>> Las Vegas placed pitcher Matt Riley (left shoulder tendinitis) and catcher Kelley Gulledge (left thumb sprain) on the DL. Also, Class A Inland Empire pitcher Francisco Felix was promoted to Triple-A and outfielder Xavier Paul was activated from Vegas' DL. ... Backup catcher Danny Ardoin turned 34 on Tuesday. ... <<

http://tinyurl.com/5fnm6r

119 116 - given his skill set, LaRoche does not strike me as the kind of guy that is going to lay down a suicide squeeze without being told to. Actually, I can't think of any hitter that would unilaterally go for the suicide squeeze, it's got to be a called play.

But what major league manager would call a suicide squeeze with the bases loaded and two outs?

Somehow I was under the impression that his son was a junior this year. So I was wondering how Mattingly would be the hitting coach before the 2010 season.

His problem was that once he left gutty underdog Yakult and went to bigtime Yomiuri, his production declined and he got hurt.

And the Giants tried to play him in the outfield one season. That was not a big hit.

They didn't. That tends to displease Yomiuri management.

Don Mattingly leaves Joe Torre's side because of family matters

>> Mattingly, the sources said, felt he should spend as much time at home in Evansville, Indiana, to be with his 16-year-old son, Jordon, a high school sophomore, rather than uproot him and bring him to Los Angeles. <<

http://tinyurl.com/2tnfex

1 hit for the Nats so far.

The Dodgers scoff at that.

It was actually a statue of Sherman.

132. 128 LaRoche's error came while at 3B.

I'm pretty sure I remember LaRoche dropping a throw while trying to turn a double play and it was ruled an error at the time. So if his only error is at 3B then the scoring on that play must have been changed later.

I guess I'm cool with Mattingly coming back to the Dodgers, I wonder if he really is a good hitting coach?

Any NY'ers have info on him?

So, when I send him email, I end every sentence with a smiley.

Maybe fit Andruw for a shock collar to give him a zap every time he chases out of the strike zone?

Cattle prod for the batting cage?

Lift that back foot, ZAP !

All in jest...all in jest.

:o)

http://tinyurl.com/5agobw

and another working with Giambi in 05

http://tinyurl.com/5mvd4n

I forget where the incident fell in my list of indictments against Cleveland.

Woo! Dodgers gotta do there part now.

from the 2nd linked article:

"Just because he was a great hitter, he's not going to teach you to hit his way. He looks at individual needs," Torre said. "He's very sensitive. He's very aware of what's going on."

Mattingly says he doesn't like to dictate hitting styles to players who have had success.

"You're working within what they like to do, what they feel, and then being able -- you've got to be strong enough about yourself -- to suggest what you see and things that you think would help them. It's always give and take."

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

Also I can't find the articles but I rememebr reading that Mattingly worked a lot with Cano in his rookie season and Cano credited Mattingly for a great deal of his early success. Also recently Mattingly came out and said that Cano may be pressing too hard because of his contract. He also passed a message to Cano through Yankee hitting coach Kevin Long:
"You work hard to get a contract," Mattingly told Long, "and you get it, and then it's like, all right, I can relax now. Tell him to go out there and keep playing and keep going about his business and not have that in the back of his mind."

http://tinyurl.com/6582ve

This at least is a good sign that Mattingly may not be an old grump and maybe somewhat sympathetic to younger players.

Do we need some type of cardboard model and if we did who would it be the person it depicts?

Perhaps it will help the young players to have a Torre circle of trust insider that is more like their father's age rather than their grandfather's age.

This is a yellow alert.

In order, I'd prefer Scott Boras' wife, Scarlett Johanson, and Danica McKellar holding a math book over her assets :)

First of all, the stats posted by BH at the beginning of the last thread, about the number of runs the team scores in innings when Pierre or Kemp leads off -- that's a junk stat. It's dependent entirely on context. Every time Pierre leads off an inning, he's followed by the 2-3-4 hitters or the 3-4-5 hitters-- the best hitters on the team. When Kemp leads off an inning, sometimes he's been followed by the 2-3-4 hitters, sometimes by the 4-5-6 hitters, and often by the 7-8-9 hitters. It's not an apples-apples comparison.

Now for Torre's comments:
"[Pierre] certainly knows how to hit, and this year we've had a bonus in that he's knocked in (runs). His batting average with men in scoring position is terrific."

I just wanted to note here that Torre is actually making a powerful argument for batting Pierre anywhere except leadoff. Moving on...

"I've had one guy over the years that really I was comfortable with as a leadoff hitter, and that was Chuck Knobloch, and all of a sudden he stopped trying to steal bases. I had Jeter, who was a free swinger. Soriano, and we all see how much of a free swinger he is. Early on with the Yankees, we had Tim Raines, whose speed wasn't what it once was."

I'm going to try not to be too hyperbolic here, but that's one of the dumbest things any human being has ever said.

Tim Raines not an acceptable leadoff hitter? Tim Freaking Raines??

By any halfway reasonable measure, Tim Raines is the second-best leadoff hitter in the history of baseball. He's behind Rickey Henderson, and way ahead of whoever's third, probably Paul Molitor. This is not just me talking, this is Bill James talking and a whole lot of other people who know what they're talking about.

That said, let's dismiss Raines' early career, since Torre's talking about his time with the Yankees. Raines played three years with the Yankees. In these three years, his OPS+ was 114, 124, 107. The reason it was even that low is because his skills skewed more toward those of a leadoff man. He didn't slug much anymore, but his on-base skills were remarkable, even better than they'd been when he was a young player. His OBP those three years was .383, .403, .395, all in a pitcher's park in years when the league OBP was around .340.

But get this: As a leadoff hitter, he got even better. His OPS+ when leading off an inning was 128, 146, and 150 in the three years he was managed by Torre. In 1998, Raines posted a .456 on-base percentage when leading off. Yes, the man got on base 46 percent of the time. I don't know about you, but if I were a manager and I had a guy leading off and getting on base 46 percent of the time, I'd make myself "comfortable" with that pretty quickly.

Baserunning? Raines is the greatest baserunner in the history of baseball. This is arguable, but nobody has ever stolen as many bases as he did (808) at anywhere near the same success rate (84%). By the time Torre got him Raines had slowed down, but he was still a smart baserunner and he did steal 26 bases.

So what we have here is a manager who fails to recognize one of baseball's greatest gifts -- a spectacular leadoff hitter -- when it's placed right under his nose. Torre had one of the finest leadoff men in history, playing at the height of his powers -- and he thought the guy was an unacceptable leadoff man. The guy OPS+es 140 leading off, most of it OBP-driven, and Torre is still bitching ten years later about how that wasn't good enough.

Torre's comment rises to such a level of ignorance that if he meant it sincerely, then that should preclude him from managing. It's the most egregious example of a managerial Grabowski Principle. No person who could reach the conclusion that Tim Raines wasn't a good enough leadoff man should ever be allowed anywhere near the manangement of a Little League team, let alone a major league club.

The remark -- again, assuming he was being genuine -- should itself be a firing offense. It's like complaining that Lou Gehrig wasn't a good enough cleanup hitter, or that Willie Mays wasn't good enough defensively. It proves that Torre, regardless of however many years he's spent in baseball, has no idea whatsoever about how the game actually works. Its idiocy is simply stunning.

Frankly, the whole discussion of batting leadoff just begs the question of how valuable that person really is anyway. Once the first at-bat is out of the way, how many more times does that person lead off an inning more than the next guy.

Pitching and defense is the brand of baseball that I like. Execution.

In naming a team this potential GM admired, shares thoughts on why that team remains at the top of this person's list.

That club was just unbelievable. Every pitch meant something to those players. They worked the count and they executed defensively and they pitched outstanding. They worked pitchers over and over and over. We'd get calls from the commissioner's office because our times of games were 3½ hours, but it was because we were working the count all the time. We didn't have one player who hit 30 home runs on that club."

Stand down.

And if Pierre is so great hitting with risp, why does he have 24 RBI and Kemp has 46?

57 Well, with RISP, Kemp has 31 more at bats. Pierre has driven in 23 runs, Kemp 36.

She and her husband go to and from Dodger Stadium on the bus! They say that the wait after the game isn't all that bad down on Sunset.

When I was a kid, I preferred to buy long books so that I'd get a higher page to dollar return. But I grew out of that, thanks to Steven King.

It's not dirt, either. I'm washing each individual, um, what?--leaf? Maybe I should just stick to the easy vegetables.

But I do have a culinary question for you.

How much money would you require to drink a quart of olive oil?

My wife and I thought $5,000 was a good number.

Ingredients:
1 lb. fresh spinach, washed
4 Tbsp sesame seeds
2 Tbsp sake
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
Preparation:
Boil lots of water in a large pot. Boil spinach in the boiling water for about one minute. Drain and soak the spinach in water to cool. Drain and squeeze the spinach to remove the excess liquid. Cut spinach into about 2-inch lengths. Put sesame seeds in a grinder and grind them using a wooden pestle. Add sugar and grind together. Further, add soy sauce and sake and mix the sesame sauce well. Add boiled spinach and stir well with the sauce.
*Makes 4 servings

You got a heckuva game going on back there, if gameday is accurate.

I've been thinking about the olive oil, and do it for two thousand. But, in the event that I experienced what I would expect to be the natural consequence of trying to drink that much oil to be, I'd be aiming at the person who proposed it.

I'm glad Hudson and Lowe are making me look prophetic. This will add to my image of omnipotence at work.

And my image of being the guy who actually knows the number of the form you file when you want to change information on your personnel record.

OH YES! MATTY KEMP!

Didnt you see him check his IPhone before the 3-1 pitch? He read my comment and then hit it out.

In Houston, they are deciding that they can edit out the bottom of the 6th.

I blame society.

He's a beast. I love Russell more than most, but Jrue is on another level. He's not the athlete Russ is, but his skill level is unreal.

C'mon Blake. Loney was pissed he didnt give him a chance.

outs-per-PA Martin (.63), Ethier (.64), Loney (.69) & Kemp (.70)

runs generated-per-PA all are at .23

bases-per-PA Martin (.53), Kemp (.52), Ethier (.51) & Loney (.50)

I may never watch (internet version) Dodger baseball again.

Jones, A.: 0 for 1
Jones, C.: 0 for 1

Hes only thrown 74 pitches. You let him go as far as he can.

"So what should I use on this ground ball?"
"I think you should use the glove, but backhand it."
"OK."

Later,
"Runner on second, two out, what should I use?"
"I'd go with a bat."

Vin: "What a strange night for Andruw Jones. He probably can't believe it."

He's mad at being taken out. There was no reason to take him out there and not let him finish the inning. I mea, the guy threw 85 or so pitches and gets pulled. It works out nicely, but doesnt make DLowe feel a ton better.

And, uh, all those other times his throws sucked.

And that takes effort.

I came home from a soccer game to catch the last inning, but had expected it to be in the 6th or so. Nice blink-and-you'll-miss-it game. Caught up on things via box score and your comments. Fun stuff.

One more inning.

No marching.

Really close. High tag and he might have even gotten his foot in there. Perfectly called pitch out.

The aforementioned Mr. Boyer as well as Messrs. Beatty, Neal, and Thomas.

281 It was still close, high tag but a bit of a high slide, just nicked him.

Good thing you didn't quote Jon back in 6 .

Our Jones is better! :)

No sympathy here.

Back in first place!

320 3, but he'll do much better.

Games in which at least 25 consecutive batters were retired, 2000-2007:

29 - Cincinnati 6, Pittsburgh 4, 6/25/04 (Bottom 1-Bottom 6)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/CIN/CIN200406250.shtml

27 - Kansas City 4, Oakland 3, 5/16/07 (Top 2-Top 6)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200705160.shtml

27 - Toronto 2, Angels 1, 7/28/05 (Bottom 9-Top 14)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/TOR/TOR200507280.shtml

27 - St. Louis 7, Detroit 3, 6/11/00 (Bottom 2-Top 7)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/DET/DET200006110.shtml

27 - Baltimore 3, Yankees 2, 9/26/03 (Game 2) (Bottom 1-Top 6)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/NYA/NYA200309262.shtml

26 - Montreal 6, Cubs 0, 9/8/04 (Top 3-Top 7)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/CHN/CHN200409080.shtml

26 - Mets 3, Minnesota 2, 6/20/02 (Bottom 1-Bottom 5)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200206200.shtml

26 - St. Louis 7, Milwaukee 5, 6/11/06 (Bottom 5-End)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/MIL/MIL200606110.shtml

25 - Philadelphia 2, Cincinnati 0, 5/13/06 (Top 1-Top 5)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/CIN/CIN200605130.shtml

25 - Oakland 4, Tampa Bay 3, 9/9/01 (Top 9-Top 13)
http://www.bb-ref.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200109090.shtml

Thanks for wasting my time, ESPN!