I will be at Minute Maid Park next week to boo our swollen friend Barry.

I like you're way of thinking Greg.

http://tinyurl.com/eeyef

I gloss over any and all Bonds coverage: there's really nothing left to digest.

Make you're self a glass of fresh lamonade, that's what I did. I feel much better now.

"Since Barry Bonds is sure to take a public flogging for almost hitting into a double play when he failed to run out a pop-up, I will refrain from ripping him for the act itself. Surely Bonds knows what he did was wrong, much like the 3-year-old who chucks silverware across the dinner table.

Difference is, children have parents who dole out punishment and make the kid apologize and, hopefully, learn from the mistake. Barry Bonds, the biggest child in baseball, doesn't seem to care, and he has done such a magnificent job of shielding himself from everybody except the yes-men and stooges in his employ, he no longer understands the meaning of accountability."
...is how it starts...

But I hear ya. The media's over-coverage of Bonds is hard to take at this point. "Bonds constipated, no poop for two days - details coming up on SportsCenter!"

THIS IS NOT NEWS PEOPLE.

When's Repko back, btw? A week?

Furcal, SS

Cruz, CF

Nomar, 1B

Drew, RF

Kent, 2B

Alomar, C

Aybar, 3B

Ethier, LF

Sele, P

Damn, I was hoping Martin would start again because I wanted to see him play in person. Looks solid overall - most importantly, though, is that Sele doesn't suck horribly.

After a night game I think Little just wanted to rest him, he's been playing everyday since the injury to Navarro. He'll be back.

The 2005 Dodgers were decimated by injuries, with Tracy's foibles and petty finger-pointing merely salt in the wound. DePo was fired for both.

We figured 2006 couldn't possibly be as bad, because we at least had reversion to the mean working in our favor on the injury front. True Colletti went out and acquired a bunch of old guys whose "mean" was closer to the 2005 reality than the 2005 expectation, but still.

Now, in 2006, injuries are just as bad, if not worse, with players dropping left and right (Mueller, Repko, Navarro, Gagne again, Furcal, Werth again, Lofton, Nomar) but simply because 2006 comes after 2005, the backups are a lot better than last year (with only Ethier a Colletti acquisition). And this year, we're not only NOT tearing our hair out over the injuries -- we're actually kind of excited to see the kids play. I like Mueller, but I was pretty sure he'd get hurt, so when he did, it was no rude shock, and his backup is even more interesting to me.

So, here's the irony. Last year, injuries drove us all to distraction. This year, just-as-frequent injuries give us reason for hope, because they force onto the field kids who we weren't sure would be allowed to play otherwise.

Yes, Ethier is nothing compared to what he was bartered for.

After Giles was lost, I did give props to Ned for at least signing Furcal. However, since then the Bradley trade has gone down, Tomko was signed, and Guzman was moved off SS.

Its only in the last several days have I realized the type of dumb moves the FO has pulled off. I wasnt paying attention during the off-season apparently.

Choi has a good OBP and pretty decent SLG. So whatever your argument, I'd rather have him at 1st base.

I'm not a DePo hater, I understood his philosophy, but trying to say that things were just 'handed' to Colletti is stupid. DePo chose to sign Valentin, after all, without any kind of decent backup for several positions - and kept Grabowski way longer than he should.

First of all, we have to remember that last year wasn't just a couple of injuries...basically everyone on the team got hurt. This year, we have the bonus of guys like Repko actually playing well. We have Russ Martin who wasn't ready to come up last year. etc etc.

I think this has more to do with the management than the GM. For instance, if we were still playing Tracyball I have no doubt Ramon Martinez would be in there instead of Aybar....

Also, a lot of last season's injuries were completely unpredictable. This year, we KNEW that Mueller, Nomar, Lofton, and Furcal were all likely to get hurt, so the "need" for depth was more obvious.

But the biggest difference, as Jon has pointed out several times, is that the prospects are ready to contribute now. They weren't (other than Aybar, late) last year. Last year, DePo was hamstrung - he didn't want to rush prospects who might not help anyway, but didn't want to trade them either. Had the MLB team stayed healthy, this wouldn't have mattered. So when he did need LOTS of backups, all he had to turn to were non-prospect AAAA-types.

That McCourt has given $20-25M extra to Colletti to play around with basically means that NC can splurge on slightly-better-than AAAA backups and overpay some starters.

- I'm planning on a trip to Los Angeles of Anaheim of Orange County of Southern California for the Dodgers/Angels tilt in a month or two. Anyone recommend a good seat for under $30? I haven't been there since it's Anaheim Stadium days, so I'm a little behind the times.

- re: OBP
Does getting aboard on a fielder's choice count towards OBP? If a runner was safe at first on a 6-4 FC, and eventually scored, how many total bases is he credited?

Thanks!

Reaching on a fielder's choice counts toward OBP in the sense that the batter DIDN'T get on base safely. So it's an 0 for 1 in that category. It's the same as reaching on an error. If a runner reaches on an FC, he doesn't get credit for any total bases.

out of 195 votes, 62% goes in favor of Kemp.

Nate: 121
Other: 0

You can only vote once for each user name and I only use one user name. But if I wasn't so lazy, the margin would probably be greater by now.

D4P, aren't you excited for Kemp!!??!

I figured that much.

www.minorleaguebaseball.com The best minor league blog on the internet. Its probably my second favorite place next to DT of course.

I'll be at Disney Hall and I hope that the selection tonight, Beethoven's 9th, will match my mood after this game.

Go Dodgers!!!!

Here's a search showing trend lines for searches for Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants.

http://tinyurl.com/ff8os

Somebody has to bat sixth. It's in the rules.

Ahh, I see. I need some metaphorical iced tea now. I'm really sleepy.

A. Sandy Alomar Jr.
B. Odalis Perez.

Barry Bonds rate2: 91
Rafael Furcal rate2: 77

remember when Pete Rose was whoring after base hits?

At least my keyboard doesn't handle Phoenician, which seems to be the only alphabet that every had a backwards K.

vote for what d4p?

is he really that bad!? I don't think so, I know there's something wrong with his finger BUT COME ON!!

I'll say Delgado has, but thats about it.

(Of course mentioning it is the kiss of death)

i retract that statement after realizing delgado, berkman, johnson, howard and fielder are in the NL.

howard is having a louder season, but not better thus far.

GO DODGERS!!!!!!! BEAT THEM GIANTS!!!!!

For those not scoring at home, those were 12 exclamation points.

I think the inning would have been over had Aybar fielded that ball.

what's his exclamation point-to-post ratio?

Nice DP Finley

http://tinyurl.com/lsrb3

The Giants announcers are such homers "That was a great pitch (on 3-1) by Munter, he just got squeezed!"

Too bad Alomar's up

let's see if the geriatric part of our lineup can deliver.... come on alomar...

But now we're firmly into who's-to-saybermetrics territory here.

Giants have trouble with that aspect.

Reality.

with a man on second Little was probably trying to take a better shot at getting another insurance run.

Who's coming in to pitch?

back in the 50s and 60's, do you remember pitchers going down with injuries this often? I can understand sitting with arm problems, but it seems like some of these teams sit guys on the DL for two months for something completely minor. I recall a quote from Nolan Ryan where he said pain is part of being a pitcher, and unless it's something major you just have to pitch through it....just something a friend and I were discussing.

I think pitchers going on the DL more now is a factor of two things:
1) Better medical diagnoses
2) The pitchers get paid a lot more

If you were a GM and Joe Starter said he had a bad arm and he was making about $10,000 a year, who cares if he goes down. Just get a new guy from the minors. With the Reserve Clause, you can keep them on your team forever!

I don't remember Aybar being this bad defensively. That was his first error, but the second time he should've made a play and blew it.

yeah that's pretty much what I figured. I pitched relief in college and I can't even imagine the days when guys threw 150 pitches regularly...any time I got to like 90 I'd start feeling empty.

But an example would be like Rich Harden. I think he's got like a minor back thing and he's sitting and ALWAYS on the DL...those just seem like the kind of things you either have to pitch through, or miss a start and then get back at it...but whatever, I guess if it was MY money I'd be sitting the guy too...

I couldn't agree more...go with who is the best guy. The problem is managers these days get so caught up in "roles" that they refuse to change. Saito, based on performance, really should be our closer right now.

Boy do I miss the days of the dominant Gagne. Sigh.

It must have happened a lot in the past too, not pitching as well when pitching through injuries, but perhaps that's a function of hitting having changed over the decades. Maybe pitchers these days get jumped on more by good hitters for bad pitches than they used to?

True. The league is also more watered down. When there were less teams, even a 75% Sandy Koufax was still pretty darn good....a 75% Loaiza is going to get hammered against the best hitters in the world.

Grittle, the chant is for your neck.

if "proven" is a euphemism for "shaky" then I agree :)

Hey, Jose Viscaino is still in baseball.

That's "T Rex" to you, mister.

How many games are we going to lose after being up by 3 or more runs?

Put Saito ahead of him.

What was Grady thinking?

ORRR will he???

probably not since everything Baez throws gets hit. I wouldn't mind if this happened every now and then...blown saves happen.

But let's face it, this is five right? In how many chances? This guy should not be closing...now the question is whether or not Little has the guts to make a switch.

I just hope Baez doesn't face Bonds in tomorrow's game.

What's the point of a 12 man staff if you're not going to use it?

Why didn't he just leave Saito in?

because managers are so caught up in "roles". There's no reason Saito shouldn't stay in...looking at the numbers, even before Baez came in Little should have known that there was a better chance that Baez would mess this up than Saito...but Baez is the "closer". So stupid.

watching baez pitch tonights game

wait...no. thats only like getting stabbed once with a huge carving knife. for three times you really have to think more along the lines of

duaner sanchez. edwin jackson. chuck tiffany.

wouldnt be suprising if those get grouped next to pedro martinez in the stripped clean from the dodgers category. this one just hurts.

The whole Pedro situation w/Grittle keeps making more sense to me everyday. I'm not sure he knows how to handle it.

(nervously peeks into comments)

(hollering) DOES ANYONE NEED HELP IN THERE? SHOULD I CALL 911?

It's just sad that some team is going to give him like 5 mill to close next year when someone could do the same job for like 1/5 of that.

My point is, the revisionist history here is getting pretty thick. Now people say Saito is the answer. He may be, but once he gets the closer role he'll probably start to struggle as well. And everyone will blast Grady again.

I hope the bullpens failures this season allow everyone to really appreciate what we had with the Gagne era. We may never have that again and most here probably didnt fully enjoy it because they were so fixated on getting rid of Gagne "because he only pitches 1 inning a game."

Well Gagne didnt lose games like that and the security that provided the team was invaluable.

Now who's being revisionist? Who exactly here wanted to get rid of Gagne when he was moved into his role as a closer?

Furcal, although not a total disater, Ned badly overpaid for a SS who is underperforming.

Baez a horrible horrible deal. Forget for a moment who we gave up. Just the fact that he took Baez over any other reliever is a bad deal. And to think Baez thought he was going to compete with Gagne for the closer role.

Lofton. There were cheaper alternitives available but at least he is performing.

Lance Carter. I'll leave it at that.

Seo. This is the biggest mistake of all through not fault of Seo's. While he is pitching reasonable well for a 4/5 starter giving up Duaner is absolutly KILLING us right now.

Meuller. Ok but injured. Not entiriely unexpected.

Nomar. Great signing if he continues like this.

Alomar. Whatever, we didn't need him in the first place.

Kent extension. I think it will work out but right now it is terrible.

Ironically, the people who have saved Ned's bacon are the prospects he had nothing to do with and the deals Depo did: Drew, Penny, Lowe.

As we sit today I have to give Ned a "D."

Even though I think Old Bear is a bit gloom and doom at times, I think he called this one correctly from the beginning.

Saito could be an interesting guy to put in the closer role. But I almost would rather see Broxton there - Saito seems to be flourishing in his job as a set-up man, and we know Broxton can be dominant as a closer, at least at AAA. I think he deserves a shot to replicate that success (even adjusted for going from the minors to the majors, he would make a servicable closer, I think).

Give the job to bull, and hope he can take the momentum from his last 2 outings, bottle the swagger, and build off a quick start in the role.

As a side note, do any of you have any explanation to Baez's troubles. I'm not qualified to speculate, but for what it's worth, his fastball has no movement, and I would think with his delivery (ball out of the glove early), it would be easy to pick the ball up early in his wind up and follow it to release.

But when he's pitches in the 9th, everything is magnified so its clear he is only average or below average.

Edwin Jackson could be 8 for 13.
Steve Schmoll could be 8 for 13.
Tim Hamulack could be 8 for 13.

Baez is as Bill Parcells would say about a player..."just a guy"..

They hit a HR as soon as I said that.

Nobody wanted him DFA'd. They wanted him traded for something big. Cashed in. And, objectively, doing that would almost certainly have worked out better than not doing that. So, if your argument is that closers are undervalued, good luck with that. But hauling the Trade Gagne 2005 Club on to the mat sort of makes the exact opposite point, doesn't it?

My guess is that 8/13 save percentage is somewhat below average.

We had really good seats, 3rd base line, in the season ticket club section. A good view of everything. Not enough Dodgers fans around me to make things less painful.

In addition to what/whoever else you want to blame the end result on, you can unofficially blame my well-meaning Dad. A Yankee fan living in Marin, he needed to leave a little early to catch a ferry home. He said, "Welp, looks good, I'm going to take off." Or something like that. If he'd never left early none of this would have happened! Okay, now for some more rational observations...

The Good:
Nomar - I officially have a straightmancrush on him now
Kent raising the ire of Giants fans with his homerun
Sele - looked terrific for most of his stint today, I mean way better than I expected. He had good control, good velocity, seemed to make very few location mistakes from what I could observe. I also think he was about done and agree with the Dodgers for pinch hitting for him. It seemed like a no brainer at the time. (More on that in a second.)
Saito - looked solid once again
Barry - I have a lot of digital pics of Bonds Not Hitting 714 if anyone wants to see them ;-)

The Bad:
- Aybar's defense. One sharp hit that was a double he still should have knocked down. (The obnoxious Giants fans behind me who blathered all game, mostly still disgruntled about Jose Cruz's dropped pop up in the world series, were mocking Aybar's defense for the rest of the game and then he made that brutal error later. I know Aybar is better than that. Makes me wonder what's up with the Dodgers D in general right now.)
- The fans behind me (see above). Knew everything about everything but actually knew nothing.
- Having to walk down the endless ramps out of PhoneCo Park to chants of Beat LA, was like straight out of a bad dream. I did enjoy one Dodgers fan responding to a Giants fan who yelled at him, "Dodgers suck!" by saying, "Then the Giants suck, too, because they're tied for last."

The Ugly
You already know it. Baez's implosion.
I'm gonna admit it - I was a proponent of his to a point but I am much more in the "want to strangle him" camp at this moment. NEVER in the last few years have I missed Eric Gagne more than I did today. Never. I saw Broxton warm up two innings earlier, and then Saito ultimately came in. Why didn't Broxton warm up again in the 9th when Baez was obviously getting hammered and the game was still winnable?
3upn3down, you may be right about Baez. From where I was sitting I'd say his fastball had great velocity but it was too predictable and easy to read. Whereas Gagne has like 4 pitches he can mix in and throw hitters way off balance.

God, I felt physically sick at the end of this game, like I hadn't felt since I was a kid - when we so had it won. And I really wanted them to win because I have no confidence in tomorrow's pitching matchup. I guess you never know though; I'm sure a lot of people had no confidence in today's matchup either but it was clearly advantage Dodgers. Until the 9th.

Sigh.

AT least I can delete my Barry pictures from the camera now. I would have much preferred to see the Dodgers win easily and Bonds hit a home run than what ultimately happened.

I will say this, though, if the Dodgers can hang around .500 or even a little above, for the next few weeks, when Gagne comes back I think things will be a lot better. Best thing to do about today's game - and the hardest - is to forget it.

That having been said, it's a question of what you would replace him with. If you replace an overpriced but extremely good closer (Gagne) with an overpriced but terrible closer (Baez to date), it's a terrible deal. If you replace him, though, with a very cheap but average closer (we're currently paying Saito league minimum, and I find it hard to believe he would have done as poorly as Baez to date) and then spend the rest of that money on something else. I wouldn't mind seeing the team toss around $14 million trying to sign another power-hitting outfielder, for example.

The goal is to add the most value to the team - and comparing Gagne to Baez is like comparing Adam Dunn to Jason Phillips. They both played first base, but if you theoretically lose Dunn to injury and then end up with Phillips as your starting 1B, you probably could be filling that hole with somebody who does the job a little bit better - sure, you'll miss Dunn no matter who does the job, but proclaiming that there's no possible way the team could be better without him by using Phillips as the example of the next best possible replacement is a poor argument.

It's obvious to everyone that Baez is getting lit up by the weakest of offenses even.

Terrible pickoff play by USC.

After Sunday's series finale against the archrivals, the Giants leave town for a three-game series starting Monday at Houston, followed by a weekend interleague matchup at Oakland in which Bonds can play designated hitter. Giants' management can't be thrilled thinking about the possibility of Bonds passing Ruth in the run-down ballpark across San Francisco Bay.

I wonder what Ken thinks of that!

191. Marty 2006-05-13 15:23:54
Make room for Danys. Fasten your seatbelts.

And, the simplest ones always being best, this from 13 minutes later just cracked me up:

226. D4P 2006-05-13 15:36:43
Danny "In play, run-scoring play" Baez

c-LOSER is right for Baez. (thanks 238)

As for Aybar, I believe in him, but he should make that play. It'd be nice to see him bounce back with a strong game. Hope they put him back out there Sunday.

Defense tends to get overlooked/under-evaulatued. This team's defense could be just bad enough to bleed you slowly to death over the six months.

And I said, "With who, though?"

We started naming all the teams in baseball, and how their bullpens are, etc. And the Giants bullpen came in and looked horrible (this was when I was briefly feeling cocky about the game).

And we came to the conclusion that... most bullpens this year are in a state of flux, in many cases downright mediocre-to-awful.

This isn't meant to perspective check the Dodgers' bullpen, Baez and so on, just to say, things are tough almost all over. Maybe the Dodgers should make Broxton the closer, and when Gagne comes back, make Brox the set up man, followed by Baez so he could maybe gain some confidence back, etc.

And if we need some help, who we gonna trade with? (Okay, the Mets to get Duaner Sanchez back, but other than that...)

The dodgers need to get to the point of building around the prospects.

Don't blow it and trade the prospects for a so called chance this season.

his line through 3: 6H 4R 1bb 2S0 1hr (to the pitcher!)

kemp 1-2 2b
laroche 2-2 (avg up to .263)

final line:

7IP 1H 0ER 0BB 7K

wow, thats hot.

My eyes! My eyes!

Why not? Could it be any worse than Baez?

I do like that because Odalis has three pretty good pitches.

Odalis Perez is still hot about his demotion to the bullpen. But burned in the past by his outspoken comments, he's taking the silent approach rather than airing his grievances.

"I don't say anything. I just wait and see," said Perez. "I don't want to be a bad guy on the team. I've learned from my mistakes. If this happened a few years ago, it would have been big trouble. Not now. When they give me the ball, none of this will affect me. I'll put the situation away and pitch the way I know I can."

Giants rally past Angels; Bonds goes 0-for-3

If only it were true!

Grits and Ned are morons.

He reminds me of Saito, average fb, excellent slider.

The other interesting part of the Vegas game: Loney is making (what I believe is) his AAA debut in RF. He even had an OF assist (although as I recall, he had a few last year as well when he played RF)

150ABs 360/442/607

to put that into perspective...

miguel cabrera as a 20 yrs old in AA:
286AB 365/.429/.609

david wright as a 21 yr old in AA:
223AB 363/.467/.619

scott rolen as a 21 yr old in AA:
230AB 361/.445/.587

Not implying anything, but just saying, if he keeps it up and stays like this through 250ABs or so.....

Here's what a smart club would do with Loney:

Let him keep getting his ABs, but require him to do a lot of long tossing to keep that left arm strong. Loney was a heck of a HS pitcher. Some clubs believed he could be a major league pitcher.

If he doesn't develop power in two years, put him on the mound.

I'm fine with giving him a few games in the OF. It shouldn't rust his 1B defense and adds to his versatility (and, subtle point here, induces him to do more long toss). He played a litte OF in high school.

Kemp could be a bona fida five-tool guy, but I don't want to jinx him.

I just dont see any merit in that idea.

I'm doing a great job of jinxing him already huh :)

If he is the real deal, its going to take more then my jinxes to bring him down.

Holy crap.

Loney as a pitcher is strictly a fallback and keeping that possibility alive is only sensible. Rather than let that great arm of his atrophy, at the very least have him do a lot of long toss. That's an indirect cool thing about spotting him in the OF. I don't want to give the LAD credit for being smart, but that certainly could be behind this.

And Nate, you're being a tad harsh to dismiss Loney as a pitcher down the road.

Trevor Hoffman was 24 when he began pitching in Cincinnati's farm system. He was exclusively a SS in high school, college and his first two years of pro ball.

I could give you other examples of strong-armed players who converted to pitching while they were minor leaguers and became successful major league pitchers.

Loney already has an advantage over some of them -- he pitched often in HS and was very good. He also is left-handed.

The idea is to maximize your investment. Ultimately, the mound could be an intriguing fallback for Loney.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying you do that now or even next year. But if doesn't evolve as you would hope, it certainly should be considered.

"James" "Lo" "Knee"

His name reminds me of Jim Tracy though. I'm going to call him Bob Loney.

SP:
zito
penny
lowe
billingsley
?

BP:
It will work out somehow with leftover starters from this season that are still under contract and relievers that work out this season like broxton, kuo, saito

395 Holy crap is right. My poor Dad the Yankees fan. What was I saying about the state of their bullpen?

Btw, flashing back a bit again, I agree Gagne shouldn't be depended on as a panacea in the sense that our expectations shouldn't be that he'll be the record-breaking Gagne of old. But that he'll be a damned sight better than anyone trying to close for them now, that I'll trust him more in the 9th.

Tomorrow - how many innings do we think it will be before Odalis comes in to relieve Seo? If by some miracle the Dodgers took 2 out of 3 it'll take a little bit of the bitter after taste of today out of my mouth (and also prove that I'm a jinx).

LF-Ruggiano
CF-Kemp
RF-Drew
3b-Guzman
SS-Furcal
2b-Aybar
1b-????
C- Martin

I'm not really sold on Ethier or Loney. Maybe its bc there's not much power there.

Lima moved up to #2 on the all time list for worst career RSAA--

RSAA
1 Herm Wehmeier -161
2 Jose Lima -131
T3 Bobby Witt -130
T3 Kevin Jarvis -130
5 Mike Kekich -127
6 Jimmy Haynes -120
7 Phil Ortega -119
T8 Jack Fisher -118
T8 Todd Van Poppel -118
T10 Harry McIntire -110
T10 Leo Sweetland -110

Nice to see Grabowski Principle lab rat Kevin Jarvis on the list.

After witnessing today's atrocity, I'm not 100% sold on Aybar's defense, whether at 3rd or 2nd (though I do like his bat) but shouldn't hold today against him, I suppose.

I really think the Dodgers offense will be fine this year, for the most part it's fine now. It's the bullpen and defense that needs work. Still a lot of games left to play before giving up on this season and selling off the veterans.

Neither am i for the same reason, i just included them because they still can develop power.

But i disagree about kent, i'm perfectly fine with kent, i don't expect him to struggle or decline before his contract is up.
He's just been in a slump.

The stuffed bunny is yours. Dead on about Kent. This extension was plain dumb.

Agreed. Pitching and defense, defense and pitching. After all these years, it still gets overlooked. Especially defense. In all of these projections for the LAd, I see mediocre IF defenses, at best.

And Furcal has not been very good this year. His 3 year contract is going to bite us the most--I guess now that Guzman moved to 1B, LF, Furcal is not blocking anyone.

I wonder how well Ned sleeps at night.

5IPs 4h 2r 2er 3BB 9So

That is all.

The good news for Mets fans was that since Duaner got tossed, they gave his replacement as much time as he needed to warm up. That's something Grittle ought to keep in mind as a future strategy when another reliever gets pounded when he's got no one warming up.