116. Suffering Bruin
TRIVIA TIME

"We tried everything. Curves and fastballs. In, out, up, down," recalled Jeff Torborg. "Nothing worked. (Player name) owned Sandy Koufax."

Fill in the blank with our mystery player who, I promise, all of you have heard of.

Answer after I get the computer back from my son a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker. And that may be awhile...

Dodger win expectancy is currently at 48.4% for tonights game at St Louis. Win expectancy finder, looks at previously played games back to the 1979-1990 season and computes the number of times a team won given the current score differential, outs and runners on base.

http://walkoffbalk.com/tools/winexp/index.php

vr

Xeifrank

"We tried everything. Curves and fastballs. In, out, up, down," recalled Jeff Torborg. "Nothing worked. (Player name) owned Sandy Koufax."

Fill in the blank with our mystery player who, I promise, all of you have heard of.

Answer after I get the computer back from my son a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker. And that may be awhile...

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

TODAY'S FACT OF CHOI, SB'S FAVORITE PLAYER, 2005:

Choi's parents, Chan Yong and Myung Soon, make an annual visit to the United States to watch Hee Seop play. He also has a sister who is two years younger and lives with him in Los Angeles. His brother is five years younger and back home in Korea.

The family Choi is quite large. Aunts, Uncles and cousins are all in some way involved with operating the watermelon farm in Kwang-Ju.

Back later on with trivia answer!

vr

Xeifrank

Dare I guess Tim McCarver?

This is my last guess. Not because it's a good guess that I'm confident in, but because no one wants to wade through a dozen posts of me shouting out random ballplayer names from the 60s.

When was the last time you saw Tracy give a player back to back days off?

Could his knee be acting up and they don't want to say anything?

Drew has obviously never faced Mulder, so there isn't some statistical anomaly Tracy is playing to.

I guess Steiner and Lyons might have an answer.

And please feel free to research!

Neither of which makes me feel any better.

From the official website:

"Left-hander Chuck Tiffany...expected to miss at least two weeks after having a cancerous mole removed from his back..."

"Back Surgery"? This qualifies a "Back Surgery"?!

In an unrelated note, I'll be referring to similar procedures that I've undergone as "Brain Surgery" and "Spinal Injury". I'll be setting up a donation fund later tonight. Every little bit helps.

The mighty Google answers queries of:

torborg "owned sandy koufax"

Before the 2005 season, Baseball America named Steve Schmoll as the pitcher with the best control in the Dodger minor league system. In 388 innings as a college and professional pitcher, Schmoll has 151 walks, a relatively pedestrian rate of 3.5 per nine innings. However, in 2004 he lowered that rate to 2.6 per nine innings.

Cincy is up 4-0 on the Pads after 1

BOB UECKER

Lifetime OPS: .590

Source: Thomas Boswell "One if by Fastball" from The Heart of The Order.

The rest of the league must've absolutely owned him.

Cincy up 4-0 on Peavy??? Wow.

Uecker's OPS against Koufax (with 38 ABs) was .560

The top 15 batters against Koufax:
Batter / OPS
Aaron, Hank / 1.078
Oliver, Gene / 1.073
Smith, Hal R. / 1.053
Mays, Willie / .962
Moryn, Walt / .961
Musial, Stan / .958
Johnson, Deron / .954
Virdon, Bill / .948
Alou, Felipe / .928
Clemente, Roberto / .905
Stuart, Dick / .904
Davenport, Jim / .880
Burgess, Smoky / .875
Alou, Jesus / .860
Robinson, Frank / .852

So Uecker's claim is just that.

But I'm glad you like the shirts!

#39 has me spinning. To be fair, it's not Uecker making the claim in Boswell's column but Torborg. Very, very curious indeed.

Where are they available at? Someone on this board selling them? Via eBay? Thanks.

vr

Xeifrank

Those St. Louis room service people really know their jobs and how to help out their team. He probably ate the Kobe Bryant hamburger special, late of Sacramento.

Drew is out for food poisoning? He's not just out for today, folks.

SB, maybe Torborg's comment was just backscratching: one banjo-hitting backup catcher supporting another.

Next thing we'll hear is Paul Bako saying Brad Penny most feared facing David Ross.

Here's the old info page with email instructions:
http://tinyurl.com/8ez6z

Dodgers #3 – I think it's fair to say that Jim Tracy might be the most underrated manager in the majors. He continues to put together solid teams with a lot of players that nobody has heard about.

As discussed here before, praising Tracy has become the safe way to avoid giving DePo credit.

thanks so much.

Xeifrank

vr

Xeifrank

http://www.camerongreene.com/team_depo.htm

Go Dodgers!

vr

Xeifrank

Although obviously giving up a homer to Pujols is no fun, looks like Perez was making some good pitches that inning - striking out Grudzielanek on a 3-2 pitch, getting Rolen to pop out 3-1. It looked like a potential meltdown coming when he went 3-0 to Rolen following the Pujols homer.

Of course, all of the above comes with the caveat that it was watched on Gameday.

Nobody is going to confuse J.D. Drew with Kirk Gibson, regardless of the grit factor.

Meanwhile, JK finds first base.

http://tinyurl.com/8v2sb

sam

Is there anyone who doesn't see a hole in that logic?

As for what Hrabosky said, does anyone know if that's true? And if it is, how unusual is that? I really don't know if most GMs run every trade by their managers or not.

I do get the feeling the Cards can at any moment blow this game wide open, Odalis just does not look comfortable.

-- Jim Tracy, the start Nazi

Mulder K/9
2002 6.9
2003 6.2
2004 5.6
2005 4.2
Tonight- priceless

Not if they can't get more than one hit off Mulder.

I'm only able to follow the game on the Gameday screen. Is Mulder throwing that well, or are our guys having poor at-bats?

Lefty hitters tend to struggle more against LHP than righty batters against RHP. RH batters don't see a particularly large advatage when facing a LH pitcher.

Putting a RH-only lineup is more about keeping the lefty hitters from an 0-4 than getting a RH hitter to go 3-4.

2-1 Edwards GIDPs.

A hustle run for legging out the DP ball.

But one only.

Guess what? He gave up a single. Now it's bases loaded, 0 out, 3-run lead, and the Padres win expectancy has inceased over 50%.

"Pujols has hit 2 of his 8 home runs on a 1-0 count."

Great. Thanks, I was just wondering that...

He beat the crap out of OP during the playoffs, too, right?

In fairness to Danny, 2 of the runners belonged to Wagner. But that's what you get for pulling a kid with great stuff for a reliever who's walked more guys than he's K'd.

That is one strong dude.

Oh well. GO DODGERS! Hammer him!

And the As-Red Sox fiasco is finally over, at 13-5. I don't think that the Cards are very sorry right now about Haren and Calero, now that Mulder's fixed his early troubles.

Thanks for the memories, Grabbo. When you're gone, remember that you had a beautiful May once.

That's the first avowedly female name I've seen in this comments section in the year-plus since I started reading this. Welcome.

Of course, there are so many aliases on this site, you might not be the only woman. In fact, for all anyone knows, I'm a woman.

Here's hoping he shows them his power next.

Tough to get anything going on a night like this.

Yeah, the radar gun was tracking OP in the mid 90's. It seems a little juiced.

178 - at least Joe Morgan isn't announcing the game.

What's it gonna take to get Choi an AB?

I'm sorry but I'm at a loss here.

All I can think is that Tracy wants LaRussa to burn King before putting Choi in.

As Saenz reaches on a Rolen error. We're destined to win now.

Here's mine:

p

I was halfway done writing a post about the very same topic, predicting that This situation would come up at the end of a game.

But I decided to give Tracy the benefit of the doubt since the bench is 2 men short tonight with Drew being out and Robles being on a plane.

And yes, I am here to talk about baseball, but I don't mind others having a few jokes and fun. It's a good, goodnatured group here, from everything I've read (I've been lurking for a while.)

Yes, yes you did. Truly brilliant strategy.

I do like Carrara's pitching ability, but whichever poster called him a human rain delay a few days back had it right.

Maybe his mother was a double.

When it's your job to come up with insightful comments about baseball, it's best to not just make stuff up.

I thought that you were a woman...???
I truly hope this doesn't offend - and I don't know what I read from you that gave me that impression. I am frequently wrong too, for the official record.
If I ever consider getting married again, and my prospective / future bride isn't already a Dodger fan, she will have to convert.

Exactly my point the other day. Hitting a triple implies speed AND power. You don't stretch a single into a triple.

I feel like the AFLAC goose when confronted with this total illogic.

Kevin,

It's probably my footwear. It confuses a lot of people.

Come on, Milton!

I've also followed The Cub Reporter blog and there are guys over there that subscribe to that odd idea that a home run wrecks a rally.

Edmonds hit a HR in the midst of a 7-run 9th inning rally against the Reds last week that didn't kill it, but I guess it could've.

Go figure

Meanwhile, Dave Roberts singled in the go ahead run in Cincy. 6-5 Padres, Reds just up in the bottom of the thirteenth.

Game over. Maybe next time...at least we hung in pretty well, had it not been for Pujols...

Exactly. That's what winning managers do. You watch Torre, Bobby Cox, LaRussa, and they are very aggressive in working with their bullpen. Games count!

I like Tracy, but this is a serious flaw. And, I guess maybe this is the flip side of Colborn's relationship with the pitchers; he wants them to learn from (bitter) experience.

good one, you made me choke on my pizza.

Timmerman or somebody said, if we split the 4 with the Cards in St. Louis, that's an accomplishment. Beat up the bad teams, stay even with the good teams, and you're in the postseason.

Hard to be the idiot manager of the night with Tracy involved, but Jim Edmonds bunting was so stupid George Will wanted to re-write his book.

It now causes me physical pain when Jason Grabowski comes to the plate.

On that note, to bed.

The Cards seems to always have the Dodgers number, dating back to the NLCS in 1985.
I am not trying to make excuses for the Dodgers, they are certainly gonna have to do better against this team now if they want to entertain the notion that they are a real contender.

Erickson tomorrow. Then Penny, then Lowe.
If nothing else, we should have a pretty clear idea about where we actually stand by Thursday night

I've had a fairly lousy day, and that was a glimmer of sunshine. Thanks.

I'm afraid you're probably dead wrong, though.

The Cards didn't exactly do that much damage. Take Pujols out of the lineup (PLEASE!!!) and we have a close game.

Plus, we didn't have Drew today and no (dare I say it?) Choi, so our offense wasn't at full strength.

Mulder pitched out of his ass tonight, I do not think the rest of the staff will be so effective.

And there is something to be said for the idea that Penny's aggressiveness and Lowe's sinker could keep the Cards offense off balance.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a bridge I have to go sell to myself.