for a while...what did Odalis do to earn himself a trip to the bullpen (not to mention onto the trading block)? Just general lousiness?

he was "shaky" (Perez) so they demoted him.