Game 54, 2014

Reds at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

The Reds have had to face two excellent pitchers already in Ryu and Greinke, and tonight they get Kershaw. All he’s done is go 3-1 on the season with a 3.49 ERA and 2-1 lifetime with a 2.78 ERA against the Reds. In those games the Reds are hitting .214. The Reds send Homer Bailey out against the Dodgers. He’s 3-3 with a 4.01 ERA in eight career starts against them and 4-3 with a 5.34 ERA overall on the season.

Matt Kemp is playing left field because Crawford has been placed on the 15-day DL. The Dodgers have purchased Jamie Romak’s contract from the Isotopes. Romak has been playing mostly 1st and 3rd in Albuquerque with 8 games in the outfield. He’s a 28-year-old from Canada. This is his twelfth year of pro ball and his first callup to the major leagues.

According to Jay Jaffe at Sports Illustrated, Yasiel Puig is a “disappointing” fifth in the first release of All-Star ballots for the outfield, behind Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates, Ryan Braun of the Brewers and Gioancarlo Stanton of the Marlins. Pack the ballot box, people!

39 thoughts on “Game 54, 2014

  1. I got to this ESPN the magazine piece on Dodger payroll from a link at mlbtr.com. Sorta has the look of maybe being behind a paywall. Click and see, I guess. Summation:

    “”I always say that smart beats rich,” Kasten says. “But it’s better to be smart and rich. We’re trying to incorporate the right elements beyond money. Look at Boston. The Yankees for about the last 15 years or so have done it being smart and rich. Smart is good, like Oakland, Tampa
    Bay. But smart and rich? Well, that’s a tough combination to beat.”

    http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10975507/los-angeles-dodgers-not-win-world-series-massive-payroll-worth-espn-magazine

  2. Getting close to the time the Dodgers made a run last year. This time they have Kemp to help with the run should he get hot like players did last year.

    Or, should the Dodgers go with pitching and defense and call up Pederson for CF and let Arruebuena play short. Seems like 3b is getting more defensive than ss this year so moving Hanley to third might cancel out putting Arruebuena at ss.

    It would seem that Boston and LA now have a trading relationship. We took Ramirez off of Boston’s hands and then we took Crawford and Beckett off their hands. They kind of owe us in a lopsided salary trade and they could definitely use Ethier.

    Might Detroit want Ramirez to replace Fielder this year? Does Detroit still want to trade Shierzer due to him not wanting to extend his contract and would they consider Ramirez, Haren, and one of Lee, Reid, or Anderson?

    • Fielder was already sent to the Rangers last year, so they would be the ones to deal with.

      • Oops, I knew that. Agree, deal with the Rangers and Tigers in a 3 team trade.

  3. They didn’t give Kershaw much of a margin, and his wild pitch in the 6th eventually proved his undoing. I wonder how many times in his career Kershaw has allowed a run to score on a wild pitch.

  4. It was a “quality start,” even tho it wasn’t Kershawesque.
    Offense was only halfway to “quality.”

  5. I was deriding the fact the offense needed a miscue to score the first run . . . but I’ll take it now!

  6. After tonight, the season is one-third over for the Dodgers: 54 games. Our catchers have combined for 11 RBIs: eight for Butera and one each for Ellis, Federowicz and Olivo.

  7. After nearly 12 seasons in the minors, Romak makes his major league debut and grounds out on the first pitch he sees.

  8. Puig!
    C’mon, Offense — you scored 4+ the last three games . . . do it again!

  9. Now I’m told that Norwegian has WiFi only on its European flights, not in the US, so I won’t be able to see the game en route to Oslo.

    • Oh well. The evening paper in Oslo will no doubt have the score.

      The two times I’ve been to Europe were during or shortly after the World Series. Finding the results of the games (in the 1980s without an internet) was impossible. I suppose I could have called the Embassy.

      • I used to buy the International Herald Tribune, which would print the linescores, brief summaries, and the standings. Given the time differential between Europe and the States, the Thursday paper, for example, would have the Tuesday scores. As it was not published on Sunday, the Monday paper would have Friday’s and Saturday’s results.