Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with
What a shame about the lost shutout on the final batter, but still, a complete game from Chad Billingsley - just what the Dodgers needed.
Update: Russell Martin on Billingsley, via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
"Today, even when he fell behind, he got quick outs," said Martin. "He'd throw a good cutter and they'd pop it up. The adjustment he's made is throwing his offspeed when he's behind in counts and getting outs. Normally he gets swing and misses, and that tends to run up the pitch count. Now he's pitching more to contact. When he needs a punchout, he gets it. He's becoming, slowly, one of the best pitchers in the league -- 7-0, not many guys doing that."
* * *
Upon the news Sunday of Mike Coolbaugh's death from a line drive that struck him while he was coaching first base for Tulsa, ex-Times columnist Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune immediately called Vin Scully:
Vin Scully has been saying it on TV for years. Telling it to deaf ears. Preaching, pleading, appealing to baseball to please listen before it is too late.
Monday morning, when word reached him that a first-base coach had been killed by a line drive, the mellifluous Hall of Fame voice of Dodgers baseball was on a phone line to the commissioner's office.
Bud Selig wasn't in.
"I spoke with a woman there," Scully said. "I said, 'Do me a favor. Please, please ask Bud to use all of his power to do something to make sure that a thing like this can never happen again.' " ...
"I've said it so often on the air," Scully said Monday from his California home, "a lot of viewers and listeners must want to scream."
He is no I-told-you-so.
Scully is genuinely heartsick. This is a day he has been dreading. For more than half of the 57 years he has been a narrator of this game, by Scully's own reckoning, he has harped on this topic ... and this is not a gentleman known to harp.
"I suppose I've been saying it for at least 30 years," he said. "My best platform came when I was doing the 'Game of the Week.' I mentioned it once during every game. ...
Thanks to Dodger Thoughts commenter Underdog for the link.
Which Dodger pitcher had 10 plate appearances in one game?
Now for Harry Potter talk.
2 days in a row Loney failed to convert in the 9th. Not that it means anything at all just an observation and a place to vent my no more shutout frustrations.
Failed to convert? What was Loney failing to convert? Were the Dodgers lining up for a PAT?
Hint: It's a trick question.
Yes.
When I looked, I forgot to specify "only as a pitcher."
The only other pitcher to have 5 ABs in a game this year is:
Russ Ortiz!
14 I think aces aren't born; it's a metamorphasis, like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU198906030.shtml
I remember watching this game and rooting for an improbable pitching win for a position player. To his credit, Hamilton did make it 1 2/3 innings.
Kind of like when Lindsay Lohan failed to convert driving home drunk into getting home safely.
I forgot how bad John Shelby was in 1989. His OPS+ that season was 36.
Billingsley's game score would have been 84 had he not given up the two hits in the ninth.
http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/bestgames
A little nod to the old adage. :)
Ugh.
Number of apostrophes in 45 used correctly: 2
I made it home without dying. DT Day was so fun it kind of made me sad.
Hu could be a future all-star.
The Rockies could do some regressing as well next series... With what they are doing to the Pad's bullpen...
i would do that trade in a heartbeat. Clay Buccholz is legit.
The post up top says it was lost on the final batter.
34. Don't let that baby heal. From now on Hernandez's role on the team is to "help" Chad relieve himself.
Chad is a grown-up now. I'm sure he knows how to relieve himself
Jim Deshaies is awesome as a color analyst. He is very perceptive to new ideas, has a good sense of humor, and at various times in the game had the following observations:
a) He called Pierre's sac bunt in the first inning "questionable strategy" for playing for one run so early
b) When Kent was on first base after a single in the first inning, JD said Kent said more to Lance Berkman at first base than he did during his entire Astros tenure
c) He was lobbying for OPS to be shown during the broadcast rather than the "old school" Avg-HR-RBI rubric.
I was looking over the last few Dodger complete games, and from 2004-2007 the pitchers were Lowe (six times), Weaver (thrice), Penny, Billingsley, and Kaz Ishii chimed in with two shutouts in 2004!
The heart of enemy territory: SF, CA.
Oh. You were serious? Um, no. Coco Crisp (our current center fielder) has woken up and is hitting .333/.405/.576 in July and was also good in June. Our top position player prospect is one Jacoby Ellsbury, who plays (yes) CF. Buchholtz is probably completely untouchable unless you're offering us Johan Santana or Miguel Cabrera. And we have zero use for Pierre. And why on earth would we be trying to sign the D-Train in the off-season? I happen to love Dontrelle, but pitching in the NL East ain't pitching in the AL East.
Mike (Utica,NY): Do you see any top prospects being moved at the trade deadline?
Kevin Goldstein: Actually, no. The trade talk is really, really dead. It looks like all of the teams asking for starting pitchers are asking the world, and it's going to be a slow final ten days. I did see a rumor of Chin-Lung Hu to the Royals for Odalis Perez, which would be absolute highway robbery for the Royals.
He probably means Dotel because I don't think there is any way Odalis is coming back.
If you'll excuse me, I'll go back to reading the Elmer Dessens entry in my 2007 Dodger media guide.
46 Will be truly "scary" if Atkins starts to hit like he did last year. If that happens, Hurdle would be stupid not to then have Taveras hit leadoff, Helton next, followed by Holliday, Atkins, Hawpe, Tulowitzi, Matsui, Torrealba and the pitcher. Then Hurdle finally allows Hawpe to hit more against lefties [he'll never learn how to unless he has that chance]. Moving Helton up to the 2-hole seems the obvious move given his woeful power drop while still retaining the ability to get on base with the walk, but Clint seems stuck on that righty, lefty, righty, lefty thing, and my lineup would mean lefty, righty, righty, lefty. And, yes, it was nice, in real life and in fantasy, to have Hawpe homer there with Corpas picking up the save [and who would have thought a month ago that my two best closers would now be Jonathan Broxton and Manny Corpas].
It is sad that DT Day is past. Can't wait until the next one. But I sure have had fun bragging about our day to all my friends and family.
i just vomited in my mouth.
No. I drove the day before. I moved away two years ago, so I still have friends down there that I try to see at least once a year or so.
DT Day was the centerpiece of my trip.
They supposedly asked for Matt Kemp first.
Someone alert Ken!
earlier today baseballprospectus has some trade deadline talk and Pirates have looked to acquire a bat in exchange for Snell. They mentioned Salty of the Braves and Kemp and Ethier of the Dodgers.
Hu, Josh Bell and Delwyn Young. My final offer Pittsburgh.
i agree in the sense that I think other teams are really weary of "prospects" that the Dodgers are willing to give up in trades. I mean, we haven't really given up anyone of significance over the last 3-4 years. Shane Victorino looks to be one of the few that Dodgers should have regrets about and they didn't even trade him away.
But they did show the clip of Kent licking his bat - I hope everyone saw that so you know I wasn't hallucinating back in the other thread. Kruk mentioned something about how dirty the ends of bats are.
So possibly Buchholtz > Hu-Pierre . Still I doubt it could get done.
The A's got more out of Gaudin this year then they had any right to expect.
--
Mark Sweeney just tied Manny Mota's for 2nd in all time pinch hits with #150. No!
The AL record is 14 half innings scored in. It hasn't been done since June!
http://tinyurl.com/2wqwxu
.286
.286
.301
.292
.293
.283
.358
.297
You gotta admit, that still gives you a nice warm feeling.
griffey takes over cf until kemp is ready to take over that position, we get rid of pierre's contract, and get a solid 4/5 pitcher for this year's stretch run.
starting lineup would look like this: furcal, martin, griffey, kent, gonzalez, garciaparra, loney, kemp. and the 2008 starting lineup is: furcal, martin, griffey, kemp, loney, kent, ethier, laroche.
Bummer about Luke Scott.
Tony Jackson is going to have to dig a little deeper to come up with his obligatory negative comments about Billingsley for tomorrow's paper. My guess is he'll harp on the 9th inning homer.
"Within minutes of me informing Aram Tolegian, who is covering the game for us today, that the Dodgers were about to take their first two-game lead in the NL West since May 19, the Dodgers blew the lead in the ninth, another example of how Jonathan Broxton might not be ready for the closer role."
I mean, come on.
This also is indicative of his judgment on players. When Chad is great, he'll say Chad was great. But Chad has alternated great and mediocre starts, and therefore Chad's value alternates accordingly. There is very little past or future with Tony.
Quote from Tony from tonight: "This could be the start of something very special for Billingsley."
It's like Plaschke's column a few weeks back in which he basically discovered Matt Kemp and James Loney had potential. They don't even try to project ahead.
Meanwhile, Whatever you bumped Fernando with, I hope you're not washing again.
1) James Loney hit 19 of every 20 pitches to the opposite field.
2) Matt Kemp just takes your breath away. Random Astros fans who probably never even heard of him stopped in their tracks to watch. Remember the Pujols shot off Lidge in the playoffs? Kemp hit probably 10 or 12 balls like that in BP.
And Vin Scully has probably never felt this sick for being right before. What a terrible thing.
I will be there in two weeks. Sigh. What could have been.
Someone more sober correct me" Did John Olerud where the helmet because he was hit with a ball that caused a seizure?
Olerud showed promise early on at Washington State, where he was named Baseball America's NCAA Player of the Year in 1987 and '88. His senior year, he recovered from a frightening brain aneurysm in January to hit .359 with 30 RBIs in 27 games that spring. The scare would always be with him though, and he began wearing a batting helmet on the field for safety.
"Tim Donaghy was forced to do this because, sir, he failed to achieve on a level playing field."
http://tinyurl.com/27wjdh
http://tinyurl.com/3cwzm3
But, Great Ceasar's Ghost! I disagree about the 'formidable" pitching staff, Thought it had an outside chance to be one after Schmidt signing, if my gut turned out unreliable about his contris; very outside - too much fragility in collective history, too many questions re: the kids. Think it has done surprisingly well in spite of all - but would caution not to do a Tony J. on Chad - this was the Astros, after all (and first game home after road trip?). Realistically, he's probably somewhere between what he was at home vs. tough Phils, and on the road vs. not-so-tough 'Stros. Hard to project...
134. Well said. Two little ones, another on the way. Great (and, as too often with prophets, tragically wasted) foresight by Vin.
And I'm with Xei - think the technology is here for a reasonably comfortable/safe outfitting of pitchers. I saw the Herb Score
crash....
"The Dodgers rebuffed interest in second baseman Tony Abreu, believed to be the Royals' top preference, because they view him as a long-term replacement for Jeff Kent.
"A possible alternative is shortstop Chin-Lung Hu, who is batting .349 with nine homers and 46 RBIs in 92 games this season at Class AAA Las Vegas and Class AA Jacksonville. Hu, 23, has always played shortstop, but scouts believe he could shift to second base.
"The Dodgers are similarly reluctant to surrender Hu, but they have veteran shortstop Rafael Furcal under contract through next season...."
Can anybody who pays more attention to world affairs than I do explain how the dollar's value can fluctuate so much from one week to the next? When I was in Europe a few weeks ago it was something like 1.34 dollars for every Euro, but when I got to the airport today it's all the way up to 1.95! Is this normal?
It's always nice to get off a plane to find out that not only did the Dodgers pull of a convincing win, but my boy Chad (who is also on my fantasy team) saved the bullpen from more carnage. Even his one mistake was imparted by another guy on my fantasy team (Scott).
*The interest rate policy of the Fed Reserve
*excessive govt spending in Iraq
*The amount of natl debt plays also plays a role.
Sometimes (but not always) the Fed tries to bring the dollar down when the strength of the dollar hurts American exports.
*Also the actions of billionaire currency speculators such as George Soros (he was involved in a collapse of the GB pound 6 to 7 yrs ago-hard to reconcile such behavior with his supposedly humanitarian efforts) can play an unexpected role in exchange rates.
----
In 2002,it took $.80to buy one €uro now it's over $1.30: hard to understand such a substantial change…
The dollar's been falling for a while, probably in large part because of China. They pegged the Yuan to the Dollar for a long time, then, even after announcing they'd let it float, still appeared, to many, to be gaming it to keep their exports cheap. After a lot of puling and tooth gnashing, the US seemed to stop bothering to prevent the dollar's falling, perhaps as a way of trying to slap China hard enough to get them to knock it off. And, given the Yuan hit an all-time high, vs. the dollar last week, maybe it's working. The U.S. has signed many (more or less) free trade treaties, so they didn't have a lot of tools available. Plus, it only hurts you people with your fancy European vacations, so the rest of us are okay with it. You want a cheap vacation, go to Vegas. You can stay, a little ways off the strip, for forty bucks a night! And they've got that fake Paris thing that Charenton probably didn't even give a chance, before flitting off to the real Paris.
The alternate explanation, which could be given at great, great, great length by supporters of a current contender for his party's nomination for President is that, because the USD is fiat money, it's collapsing, which is one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. Or something.
also... fiat money?
http://tinyurl.com/2lyeso
156. It's not really that hard to understand. You explained most of it, and Andrew explained the rest, because the Yuan was in a band against the dollar, all of the pressure on the dollar to fall went against the Euro and the Yen, so the dollar fell much more against these two currencies than it would have with a floating yuan.
153. You may have read it wrong, or it could be that the airport was trying to screw you. Most exchange places in airports are really bad in terms of the rates they give you because they know you want to exchange right away, especially if you are taking a cab. You should always exchange before you leave on the trip.
Anyway, higher prices for Chinese goods just means the manufacturing jobs will come back, and everything will go back to being good, like it was in the old days. When everything was good.
According to Yahoo Finance, it's 2.063 pounds to the dollar today, so 155 is correct, accounting for the crummy rates airport exchanges offer.
Also, I respectfully have to complain. Don't use "fine writer" and Mike Downey in the same sentence.
I think they easily take the prize for best burger, even though a vanilla man such as myself can't see how anyone can improve a double double.
Have fun in Italy, Overkill94!
I highly recommend vacationing in South America instead of Europe if you are trying to get some bang for your (devalued) buck. I am going to Buenos Aires in October and everything costs about 1/3 what it would here (about 1/4 what it would cost in Europe). Plus, the wine in South America (especially Chile and Argentina) is phenomenal.
160. You are a funny fellow.
Hey, someone explain this to me (from SportsTicker article on game last night): "The right-hander continued to climb the charts in Dodgers pitching lure, becoming the first pitcher to begin the season 7-0 since Matt Herges started 8-0 in 2000."
Pitching lure? Is that like a fishing lure?
When I went to Giants Dodgers game coupla weeks ago and Giants fans left after Bonds last at bat, I was a little surprised then, too, though then the Dodgers blew it open in the next half inning so I guess they knew something. (Like, how awful the Giants bullpen is.)
Interesting side note about Stults and Hull. Apparently, they are best friends and roommates, but they still haven't had a chance to play in the big leagues together. Instead of ships passing in the night, this time they were planes passing in mid-air as Hull flew in for his call-up while Stults got optioned back to Vegas. With the depleted state of our pitching ranks, I'm guessing they will get to see each other in LA sometime this season.
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