It’s Capuano v. Kelly and the devil take the hindmost!
Maybe more later. There’s a medical problem today which may entail a trip downtown, so I thought I’d put this up before anything later kept me from doing so.
Lineup:
Punto, N, 2B
Ethier, A, RF
Kemp, M, CF
Gonzalez, A, 1B
Ramirez, H, SS
Victorino, S, LF
Cruz, L, 3B
Ellis, A, C
Capuano, C, P
Oh, by the way, the Reds beat the Brewers in the ninth with a walkoff triple after a home run tied the game 1 – 1 and a single followed that. That leaves the Brewers 1/2 game back of the Dodgers and 4 back of the Cardinals for wild card #2.
1) Guess the dodgers.com story Wednesday prematurely saying the Dodgers had clinched their second straight series worked out well. Maybe this should be tried again, as in “Dodgers sweep last 6 games”…
2) Maybe the Dodgers should look into making Luis Cruz Sr. a special consultant hitting coach…discounting the unorthodox stance he had and Jr. has, Sr. hit well in the Mexican league for years. He probably knows hitting well beyond just a stance. Couldn’t hurt.
Story on team site today says he saw Jr. in person for the first time this year Wednesday. Jr. responded by donning the golden sombrero. After the game Sr. said: “What? You’re trying to HR every time?” Jr. said that was exactly right; he was trying to do too much. Probably what entire team has tried to do since the trade…hit a 5-run homer every AB.
3) And Ned sed…http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120927&content_id=39134766&vkey=news_la&c_id=la
Dodgers are guaranteed a non-losing season! To be honest, I wondered if they would be able to achieve that in recent weeks.
Didn’t Kasten say this was a .500 team? Of course, that was before the Big Spending, so the rest is icing? Regardless of what happens with the Cards, I’d love to end the season with the offense clicking and hitting — that would fuel high hopes for ’13 . . . especially if Lilly and Billz return to form!
Let’s keep going!
What happened? Everybody take the night off?
I couldn’t post! So frustrating. Kept going blank on me. Thank goodness we won!
Only works if I am replying. Anyone else having problems posting?
I now can’t post at work with the new Discus, it blocks me. I was following the game at work however. I am now on 2 weeks school holidays, so that is good
Working (day for me).
I’m still watching the game but since no one is here I’m closing this site
I was following too, but could use Discus from work today
Come on Luis
Nice Paco!! thought there was 3 outs though
Nice game Chris
Nice Gonzo!!
Nice Matty
Hey, KT, where is everybody?
who knows…Not liking this much…I have to spend time at MSTI to keep sane
Come on Luis break this one open
Gywnn griping about Kemp coming off the bag and not being called out
Nice hit Matty!! Come on Hanley
didn’t like the fact that Dre slowed down tonight…He usually runs hard…hopefully he’s not hurting
Cruz now 2-for-2 . . . in the No. 7 hole. Victorino now hitting .224 as a Dodgers, with an OBP below .300. The best thing about him is he is not signed after this season.
There you go AJ!!
There you go Luis
Come on AJ
Come on Luis
Nice play Nick
Nick on Again!
Nice DP!!
Casey Kelly went from the Red Sox to the Padres in the Adrian Gonzalez trade.
Update in original post. And why am I stuck with HS football on Prime Ticket today? Snarl!
KCAL try FSSD
Not on Time Warner Oceanic Cable on Oahu, KT. 😉
Come on AJ
Luis!!
He should be batting 2nd, not 7th.
2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th
Nice Nick
Come on Dre
I’d like tonight’s lineup a lot more if Cruz were moved up, Ethier down (or to the bench) and Victorino not in it.
RA Dickey gets #20. First knuckleballer to do so since Joe Niekro in 1980.
Take care, Link.
One more stats post and maybe I’ll have it out of my system. Those for the old friend who catches for the Yankees–
Martin, R NYY 126 398 47 82 16 0 19 49 52 86 6 1 .206 .309 .389 .698
Is 5th on NYY with the 19 HR. He hits in AL East parks, but that’s as many as Ethier has and just one behind Kemp. But his .206/.309/.389 personifies the pits.
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=431145
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HR envy dept.– ahead of Martin in the Yankee dinger derby are: Granderson, 40; Cano, 30; Swisher, 24; and Teixeira, 23 . TEN Yankees have 14 or more.
Less-than-fondly remembered old acquaintance A. Jones has 14.
NYY team total of 233 leads MLB. Baltimore has 204 (shades of the days of Earl Weaver.) On a list of MLB team HRs, the first NL team appearing is the Nats, 8th with 183.
Your Los Angeles Dodgers are 29th with their 105…leading only the Giants and their 98.
Not to berate the team, because better days clearly are coming, but team OPS is really revealing and not at all surprising. The Dodgers’ .681 is 28th, ahead of only Houston and Seattle. Aaaarrrgggghhhhhh….
First in team OPS? NYY, of course, .783. Then Texas, .782.
Despite being dead last in HR, SF has managed a respectable .725 OPS. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, maybe.
What is somewhat surprising to me is that we appear to have much better pitching than SF. They are at ERA+ 96 and usins at 112.
It’s the truth.
Our only really bad starter is Blaton, but he has pitched but 50 innings. Whereas they have given 180 innings each to Timmy and Zito.
Zito, astonishingly, is more reliable than Lincescum. Vogelscheiße has also been awful, leaving them with only two decent starters. This is their last gasp.
Thanks, guys. I’m back. It involved a trip to the ophthalmologist downtown and the acquisition of new eyedrops to relieve a sudden onset of blurry vision.
Hopefully the Dodgers give you something you want to see tonight!
Yeah. There’ve been a few games of late where I would have loved blurry vision!
Maybe blurry vision has been the Dodgers hitting problem? Should the team take bids on a large quantity of eyedrops? ;-])
Link: Hope everything works out well for you.
Regarding clinching season series vs. San Diego, the Dodgers are 10-7 vs. the Padres this year with one game remaining (tonight) and the Dodgers were 13-5 vs. the Padres in 2011.
John Ely and Joc Pederson are the 2012 additions to this list of Dodger minor league pitchers and hitter sof the year. I notice two things about the list:
1) Neither Kemp nor Kershaw is on it.
2) The rest of the guys, with perhaps the exception of Chad Billingsley, haven’t amounted to much in the big leagues (the jury’s still out on players like Rubby, Elbert, and Tolleson). But I’m pretty sure Andy Laroche, James Loney, Chin-lung Hu, Ivan De Jesus, and Joel Guzman are never going to be all-stars.
Anybody remember Mark Alexander? Greg Miller? Carlos Garcia?
2000/Joe Thurston/Carlos Garcia
2001/Phil Hiatt/Ricardo Rodriguez
2002/Joe Thurston/Edwin Jackson
2003/Franklin Gutierrez/Greg Miller
2004/Joel Guzman/Chad Billingsley
2005/Andy LaRoche/Chad Billingsley
2006/James Loney/Mark Alexander
2007/Chin-lung Hu/James McDonald
2008/Ivan De Jesus/James McDonald
2009/Dee Gordon/Scott Elbert
2010/Jerry Sands/Rubby De La Rosa
2011/Scott Van Slyke/Shawn Tolleson
I feel bad for Greg Miller. Almost made it to dodgers at age 19
McDonald and Jackson may not become All-Stars, but they’re pretty serviceable pitchers. Just not for us.
Jackson has a career ERA+ of 99, the very definition of average. McDonald’s is 94. He’s getting better, but I’m still not sold on him. I still wish the Dodgers hadn’t traded him for the dregs of Octavio Dotel, but he isn’t better than anybody in the current rotation save for Joe Blah.
Should also say: hope the medical issue turns out to be minor. Keep breathing!
In poking around more in stats, Hiroki’s season stats pretty much mesh with what he did for the Dodgers. As for this year with NYY, not sure how this line will print, but he’s tied for most team wins at 14, 1st in ERA, 1st in IP, 2nd in Ks, and 1st in WHIP. Apparently he did not find AL hitters too fearsome.
Kuroda, H NYY 14 11 3.34 31 31 0 0 207.1 188 82 77 24 47 159 .244 1.13
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=493133
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Meanwhile, back at the stat ranch, one old friend V. Padilla has been thoroughly mediocre with a bright spot of 50 Ks in 48 IP and a probable low point of one save in the 5 attempts they gave him, for some reason. If that’s not low enough, a .302 BA against might be.
Padilla, V BOS 4 1 4.69 54 0 1 5 48.0 58 26 25 7 14 50 .302 1.50
http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=218894
This appears at bottom of a dodgers.com story today: “The Dodgers clinched their second straight season series victory over the Padres with Wednesday night’s win.”
Hey, a bit premature is fine–if it works out that way.
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Also, from poking around mlb.com stats….
JAMES LONEY STATS SUMMARY
2012 BOS 26 87 4 21 26 2 0 1 7 5 0 11 0 0 .241 .280 .299 .578 1.22
2012 LAD 114 334 32 85 115 18 0 4 33 23 7 39 0 3 .254 .302 .344 .646 1.17
“Get James Loney gear at the Boston Red Sox shop ”
….Um, OK if I pass on that, just this once? Pretty please?
If those stats can’t be deciphered and anyone cares, http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=425766
It would seem that he played right to expectations.
Do dogers.com mean that the Dodgers have clinched a winning record against the Padres for the whole season for the second straight year?
I don’t recall how the Dodgers did against the Padres last year.
we are now 10-7 against them for the year with that win..a loss would have had us at 9-8 with tonights game to determine the winnwer…so the story was right
And so are you. I went by the word “season.” Details, details.