After that (he had 61 pitches at that point), he went on to only throw 44 pitches in 4 innings of work to take him to 105 after 7. And he was pitching really well. I thought after the Dirtbags had 2 on and the tying run at the plate, they would take out Murphy but all he did was blow two hitters away on strikeouts.

In the 9th he gave up a long flyball triple (Blair Field in 410, I think, to dead center with a 10 foot wall, with two down but then he got the last out on a grounder to third.

I do think that Tampa Bay is very happy that Vandy is done so Price has finished this season. But I don't think the once a week starts bother me as much as what happens when they get to the College World Series and guys start pitching more innings and on short rest.

He believed the same re pitchers, though he didn't care about them as much as he did horses.

Or will he get the Barbaro treatment?

Bonus correction, complete the following (which is the next correction in the paper): "A May 25 Style review of 'Once' incorrectly marked actor Glen Hansard's feature debut. He made his debut in 1991's ____ ."

My brother is going to Japan this summer and would like to see a baseball game while he's there. Do you have any insight or recommendations that I could pass along to him? He's talked about seeing the Tigers, Dragons, All-Stars, or Giants but isn't a huge sports fan and doesn't know much about the league over there.

Any comment you have would be much appreciated!

The Yokohama BayStars (I think that's who you mean) are always easy to get tickets for. Watch out for rainouts with both Hanshin and Yokohama.

What part of Japan is going to?

...and Juan with about the least exciting start possible.

Vin. Don't ever leave.

I've passed along your comments to him. Thanks!

the word "less" seems to be waging war on "fewer". i feel like nobody uses them correctly anymore, and all i ever hear is "less this" and "less that". tsk, tsk.

Martin
Abreu
Betemit
Furcal
Billingsley
Broxton
Hendrickson
Kuo

Etanislao is swinging at anything with in radar distance.

"Chica" is often used to refer to size in Spanish.

are you typing & driving?

Too bad we can't swap Gonzo's with them. I'd toss in a Nomar to boot.

Although the act of pitching a baseball repeatedly is exceedingly stressful, doctors now generally accept that it is not the act itself that causes injury nearly so much as pitching while fatigued. A study by the American Sports Medicine Institute shows that pitchers between the ages of 16 and 20 who often throw with arm fatigue are 36 times more likely to be seriously injured than those who do not. In 20 years of research for the institute, Fleisig calls the fatigue factor "the single strongest statistical finding" he has ever encountered. Fatigue can cause a pitcher to overthrow and to alter his mechanics to compensate for the loss in power. This is why recovering from injuries is so precarious, because a pitcher often tries to find an arm slot in his delivery that doesn't hurt, which in turn leads to using joints and muscles in new and unfamiliar ways. And it's why pitching while hurt, which Wood has been doing throughout his career, may be the most devastating thing you can do.

The tried-and-true method of preventing young pitchers from throwing when they are fatigued has been to keep them on strict pitch counts in the minor leagues — 100 pitches per game has become something of an industry standard. But there is an intriguing school of thought emerging that holds that one of the problems with today's young pitchers is that they do not throw enough in the minors before getting called up. As the thinking goes, pitch counts prevent young pitchers from learning to pitch while tired, to pace themselves during a game, to get out of jams without simply handing the ball to the bullpen. "We condition [young pitchers] to develop pitches," says Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Famer who owns two of the Houston Astros' minor-league clubs. "We condition them to pitch a certain number of innings. I don't know if we do a real good job of conditioning them to compete. Let them have a long inning and get out of it." Ryan says that when he pitched, he never wanted to put the game in anyone else's hands. "When you talk about that, they look at you like you're from another planet."

Ferguson Jenkins, a Cubs Hall of Fame pitcher who spent only one month on the disabled list in his 19-year career, adds that young pitchers are too coddled. "They don't let them pitch enough in the minors [so that] they know how to counteract all the different pressures they have in the major leagues."

Ryan and Jenkins's theory is supported by the experiences of still-active pitchers who started professionally in their late teens. The San Diego Padres' Greg Maddux threw for 491 1/3 innings before his first full season in the majors at 21. He has thrown for 200 innings or more in 18 seasons and possesses perhaps the single most impressive statistic in baseball history: he has been on the disabled list only once in his 22-year career. The New York Mets' Tom Glavine, also drafted out of high school, threw for 536 2 / 3 innings before his first full big-league season at 22, and is now in his 21st season. He has thrown 200 innings or more in 13 of them.

Maddux and Glavine are command-and-location pitchers, but such heralded fireballers as Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling also spent appreciable time in the minors learning their craft. Johnson pitched 418 1/3 innings before his first lengthy season in the majors when he was 25. Schilling pitched 701 2 / 3 innings before his first sustained call-up at 23. Together they have lasted 38 seasons. Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Boston Red Sox import from Japan, threw 588 innings before he was 21, following the Japanese custom of pitching lots of early-career innings.

These apprenticeships reinforced a crucial aspect of a pitcher's mechanics, which is delivering the ball the same way every time. Significant minor-league experience also teaches young pitchers that what they are trying to perfect is a complex tango of command and location and changing speeds, not some personal duel with the radar gun.

The article is by Buzz Bissinger, who wrote "Friday Night Lights."

Find it here: http://tinyurl.com/27ll2d

Wow. Isn't 167 like a 16 inning game for Maddux?

the dodgers tonight have WASTED three at bats with RISP...that does not bode well for a win

so, yeah, pretty awful.

---
Another interesting note in that Dodgers.com notes column:
"The next time the need arises for another bullpen arm, it might be Double-A right-hander John Meloan. He impressed Little during Spring Training and has done nothing at Jacksonville to diminish his potential. He's 5-2 with a 2.57 ERA, 38 strikeouts and 11 walks in 28 innings, and opponents are batting .158 against him."

but there is good news . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVzL6jD6jak

Third Inning:
Juan Pierre Strike (looking), J Pierre fouled out to third

Fifth Inning:
Juan Pierre Ball, J Pierre popped out to second

I posted a question to Tony Jackson on his blog about Elbert's condition, he says he's going to call DeJon Watson tomorrow to get an update.

so, yeah, pretty awful.

that's what really kills me about him, but like he said that's his game & he ain't gonna change it. 4 more years of that. i'm kind of depressed after typing that.

Ours are batting:
.286
.313
.274
.325

I wish Kemp was the heir apparent in center...too bad he has to wait 5 more years :(

But it had a 16" pFX.

Can I borrow some money Carl Pavano?
(Oh come on, it's not like he earned it.)

You don't need to go to Pavano; stick with the Dodgers. You can ask Dreifort.

To some degree, but the stronger message is "don't baby young pitchers." It seems to be arguing for a minor league career designed for pitchers to build up stamina and rote muscle memory.

Maybe it comes down to when you want your pitchers to break down. It would seem like if you made pitchers throw 140 pitches per start in the minors, some will break down and that will be that. The way things are done now, a certain percentage of young pitchers come up at a young age, pitch impressively and then break down.

So it depends on relative risk vs. reward. Another major point of the article is the violence pitching does to a pitcher's shoulder and elbow. The force pulling the shoulder on each pitch is equal to the pitcher's weight. It's as if somebody of equal strength and weight was yanking your arm 100+ times per start.

Take a pitch Ethier.

Wouldn't you?

Sigh

& all year long he was the rally killer.

If I'm Little, I immediately take him out of the game. Of course, that should have happened in April.

bad news - [rule 8]

Seanez in a scoreless tie?

That's the "it's not you, it's me" speech. Except we should just tell him "No, it's definitely you."

And nice work by Seanez. Uno-Dos-Tres.

Schmidt pitched well, the movement on his pitches was sharp and his velocity was decent. He only gave up an infield single.

That's his game! My favorite quote this spring was when he said that while it's true he doesn't get a lot of walks, "It's not like I go up there hacking."

He and I must ascribe to different definitions of "hacking."

Pierre's lone positive contribution lies on the basepaths. His skills reek "pinch hitter", yet he's getting paid about as much as a #2 starter/cleanup hitter.

Colletti agrees.

I think Scully is getting wise to Pierre. He didn't seem to like it that Pierre never carries the ball to the infield when he makes the last out in the field. "He always throws it to somebody else."

Maybe 8 years ago. This is the same market that gave Jeff Suppan a $40 million contract over 4 yrs; #2 starter range is apparently now in 8 figure range for free agents. As for cleanup hitters, that's the Carlos Lee price range.

professional hitter.

a walk here & there wouldn't hurt either.

249- he got an enormous jump off of Seanez

Poop.

Need another hint? His last name rhymes with "Hee-aire."

very true compadre

if there was any justice in the dodger world he'd be hitting the bench in favor of a pinch hitter.

the identical BA and OBP jumps right out at you.

The Dodgers lost to St. Louis, 5-1.

http://tinyurl.com/2pdhqv

Since 1957:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/Zs5C

Have a good night guys.

Bad break with Russell falling down on that play, looked like the throw was heading into second anyway. 1st and 3rd and one out, maybe a different AB by Betemit.

Frustrating, but you move on. Naive or not, I have confidence they can at least split the next two. Still, sure would like to see Kemp in this series rather than youknowwho.

Night all. Don't get too bummed out here...

there are reason to be hopeful, you just have to look . . . hard . . . with a magnifying glass.

I suppose the consolation there is, at least we're not Baltimore fans.

true, the big picture looks great for us now that Schmidt is back, we still gotta see how his shoulder feels tomorrow though.

Okay, I'm definitely out. Night.

they look pretty evenly matched to me.

I wish it was true . . but the pythageorean formula states otherwise

The Giants and D-backs pitching is nearly on a level with the Pads and Dodgers, but they also aren't good hitting teams. But they're better hitting teams than the Pads.

sorry for the negativity . . but being a Dodger fan comes with the territory

In the NL, there is only one NL West team in the top 5 for pitching and the top 5 for hitting -- The Dodgers.

Then there's this situation tonight where we have a man in scoring position with two outs in a scoreless game. The opposing pitcher has already thrown +115 pitches and our proud center fielder swings at the 1st pitch and routinely grounds to 1st.

Grady Little grabs a hold of Pierre's shoulders in the dugout and says,"You stubborn, stupid, silly man!"

1) Andre Ethier. I like Ethier, but he displated a rather stunning degree of stupidity in his 7th inning at-bat. You have Russell Martin on first, which means an automatic runner in scoring position against Chris Young -- in a game in which both teams have had extreme difficulty getting runners in scoring position. Not a single baserunner has been thrown out trying to steal against Young all year. So Martin gets two terrific jumps and what does Ethier do? He fouls off two pitches, including one way out of the strike zone, to prevent Martin from getting to second base. Therefore, instead of scoring easily on Abreu's single, Martin slips rounding second and is thrown out.

2) Rudy Seanez. His faceoff against Russell Branyan was one of the worst pitched at-bats by a Dodger pitcher all year. After getting Branyan in an 0-2 hole, he should have almost an automatic K against the strikeout prone Branyan. Instead, his next three pitches consist of 1. A fastball that bounces to the plate, 2. A hanging slider which by all rights should have been hit for a home run, and 3. A pitch way inside that hits Branyan and puts him on first, from where he eventually scores the winning run.

This was a really frustrating loss, especially given the fact that we'd still be playing if not for the two knuckleheaded moves above.

I dont know if I would blame Ethier bc he did have two hits . . although that sure was a frustrating at bat . . its like he didnt understand the situation . . ahead 2-1 especially . . . he could have taken 3 pitches

Good Lord are those red D-Backs uniforms ugly. Randy Johnson looks like a giant blood clot.

And I've been really disappointed with Ethier's approach this season. He's fully infected by the Garciapierres Virus.

The count on him when he flied out was 2 balls and 1 strike.

342 "Don't you think Ethier was given a hit-and-run sign?"

No, I don't, since Martin didn't look back. If it was a hit and run, it was still a really dumb move -- just transfer the blame from Ethier to Little. When somebody is essentially giving you a free base, especially such an important base in a scoreless tie, you take it.

I looked at the pitch by pitch on espn.com, it says it was 2-1 as well. I just don't recall it that way.