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.

The McCourt era has been a series of wide swerves, in this regard. 3 GMs, 3 managers, and a boat load of talent, all with different strengths.

Then we can trade Beimel and Penny for Hardy in the offseason.

He's top five guys in stuff, bar none. Love the guy. Ben Sheets and the Dodgers would be the perfect guarantee that he gets hurt over and over.

Can we get a guy that can hit the ball out of the ballpark more than 17 times a year?

I'd like that.

A Sheets signing could end up a huge success like the Kevin Brown signing, where even if he's hurt a good part of the time, he's so good when he does pitch that it's well worth the money.

>>At a time when, by all rights, the Dodgers should be hanging For Sale signs around the necks of Jeff Kent, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe and Chan Ho Park, they instead were knee deep in negotiations for CC Sabathia (Andy LaRoche as a centerpiece wasn't enough to get him) and are maneuvering for a modest shortstop along the lines of Alex Cora and David Eckstein, but probably not the more expensive Jack Wilson.<<

I am also a very superstitious person by nature. Anxiety about sitting in the same spot, having the same routine between innings, not mentioning what's going on in the game has gotten so bad that I have made a conscious effort to avoid doing any of these things.

I am pathetic. But baseball is awesome.

Nomar has had 9 chances in 3 games as SS.

Los Angeles initiated the inquiry about Wilson last week and was the first team to do so this year. Those talks, which never involved any player on the Dodgers' major league roster, never got very far and seemed dormant, if not dead, late yesterday afternoon.

One prospect who was discussed, according to a Los Angeles source, was 23-year-old Class AA starter James McDonald, who has good control but no better than decent stuff. Another was 24-year-old Class AAA shortstop Chin-lung Hu, who has batted .176 in the majors and currently is out because of recurring vision problems. There are other, better prospects in the Los Angeles system, but it was not clear if they were available.

No more than decent stuff? His Ks say something else...

Christina Kahrl is right, though: This desperation move would work a lot better if we had a backup shortstop who was a defensive wizard, instead of the questionable gloves of Berroa and Maza. This is a time when having Hu on the roster, no matter what he hits, would be a tremendous benefit to the team (though not to his own development, I realize). Hope they figure out his eye problems soon.

111
You know you want him. Deep down you know you do.

Sigh.

Still that was a very pretty play by Berroa tonight.

Jerk.

You would think Chipper Jones would be available. Talk about selling high.

If Chipper wasn't such an icon for the Braves, he would probably be available. I just can't see Atlanta trading him; he's going to retire a Brave.

One wonders who would be on our team if Elbert had pitched all last summer. He could be a dangerous addition to the bullpen come Sept when those silly rules change:)

____

Understatement of the month, brought to you by the L.A. Times.

http://tinyurl.com/6yrec6

2. Most of his missed time has not been due to arm injuries, and he's never had a major injury (i.e. surgery) to his pitching arm. According to Baseball Cube, his injuries from 2005-08 are:

[Apr 29,2005] - 15 Day Disabled list - (vestibular neuritis in his left ear) [May 27,2005] - Activated [Aug 27,2005] - 15 Day Disabled list - (torn latissimus dorsi muscle) [Sep 20,2005] - Transferred to 60 day DL. [Mar 30,2006] - 15 Day Disabled list - (right posterior shoulder strain) [Apr 16,2006] - Activated [May 10,2006] - 15 Day Disabled list - (tendinitis in his right shoulder) [Jul 24,2006] - Activated [Jul 16,2007] - 15 Day Disabled list - (Right finger) [Aug 29,2007] -

Torre is, of course, also factoring in Matt Kemp's complete lack of a brain, so that's fair.

His height and arm slot gives him deception which makes his fb seem harder. When you take everything into consideration, he has pretty good stuff. Of course no one is saying he is Kershaw/Billingsley/#1 starter material, but the Pirates should be ecstatic if they can get McDonald for Jack Wilson.

Basically, one's opinion of McDonald's potential to be an ace depends on whether one is more of a believer in scouting, or performance.

He'd be a pretty good baseball player, too.

Are you going to go to another Inland Empire game this year? Maybe check out Adkins?

McDonald gave up 2 homeruns, both on high fastballs.

Sometimes he gets one pitch happy and forgets to mix in some offspeed pitches. When hitters sit fastball, its easy to hit them far.

I might go to some Inland Empire games, I'll let you guys know if I do.

It seems cockeyed to benighted fans. But I must thank Joe Torre for introducing me to the concept of the good out. Not the Olney type, the productive out at that advances a runner. No, Torre is even more at peace with failure, like a Zen master. A player can make a completely unproductive out and Torre will smile in admiration. "He had some good swings," he'll say. The fans have a lot of catching up to do, still focused as they are on trivial things like hits and walks.

Motion blur of the kind created by 60hz TVs is not what a cinematographer is going for. That blur is created because of 3/2 pulldown. What is 3/2 pulldown? Well, TV is shot at ~30 frames per second, and a typical TV displays 60 frames per second (60hz refresh rate). So, each frame is shown 2 times. But a movie is typically shot at only 24 frames per second. So when shown at 60 frames per second, one frame is shown 3 times, the next frame 2 times, the next 3, the next 2, and so on and so forth. This creates a blur or choppiness and occasionally also results in sound synching problems. When movies are shown in the theater, they are shown at the native 24 frames per second, so there is no 3/2 pulldown. Therefore, 3/2 pulldown blur can't be what a cinematographer is going for.

The nice thing about a 120hz refresh rate is that 120 is divisible by both 30 and 24. A 30 frames per second video will show each frame 4 times, and a 24 frames per second video will show each frame 5 times. Thus, no 3/2 pulldown and no unintentional blurring/choppiness or sound synch issues. Any motion blur the cinematographer intended will still be there because the frames themselves will have the blur on them, like a series of blurry photos.

While blu-ray DVDs may allow for a 120hz refresh rate, broadcasters may actually broadcast movies already interpolated into a 3/2 pulldown, and older DVD players may also do the same thing, meaning even a 120hz TV will have a messed up picture off of broadcast or regular DVD (a 120hz TV would show a 3/2 pulldown as a 6/4 pulldown). Still, it should be no worse than a 60hz TV, and will be far superior on blu-ray. I hope this explanation made some sense.

And to everybody: There is no such thing as a jinx. Superstitions are for the unenlightened. I might understand if you say "no-hitter" or "perfect game" within earshot of the pitcher. Then the pitcher may tense up, press, or try to be too perfect and give up the hit. But even that is silly, as it assumes the pitcher doesn't already know what is going on.

Rule nine isn't that commenters have to believe in jinxes, just that they have to show deference to one, charming superstition. If Jon were selling magic anti-jinx candles, it would be easier for me to see why people object to the rule. But he's not. He's just setting up a very, very small claim to credit for a no-hitter. He's indulging an (un-disprovable, as it happens) theory of fan agency. Because it's fun.

I'd vote that paragraph 2 of 166 be added to the mythical faq.

C'mon everyone, climb the hustings at new Nats park with me!

There's already been stability.
This is Ned's 3rd year.

DePo only got 2yrs.
Evans got less.

I dont think the Dodgers should ever choose stability over intuition.

It'd be nice if these posts had spell checker.

For further confusion, 120 Hz TV's generally have some form of frame interpolation feature (that you can turn on or off). Sony calls it "Motion Flow" or something. Since video sources are usually at either 24 or 30 Hz, they by default display some frames repeatedly, as outlined by mrboma. However, instead of displaying the same frames repeatedly, the TV can "guess" what goes in-between frames, and display them. The end result is often a smoother picture, but it's not always quite perfect. I usually just turn it off because it sometimes looks unnatural (it kind of destroys the classic "film" motion we're all used to).

I think the "Motion Flow" is what you asked about when you first inquired about these TV's. It's important to note that the "Motion Flow" is an extra feature separate from the 120Hz. Being able to do 5:5 pulldown on Blu-Ray sources looks great and makes the 120 Hz TV's worth it alone, in my opinion.

完全試合に迫った黒田、「素晴らしいサポート受けている」

http://tinyurl.com/6e293w

I do that a lot.

Btw, I think "Hirobot Made of Nails" works for me.

someone please educate me.

BTW, I'm not being critical. I just like to try to figure out why some people make certain typos and see if it's for the same reasons as me.

Ask him your Dodger questions!

On July 5, 1963, Johnny Podres threw a 2-hitter and faced just 28 batters with one of the batters to reach safely (Tommy Harper) erased on a DP.

You needs lots of DPs and caught stealings.

https://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/976907.html

This is frankly one of the most amazing things I've ever read around here. Colletti positively deserves ever ounce of derision he receives. Evidence for this comes in the following manner:

1) The Dodgers, despite being tied for first place in the NL West, are still not a winning team.
2) Even if the Dodgers do win the NL West, it is plainly obvious they are not nearly as good a team as the Cubs, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Brewers, or Cardinals, i.e. the NL East leader and the teams contending for a Wild Card slot.
3) Colletti made few moves to change the team he inherited and it won a division title. His subsequent moves have proven he has no clue about how to run a major league club, and as Tom Meagher's deconstruction of Colletti's most recent interview in the PE showed, this is out of sheer incompetence.

One game is not a season, and to pretend Ned Colletti's decision-making ability shouldn't be at issue is just ridiculous.

So "Jerry Reuss's no-hitter" with one base-runner 195 was a different game from "Jerry Reuss' one-hitter" where a double was hit 201 ? Must be...

I'd say that this last offseason in particular was as good as I could have hoped for from a GM. If we get through the trade deadline without an obviously bad move, I'd say this team is heading in the right direction.

HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2/IP + 3.2

by that formula kuroda has a 4.02 ERA, where is my mistake?

MMMMM Turnip juice

http://tinyurl.com/5dt53b

And I don't think the 'stache is the only thing Kent and Solid have in common. Solid has the same crusty exterior, and I've found myself using the Solid voice whenever Kent is on the tube. Over the last few games, I've grumbled these gems: "Game-winning homer, huh?" and "Second base, huh?"

LOL.

His Royal Thighness pitches for the Dodgers this evening, against RHP Jair Jurrjens (meaning likely no LaRoche).

I would like, by the break, to be able to call Arizona the "3-Backs". That would be super.

Erik (Los Angeles): Dodgers will finish _____ in the west. Also, how about Kuroda? He's been impressive the last few starts. Can he keep it up?

SportsNation Rob Neyer: (1:05 PM ET ) First. They were my pick in March so now I'm back on the bandwagon

That would mean five hits, including a double!

3 game loosing streak would have him back on the D'backs wagon.

Once there, it'll be about match ups. Right now, against Florida, New York, Chicago, St Louis, and Milwaukee, the Dodgers are 11-12. That's not too bad of a record against the best teams in the league.

The Dodgers are a sub-500 team right now because of inter-league play (5-10). Against the National League, the Dodgers are a very respectable .542 team (39-35). I should also point out that the Dodgers got to face two division leaders in inter-league play (Angels and White Sox) as well as last year's AL Cy Young Award winner.

Besides, once in the playoffs - if they make the playoffs - you have got to love the Dodgers' pitching in a short series.

Career ERA+
Tonight's Starter 133
Sandy Koufax 131

Not that I mind either way, I expect that DeRoche will be half the in field next year.

A couple posts ago someone said something about "loosing their butts." That sounds crass.

GTA builds character.

But if you are a loser, you spell it looser.

That's what I snarkily tell any freelance writers I work with if they ask.

Evans was on the job for 33 months, DePodesta for 20 months, and Colletti so far for 32 months.

137. I don't thinks its how hard McDonald throws but the difference in velocity of his pitches. If he has a consistent 92 mph FB and there's a 10-12 mph difference between FB and the curve/change he should be successful. That's one of the problems Hoffman's having. He's lost a lot of velocity on his FB so there's hardly any difference between that and his change.

142. I don't know how you can say Sheets has never had an arm injury since he's a righty and has been on the DL with right shoulder problems. Add to that that it generaly takes longer to come back from a shoulder injury than arm or elbow problems and, although I like the guy, I pass unless the Dodgers get a big discount. Without a sound shoulder he's going to lose velocity like Schmidt.

247. [Evans was on the job for 33 months, DePodesta for 20 months, and Colletti so far for 32 months.]

Not when FM took over he wasn't. He was told by FM that he could interview for the job, which immediately gave me a bad taste in mouth for FM since it was Evans who brought in Ng and Logan White and started re-building the farm into what it is today. Evans was with out a doubt the best of 3, although DePo had potential his communication skills left a lot to be desired.