Is anyone going to tonight's game in San Diego? I will be there with Dodger blue on, I believe in section 304 (I left my ticket at home and forgot the exact seat location).

A Dodger Thoughts remote outing!

The burger sure tasted sweet once we got inside.

He was triumphant, and it was amazing to see someone come in, facing a hostile crowd with a small margin for error, and then prevent every batter he faced from hitting a fair ball. K, BB, K, K -- no balls in play!

If I'm thinking right, Diaz must be on our roster on 8/31. You can't wait till 9/1 to call him up. We are off 8/31 by the way. I propose Grady calls Martin into his off after the game 8/30. He sits him down and says he's sorry to say that he's been optioned to AAA. And the funny thing being that he's telling Martin the truth.

How long has he been throwing that slower, wicked curveball? I can't remember seeing it before yesterday (though I haven't watched many games lately). Earlier in the season, he seemed to throw only a sneaky fastball and a good slider. While both pitches were effective, he made me nervous and I doubted he could continue to be so overwhelmingly effective with such a limited arsenal and lack of a truly awesome pitch.

So, I ask those of you who have watched more closely than me:

Is he throwing a new pitch? If so, when did it start? He made the Giants batters look silly with that thing.

I propose Grady calls Martin into his office.

Bad grammar. LOL.

Going into the game, I had 2 hopes: for the game to go extras, and for the Padres to use their bullpen a lot.

It went 10 innings, 5 of which were pitched by the bullpen (Hensley pitched 4 relief innings, but he's normally a starter). Padres' bullpen is a bit tired...maybe this will bode well for the Dodgers over the next 3 games.

Hey, did I mention I'm going tonight?

When a player is on the 40 man roster but not on the active roster (25-man), he is "optioned" to his minor league assignment. He can brought back and forth any number of times but it only counts as one option per year.

Now let's say that Andre Ethier never sees the minors again. He still has 2 options. There is also a clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement where if a player has 5 or more years of MLB service time, even if he has options, he must consent to going to the minors, the most famous recent example is Jason Giambi who reportedly refused to go to the minors last year when he was in a terrible slump.

28 Pretty sure it was for a 3rd catcher, either because he has big league expirence, or Ned didn't think Bellorin would clear waivers if he knocked him off the 40 man for some reason.

Years ago we traded for Dennis Cook in September and I even think Eddie Murray had a 2nd tour of duty in LA. It's my understanding they wouldn't have been eligible for post season play. But if they were put on the 40 man, the way you all put it, they should have been eligible. I know I'm missing something. The noggins a tad slow on Mondays.

24 - The Griddle has a link.

http://tinyurl.com/lx2mx

However, to take advantage of the K-Rod loophole, a player only has to be a member of the organization on Aug. 31 but not necessarily on the 40-man roster.

In either case, players acquired after 9/1 need not apply.

Clyde McCullough pinch hit once during the 1945 Series for the Cubs, but did not play at all during the regular season.

He struck out.

This one guy kept insisting the answer was 27. I tried to explain to him he was wrong. I was trying to be civil in explaining the correct answer. The guy was very close to punching me in the face.

If you want to get all theoretical about it, you can pitch a complete game without throwing even a single pitch.

Just stand still on the mound and ignore the umpire when he instructs you to pitch. After a while he'll call an automatic ball. Repeat four times, and after the batter walks to first, pick him off.

Then repeat until the game is over.

A pitcher's box score shows he pitched 0.1 innings. What's the maximum number of hits this pitcher can allow without having a run charged to him?

Single.
Single.
Single.
Ground ball hits the runner on third in fair territory, for a single. One out, bases loaded.
Ground ball hits the runner on third in fair territory, for a single. Two out, bases loaded.
Ground ball hits the runner on third in fair territory, for a single. Inning over.

0 R, 6 H, 3 LOB

It was a fastball.

Inn - 0.1
Hits - 7
Runs - 0

How?

Ne wpitcher enters the game with 2 outs and the bases empty. The pitcher gives up 3 singles to load the bases. The next batter hits a rocket which clips his own player. The batter gets credit for the hit but the runner is out. No runs score.

Same pitcher begins the next inning. The clod proceeds to give up 3 singles to load the bases. The manager is fed up and pulls him. The next pitcher gets out of the jam, allowing NO runs to score.

Pitcher "A" retires 1 batter, is replaced by pitcher "B".

Pitcher "B" retires 1 batter, the next batter reaches on an error, with two out.

Unless I am mistaken, pitcher "B" may now give up hits with impunity, scoring a theoretically infinite number of unearned runs until he either drops dead from exhaustion or retires.

They only topped 1000 once this weekend. (On one thread)

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08240BAL1983.htm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B07172CHN1988.htm

I remember watching those games (well, some of them at least) in Oakland with my late grandfather in his den when I was 11. When the sweep was completed I knew the Dodgers were going to win the World Series.

But then, you knew I would screw that up.

Good thing that family got the worst possible seats at Dodger Stadium.

"Before he got sick, obviously, Peter [Gammons] recorded a totally excellent, extremely literate album of blues and rock standards. Is life unfair or what that this great writer gets to have so much fun with a strat as well. He does a lot of Chuck Berry, some Zevon, some Clash, [edited] and a bunch of other stuff. And he gets Hatfield, George Thorogood, Little Feat's Paul Barrere, to play too, as well as a bunch of Red Sox, and Theo Epstein. The money goes to the Epsteins' Foundation To Be Named Later, which raises funds and awareness for non-profit agencies serving disadvantaged youth in the Greater Boston. The whole thing is kind of amazing. Read all about it" at the Rounder Records link below.

http://tinyurl.com/guvu8

Putting that aside ... I know some people got below .20.

Furcal, SS
Lofton, CF
Garciaparra, 1B
Drew, RF
Kent, 2B
Ethier, LF
Betemit, 3B
Martin, C
Billingsley, P

I don't like cheating like that, i've yet to take the test again 'cause i like my beer cold after a hard day of work. my best score (with out cheating) was .170 something.

I wonder when was the last time that happened? (and yes, that is ToasterSpeak for "Timmermann, time to get your butt in gear!")

The Ramon Martinezes were never teammates. Neither were the Greg Harrises or Jeff D'Amicos. Greg Olson and Gregg Olson missed being teammates by one year, but that extra G would have rendered them ineligible anyway.

I'll be in attendance for the Woody Williams-Brad Penny game on Wed.

Saito has to be the unsung hero from all our rooks no? but Ethier & Martin play everyday.

Saito came from nowhere so to speak and you might think he would have trouble but so far so good. One thing and I have nothing to base this on except for what I hear about pitching in Japan, I am guessing that he is throwing less here than in Japan so as long as he gets some rest, he should be fine.

I would not be surprised if Broxton gets the call in a save situation tonight though.

ps I have three beers in my little bellie.

The lefty was Robert Mitchell Jones.
The righty was Robert Joseph Jones.

They were both on the Padres in 2002.

I almost started pumping my fist before I realized it's not 1984 and he doesn't pitch for us anymore.

111 - Everybody who wants to see Derek Lowe close a game this year, raise your hand...

1. Dick Egan
2. Bill Hart
3. Jim Hickman
4. Mike Marshall
5. Mike McCormick (neither of them were the Cy Young award winner)
6. Jack Ryan
7. Dick Schofield
8. Reggie Williams

And of course....

9. Mike Ramsey

http://tinyurl.com/ntqfm

There are two Luis Gonzalezes in the majors now (Arizona and Colorado).

"Early in his career, he was delivered as "the player to be named later" in a trade between the Giants and the Cardinals. Between the time of the initial trade and his delivery, he changed his name from Jose Uribe Gonzalez (Gonzalez is his mother's name) to just Jose Uribe (Uribe is his father's name) because, as he put it, "There are too many Gonzalezes in baseball!". Thus he really was "named later"."

Well he was on his contract year no?

There have been two Dolly Grays, and two Heinie Muellers.

There have been four Bob Millers.
There have been four Dave Roberts, all but one has played for the Padres.

In 1949, Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers and Jack Robinson played for the Red Sox.
Presumably no one got those two gentlemen confused.

He is also the only major leaguer to be named Wilkin.

So, he just tried harder...?

i would of been an o.g. if i'd play MLB ball, talking about my first name ofcourse.

my innocent mind likes to think that way.

But doesn't your innocent mind wonder why he doesn't try hard all the time...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjtPkDdvkBU

Beware. High cringe, high laughter.

big pay day.

Those cases might be like all the Cy Youngs and Buck Freemans, where the players that follow were all nicknamed in honor of the first guy.

i think he dislocated his leg. funny none the less.

Among legitimate NL contenders right now, it'd be hard to find a better top of the rotation than Brad Penny, Derek Lowe and Greg Maddux. Does that make the Dodgers the new front-runners in the Senior Circuit? You have another candidate? Unless the Mets get healthy, and quick, this L.A. team will be hard to keep out of the World Series.

I'm not going to a birthday party of either of Jon's kids if that's how he serves cake.

Sounds to me like the Dodgers are the Flavor of the Week. That and $1.25 gets you a ride on the Gold Line.

After you get off the Gold Line, you will then think to yourself, "Somebody thought that this was a good idea?"

We never really had a good metaphor for Lugo until now.

Thanks to Jon for all his hard work here and for keeping me connected to the Dodgers while I've been stranded here in Yankeeland.

Better call my old man now, who is a Red Sox fan. May need to put him on suicide watch!

That guy was from Michigan. The Dodgers Mueller was from the St. Louis area.

That sounds exactly like Earl Weaver talking about Terry Crowley.

(And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to listen to this...
http://www.fugly.com/audio/610/Earl_Weaver_Tirade.html

... but definitely not at work.)

QB is the least of my concerns. when your #1 reciever is probably going to jail for like his 3rd DUI and your first round stud LB injures his knee and is out for the rest of the season, I don't have time to worry about a QB that has completed over 60% of his passes the last 11 years straight.

Oh, and our starting runningback is named Chester.....CHESTER!!!!

He wears #8.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1792304

Also to highlight these sections:

"As a (high school) senior in the 1998 tournament, Matsuzaka stunned the nation by delivering a 250-pitch 17-inning complete game. A few days later, he topped himself by tossing a no-hitter in the final to take the championship."

"...unless Seibu offers him up (to MLB) through the posting system, under league rules he will have to wait until after his tenth season of play in Japan. It remains to be seen whether his golden right arm will hold up that long after the extraordinarily heavy workload it has seen in both high school and the Japanese League."

Seibu might offer him up earlier if the price is right.

Even if so, is the bidding going to be for a 26 year old with a 35 year old arm?

In the ninth of the fourth straight game he pitched, he struck out 13 and was topping 90 mph on the radar gun in the ninth inning.

WOW, i'm sure MLB teams will take that into consideration.

And it's not like the Japanese would be ever be prone to corruption in business ...

Reports of Tim Stauffer being brought up to pitch tonight.

Of course this could change, good news that the pitching coach for that AFL team is Kenny Howell from the Vegas team so I am sure that the Dodgers will be paying close attention to Elbert's and the other Dodger pitcher's usage.

our chances seem good tonight peeps

Career 3 6 5.33 15 14 0 0 0 0 81.0 92 50 48 10 29 49

if he has a great work ethic you probably have to put that into consideration, but still that's a bunch of pitches for a guy.

I don't know, maybe if my schedule permits it. I think I might be taking 19 units this semester so its going to be pretty busy if I do decide to keep all my current classes.

Brian Akin
Scott Elbert
Casey Hoorelbeke
Danny Muegge
A.J. Ellis
Chin-Lung Hu
Anthony Raglani

A pretty unimpressive collection, IMO.

i'm pretty sure MLB.COM includes the AFL league t.v. package no? i'm gonna subscribe just to see Scott Elbert pitch, dose anybody know when it starts? (AFL)

The AFL is an extreme hitters league (for those that don't know), so it will be interesting to see how Elbert performs there.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=gyroball

This appears at bottom:

"Then there is Japanese national team pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada, who was surprised to hear that anyone had not heard of the gyroball in America. It definitely does exist, he declared confidently, although he admitted that he had never seen it thrown.

"Asked how he could be so sure it existed in that case he replied, that well, he had seen it in comic books, and everyone throws it in the comic books!"

Anyone know the Japanese characters for LOL?

seriously, they should do a better job of fixing that stuff.

save Elbert.

Another thing that I noticed during Lowe's down time in July was the fact that he did not seem to throw a lot of sinkers, now and for the last 4 starts, he started to again, its weird how players get away from something and then go back to it.

Lowe said something about Russ and Andre, that he believes these guys are legit because the time you have this many at bats, pitchers know what to exploit. Again, there are scores of players who did well there first year and regressed so we will have to wait and see but it is good sign that those two really have not had a real prolonged slump like some of the other rookies have gone through.

His stuff is off the charts, and so is his command. At least that's what I saw in the WBC, and a youtube video. That's why I'd really want Matsuzaka.

When I talked to some American players who had faced him in Japan when I was there in 2003, they said they actually liked facing him because he pitched in more of an American style. He doesn't nibble around the corners like 95% of Japanese pitchers.

I don't know how they could take a chance with something so serious that just a couple weeks ago had Park receiving a blood transfusion after suffering internal bleeding.

Hm... :)

It all sounded very Gothic.

I'm thinking I'm gonna try it though.

Don't know how Lugo feels but probably unpleasant. I mean, here are the numbers:

Lugo:
OBP SLG AVG
LAD .317 .296 .241
TBDR .373 .498 .308

Betemit:

LAD .321 .471 .257
AB .344 .497 .281

When some here spoke of regressing, we can see just who is regressing now that Betemit's playing everyday. And he cannot otherwise hit left-handed pitching, so what happens if the Dodgers face Johnson, Santana or Buehrle in the World Series? Any team can otherwise get a very nearly automatic out or remove Betemit from the game by simply bringing in that left-handed reliever with men on base in the late innings.

And Vin and some others wonder why the Dodger's were so lucky to latch onto the Second Coming. To answer Vin and those others, Betemit was never going to take Chipper's place, he's apparently not better than Marcus Giles nor will he be in the forseeable future, and Furcal left, which left the door wide open for him, but instead, the Braves went out and got Edgar "I made 30 errors playing short for the Bosox last year" Renteria. What does that say? And Betemit had been in the Braves organization his entire career, yes? So if anyone knew the player he was capable of becoming it was the Braves, yes? And they signed him at how old again? Did the Braves know something that Ned & Grady didn't? And for a more complete perspective, Giles is arbitration eligible this year, and the word on the street in Braves country is that the Braves might simply let Giles go and have Aybar take over at second. And that, not because because he can hit righties better than Betemit, as he can't, but he can hit lefties at something better than less than a buck. Oh, sorry, one more. For those who said, well, he .240 against lefties on the Braves this year. Yeah, he did. Now go over to the MLB website and go team by team. Betemit either went 1.000 or 0.000, or very nearly so. It was either feast or famine, and he starved against lefties far more than he ate. I will let someone else determine the ERA of the lefties that he did feast against.

And here's why Lugo, at least if the Dodgers would like to win the Series this year:

Yankees [6 games]:

Tropicana Field .385 .333 .333
Yankee Stadium .385 .273 .273
Totals .385 .304 .304

Chisox [3 games]:

Tropicana .308 .385 .308

Detroit [4 games]:

Comerica .368 .529 .294

Boston [8 games]:

Fenway Park .333 .412 .294
Tropicana .389 .533 .267

And no more American League jokes, since the NL is clearly the inferior league, since, among other items, of all NL teams, only the CR and the SFG have a winning record in interleague play.

So, just when I was hoping that we might put thirty some years of futility behind us, I suppose that I stand corrected. Oh, and I don't count '89, since in addition to anything that anyone else might have done, that team doesn't win without Orel that year, and for that year, there was no Orel-substitute [as it were].

In the meantime, for those who study such things, well, based on some BP/Pecota figures, Lugo is supposed to rate as the 5th best shortstop in baseball. He's riding our bench in favor of a guy who can't hit lefthanders and so will never be an everyday player, at least for a team that considers futility a failure.

And for a final word, never ever take a player's performance against your team as being indicative of anything more or other than how he hits against you:

Dodger Stadium .429 .857 .429
Turner Field 1.000 1.000 1.000

So, in 9 AB's versus the LAD, Betemit went:

.556 .889 .556

Lugo will otherwise, well, there are no other comparable shortstops in this year's free agent market, and so while he won't he get Furcal money [only the Dodgers are that stupid], he will get more than he should, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-23 million over 4 years. BP says he's worth 17 million over 4 years. So call the extra the "I'm the only decent thing" available premium. And as I remarked a while back, he prefers shortstop, but given his arm strength and tendency to be erratic at times, second base is a much better fit. And, again, that's why some other good teams, the Red Sox, the Mets, etc., all wanted to trade for him this year and have him play second base. The problem they each had was one does not get to talk with the other team's players. If they had been able to do so, well, when Lugo was negotiating with the TBDR, he kept coming back to the matter of whether the TBDR truly wanted to win. So that would have been the hook. You can either play short for a long-term loser like the TBDR, or you can play second for a winner. I was hoping that management here would have the smarts to do so, but as I said, I suppose that I now stand corrected.

For one last word re regression, well, our friends at BP expected Lugo to regress after his 2005 season, which was well above their prediction. Not only did he not regress this year, his .295 BA was up to .308, his .362 OBP was up to .373, and his .403 SLG was up to .498. According to fans of the TBDR, the explanation for the absence of the regression is simply that, like Koufax, Lugo found it, and he found in the latter half of the 2004 season and hasn't been the same player since. I'll will otherwise leave it to the numbers people to notify BP that statistics don't apply so well to human future performance, given that machines and other things mechanical cannot improve themselves on a permament basis while humans can. Well, tell them that, and also that only the fool thinks that human improvement constitutes a "statistical anomaly."

And, hey, if the "we don't know how to build a long-term winner" Dodgers management wants to get bench and then get rid of a guy who was outperforming Betemit in a league with superior pitching, and that with the guy having to face all pitchers while Betemit far more often than not sat against your more sinister pitchers, well, I suppose that it's their money and their tradition, so if they want to waste and trash the same, so be it.