how odd is that?

that didn't come out right, sorry about that.

Yep, Pierre had an assist. Unfortunately not at home, but we'll take it. The Dodgers did a good job directing him to throw to third, smart play.

sure they do. i have it. in iCal, go to Calendar --> subscribe, and put in this URL:

webcal://ical.mac.com/ical/Dodgers.ics

And with another run scoring because of the hitting of old friend Milton Bradley, I'm going to start preparing for my night out.

See y'all tomorrow, one day closer to the Andy LaRoche regime.

yes, but you have to look at the bottom right hand corner.

But hey, we know not to give up on these games.

right over there Blue in Beantown :o)

Tom Cruise you now have company.

I don't know how old you are, but I'll make sure of it.

3-3 in the 9th.

I'm very upset with the Juan Pierre signing....I may be alone on this, but it was a bad move...

COL 3-15-1
ARI 3-3-1

AJ Ellis has decided he really wants to be our 3rd catcher. In August, he's hitting .288/.424/.550 in 80 ABs. The power won't last (he's had 5 homers in August in 80 ABs, in his previous 800 minor league ABs, he had 6), but the patience is legitimate. He's nothing more than minor league depth (he's 26, although this is really his first full year as a starter), but he could be interesting as a backup, due to the OBP. But I'm sure whatever PVL value that Moeller has will get him promoted.

Has an announcement already been made?
-yours in ignorance,
-fp

That makes me smile, I can't wait to see him up here helping the big club.

It wasn't an error because he didn't come anywhere near touching the ball.

And from what I can see, it's not won yet. Unless Meloan/Hull come in for the save (and if they're being promoted tomorrow, they may not), this game is very much not over yet.

believe me your not alone.

I want Trevor Hoffman to hit Hillenbrand in that part of the leg were it really really hurts.

Now Shea gets a hit. Hurry up Adam. I can't watch this guy any more.

"The official scorer shall charge an outfielder with an error if such outfielder allows a fly ball to drop to the ground if, in the official scorer's judgment, an outfielder at that position making ordinary effort would have caught such fly ball."

Also, the Padres were the home team so they wanted to give out a hit.

1 more out...let's do something!!!

well at least we got that going for us.

Does he make it in that easily?

Sigh I better go do stuff now, be productive, to make up for the 2 hours+ of my life I just wasted watching that yuck.

Night all!

Yes I think Hoffman is a pretty definite Hall of Famer. Maybe 2nd yera instead of first ballot, but he seems like a shoo-in

A little leaguer would have caught such a fly ball.

My girlfriend loves Damon's.

I tend to spend a lot of time in a room with a lot of porcelain in it after I go there.

Furthermore:

"The official scorer shall not score mental mistakes or misjudgments as errors unless a specific rule prescribes otherwise."

In my opinion the dude is a special reliever, cinch HOF, same with Mariano Rivera.

I agree, but for whatever reason outfielders don't get errors for balls they misjudge by a mile.

And why isn't Rich Gossage in the Hall of Fame.

Hoffman may make the Hall of Fame, but it won't be the first time out. He has no Cy Young Awards or MVPs and has not been particularly special in the postseason.

It's just not an error because official scorers have decided it's not an error.

I can't come up with a better explanation.

Dodgers are 14-20 at Petco Park (.412), and 21-32 (.396) in San Diego since 2002.

I reiterate: He should have been playing third base for us the past few days. I don't care how close it is to September 1, there's no excuse for playing a Shea Hillenbrand at third base when you have a guy who's twice as good playing in AAA. He was clearly well enough to play in the minors. That performance shouldn't have been wasted in a Triple A league. Tonight's game might have gone very differently if you subtracted Hillenbrand and added LaRoche.

The only game of those 8 Peavy starts won by the Dodgers was, of course, the 4+1 game.

LaRoche can't call himself up!

Salmonella bacteria.

Or is that your term for the majors?

2005: .305/.374/.553
2006: .315/.410/.514
2007: .310/.399/.594

He has legit power, and very good plate discipline. He is everything this lineup needs, and he'll cost $12-$13m less than Beltre, per year, for the next three years.

If not, I agree. We should not call up "la rouche". But this Andy LaRoche kid is pretty darn good.

Anything to denigrate the young players, right, Frip?

Of the seven players who have started at third base for the Dodgers this year, LaRoche has the best on-base percentage by a country mile. This while playing with an injured labrum.

And then there's this:
"That first swing was all nerves, no thought. Does Kemp think at all?"

If any player other than Kemp swings and misses at that pitch, nobody says a word. But Kemp does it, and all of a sudden he's a mental midget who's incapable of forming a thought. As if you have the first clue about it. How come every time Kemp misses a pitch, all of a sudden everybody's a mind reader and a psychiatric expert? How come when Kemp misses a pitch, it's a mental mistake and not a physical one, as it is with Jeff Kent or whoever? Why the double standard? How come people are always hooting and pointing whenever Kemp misses a breaking ball or a changeup, and yet we don't hear a peep on the frequent occasions when he murders breaking balls and changeups?

Why go out of your way to pick on the guy who's far and away the best hitter on the team? Why not pick on the guys who actually help lose ballgames?

But, LaRoche has done nothing to disprove the notion that he will be an effective, if not very good major league 3rd baseman.

PRIME HD is only broadcasted on certain nights. You can tell by looking on the Dodgers schedule on the website. It will say PRIME HD. I have only seen it broadcasted this way a few times,versus the Angels broadcast, which is in HD quite a lot.

This is in response to the other thread on Kent going home on Martin's single. I think the play was called before the hit was even made. When Martin was on second base, he responded to the base coach's signal with a two hand, one out acknowledgment. When I played ball in High School, the base coach would hold up one hand with the number of outs on it to say you are only going to third on a ball hit through the left side and two hands to say you are going home on a single through the left side. I think Russell got the same signal when he was on second, so that is probably why Donnelly was not signaling anything, since the signal had already been given prior to the pitch.

I'm encouraged, so long as we get Hillenbrand kicked to the curb as soon as possible. I want to see what this LaRoche guy is all about :)

It's also nice to see the majority of the dead weight has been excised from the lineup lately.

kgibson, don't you have a bridge to go to?

Eric, I feel your pain. Seriously. In frustration I think you may be blowing things up to be bigger than they are.

I will bet a decent amount of money LaRoche can beat that OPS+ if he gets 300 PA next season, enough to offset any defensive disadvantage.

Oh, I think it was broadcasted on that channel by mistake then. It was not listed to be in HD, so I think the mistake happened there. SD signal broadcasted on HD channel

ESPN relapse, sorry buddy. I didn't mean to pull a Rule 2.

For all the stuff people talk on here about dumb announcers, there's so much emphasis placed on small sample size and batting average by a lot of posters.

Seriously, LaRoche is our best hitting prospect by a country mile, and there seems to be a lot of effort to denigrate his achievements.

SS Furcal
CF The Player
RF Ethier
2B Kent
LF Gonzalez
C Martin
1B Loney
3B LaRoche
P Lowe

I think Kemp will sit against Peavy. He is, after all, inconsistent. And he hasn't proven himself. And he has halitosis.

199 In the end, there can only be one Eric. Oh wait, I have no chance. Never mind!

Sure Eric, put LaRoche in the 8th spot so he can rack up some more of that cheap OBP.

You want the fantasy version? Okay.

SS Furcal
C Martin
RF Ethier
2B Kent
CF Kemp
1B Loney
3B LaRoche
LF Gonzalez
P Lowe

Abreu, LaRoche, Young, Meloan, Hull, Houlton, Stults (on Sept 4) and Moeller. (Poor Ken Huckaby!)

That might be it. What do I get if I win?

Besides the pleasure of getting to see some of these guys play.

Also, you can't spell Gibson without Bison.

One day, when I run for office, I'm going to use that slogan. And lose 77% to 23%. The race would be called with 1% of the precintcs reporting.

Homegrown's all right with me
Homegrown is the way it should be
Homegrown is a good thing
Plant that bell and let it ring!

SS Hu
C Martin
RF Ethier
CF Kemp
1B Loney
3B LaRoche
LF Young
2B Abreu
P Billingsley

I wonder who waits until Monday. Maybe Houlton stays till the end of the 51s season?

Grrr.

Roster expansion day is kinda like Christmas. Or a birthday.

``I really have no idea,'' Wolf said. ``I'm in unchartered waters.''

My initial guess would have been to see who's not in the Vegas game today, and who's not in the Inland Empire game (where the Vegas replacements would likely come from, like Hoffmann and Dunlap last year). Hull and Meloan were both absent today, despite the fact there was a save situation, and extra innings. No Moeller or Hu either. However, the Inland Empire game was rained out, and I don't think a lineup was ever posted.

Anything to throw Peavy off his game.

Three guys actually did better than "444," though.

Shawn Green 2002-05-23 6667
Mike Marshall 1987-06-07 5445
Steve Garvey 1977-08-28 5555

Cent #1: Despite the walks, LaRoche's plate discipline showed room for improvement during his mid-season callup. He consistently looked foolish against curveballs. Batting 8th, however, he didn't have to face many curveballs, so this weakness was masked.

Cent #2: The extra development time in the minors allows the Dodgers to stop his arbitration clock. I have heard the adage that 'tis better to bring a player up too soon than to cut him too late. I'm not sure I agree from a long-term perspective.

I definitely hope they bring him up tomorrow, though. I'll be looking forward to reading Roster Thoughts here tomorrow (seems as though Roster Thoughts has persisted throughout the season).

Callups: The Dodgers, who protect roster move information as if a leak would jeopardize homeland security, would not reveal which players would be promoted Saturday when rosters expand. Candidates included Andy LaRoche, Tony Abreu, Delwyn Young, John Meloan, Eric Hull, and D.J. Houlton from Triple-A Las Vegas. They also are likely to bring up a catcher, either Ken Huckaby or Chad Moeller.

Stop scratching the furniture!

"It's really unfortunate," Wolf said. "But I went into this year understanding the risks. I went to L.A. wanting to play for the Dodgers. I took that gamble and I lost. But I'd do it again."

*I'm assuming.

http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/baseball/dodgers/

In the case of Meloan, FINALLY!

No more Hillebrand, no more Shea
Andy LaRoche is on the way!
No more K's with RISP
A star's what Andy's going to be!

(The heat is getting to me.)

The Meloan callup will be news to the Press-Telegram's Bob Keissler, who writes in tomorrow's paper that "the system's five best pitching prospects - Scott Elbert, Clayton Kershaw, Jonathan Meloan, Greg Miller and Justin Orenduff - aren't likely to grace a 25-man roster before 2009."

Those are clearly not the five best pitching prospects, but whatever.

i think he just looked at a BA top 30 list going into the season without doing any actual researching.