Three Things Grady Little Does Right
1) He is not shy about benching underperforming name players and trying promising no-name players.
2) He gives no-name players extended trials in the lineup, rather than yanking them out after one game.
3) For the most part, he is aggressive with his player moves - managing the nine-inning game rather than worrying about having reserves for theoretical extra innings. For the most part ...

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Once upon a time on Taxi, aspiring actor Bobby thinks he has hit it big with his career and gives his boss, taxi cab dispatcher Louie, a glorious kiss-off - only to have to come crawling back for his job when things don't pan out. When Louie hears this, he is dancing with giddiness at how deeply he's going to rub it in on Bobby, salivating at the shame he'll get to inflict.

Alex, the moral center of the show, intervenes before Bobby's return to try to prevent Louie from kicking Bobby while he's down. Louie is incredulous at the request, and asks, out of curiosity, why on earth he wouldn't tee off. Alex is almost at a loss on how to respond, but finally says the only thing he can say:

"You shouldn't."

"I shouldn't?"

"You shouldn't."

Which, of course, is absolutely preposterous in Louie's eyes. Gloriously, transcendently, he mocks Alex for the thought. Louie's eyes are practically spinning like propellers, he is so revved up for Bobby's arrival.

And then Bobby comes in ... and Louie lets him off the hook.

It was a great moment of television. And it was so arfully done, it was believable, too. But to some extent, or at least in some circumstances, it's a fantasy.

It's pretty clear that to some extent, Dodger manager Grady Little holds this fantasy for his starting pitchers. He looks at a situation where a starter should thrive and sees something of a moral imperative for that pitcher to do so. The latest example of this was when Odalis Perez was allowed to give up seven runs in the fifth inning of Tuesday's 10-8 loss to Arizona - four of them on a game-tying grand slam to Chad Tracy.

"(Perez) has to get (Tracy) out in that situation," Little said, according to Tony Jackson in the Daily News. "He's our starting pitcher, and he had been staked to a 6-0 lead in the fifth inning. That's the guy you have to get out. He kept firing ... but it wasn't good enough. There have been too many times this year when we have squandered five-run leads and six-run leads, and it's starting to get old."

There is a reason for holding back on warming up relievers too soon - you don't want to burn them out in the bullpen. And yes, a starting pitcher with a 6-0 lead should be able to get through the fifth inning.

But just because he should go five doesn't mean he can. When a pitcher with the track record for implosion that Perez has gets in trouble, you have to be ready to step in preemptively, just like Alex did with Louie.

With a 6-0 lead, Perez gave a home run, a bunt single and a walk. This didn't put him on the edge of the cliff - especially with pitcher Jason Grimsley coming to bat, but it did put Perez a couple steps away. That's the moment you make a call to the pen and get someone up. (I don't know when Little did so - although news reports indicate it wasn't this soon.)

Perez got an out from Grimsley, then gave up singles to Craig Counsell and Eric Byrnes that made the score 6-2 with the bases loaded and still only one out.

This is the critical moment. And I want to say, there is an argument for keeping Perez in to face Tracy - the odds of a grand slam are low. The argument against keeping Perez in is that there's very little proof that Perez is much of a tightrope walker these days.

Perez gave up the grand slam. Look - it happens. Here's where things get a little crazy, though. Now you're in a brand-new, tie game with about 4 1/2 innings to go - and Little still left Perez in the game to walk go-ahead run Luis Gonzalez. This is where you start to wonder whether Little is managing his starting pitcher with emotion rather than calculation. There was no saving the bullpen now. Seven batters into the inning, what did he think Perez had left? What was the point?

As far as fear of burning out the bullpen goes, you cross that bridge when you come to it. As I've written in the past, the gamble you take in trying to stretch out a starting pitcher to rest your bullpen is that you risk having to work the bullpen even harder. Nothing is more important than putting out that fire - only when you are out of firemen should you tolerate a controlled burn.

In Perez's previous start at Houston on April 26, Little let Perez allow seven runs (six earned) in 4 1/3 innings. In that game, unlike Tuesday night, Perez was in trouble almost his entire start - but Little displayed that high threshold for pain. Why? What does Perez have to do to get an early hook? The Dodger offense scored five runs for Perez last week and eight runs this week - all wasted.

Except in the case of Lance Carter, the Dodger bullpen has been inconsistent - meaning its members have been alternately good and bad. So they don't inspire a high level of trust. Doesn't matter - that's not an excuse to leave a faltering starting pitcher in. It is better to take the chance that you will get a Dodger reliever on one of his good days than continue to use a pitcher who is objectively, visually having a bad day right in front of you.

Despite the length of this critique, I'm not turning on Little. As I said at the top, he's doing some things I really like. The team he is managing has definite weaknesses to go with its strengths, and I don't know how much better than its 12-15 record it should really be. Regarding most of the one-run losses, I don't recall many instances of them turning on a Little decision.

I think the answer here might be for a personnel decision to be made that will sidestep this problem. I don't know if this is being discussed, but I think that depending how Jae Seo does tonight against San Diego, Perez could be a candidate to get at least a temporary demotion to the bullpen. He's had three bad starts to go with three good ones - maybe his next start will make or break his immediate fate. Certainly, because it was former Dodger general manager Paul DePodesta who re-signed Perez as a free agent, there would be no in-house reputations at stake with the move.

Depending on which side of the bed current GM Ned Colletti woke up on that day, the Dodgers would then call up either Aaron Sele or Chad Billingsley - neither of whom would (or should) be on anything but a short leash in their opening starts.

In the absence of that, I am hoping that Little has lost a little patience with underperforming starters, as he had with his ragged batting order.

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About that batting order ...

Ailing shortstop Rafael Furcal has hit two balls to the warning track this week. Not that fly balls are to be his specialty, but I'm thinking there may be a little snap coming back to his bat.

Slumping second baseman Jeff Kent remains a mystery.

With 10 singles, two doubles, four triples, seven walks and six steals without being caught, Kenny Lofton has 39 bases in 66 plate appearances (.591). Count me skeptical that he can keep this up, but he's been good so far. By comparison, J.D. Drew has 66 bases in 108 plate appearances (.611).

Making his major league debut Tuesday, Andre Ethier recovered from an 0 for 3 start (including a double play) with a double and a ninth-inning walk.