Game 60, 2014

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White Sox at Dodgers, 7:10PM, PT, TV: SPNLA

Dan Haren goes for the Dodgers. He hasn’t won since May 12 and his record is now 5-3, 3.28 ERA. I’m sure that’s not what he’d like it to be (although it ain’t all that bad), but it pales in comparison to poor Hector Noesi, who’s starting for the White Sox. The poor guy is 0-14 with a 5.87 ERA over his last 40 appearances, including 19 starts. His last two starts were quality but resulted in no decision for him each time, despite a 2.70 ERA in 13.1 innings.

The Dodgers’ Justin Turner has six RBI in his last three games. Over the last month he’s hit .339, raising his season average to .261.

On the All-Star ballot, “. . . Dodgers star Yasiel Puig (935,276) made an astronomical jump from fifth to first in the outfield voting. He now leads a field that includes Charlie Blackmon (last week’s top outfield vote-getter, now with 883,186 votes) and Giancarlo Stanton (863,307) as the outfielders currently in position to start.”

Puig says thank you to the fans and voters.

The Dodgers put together a Year-in-Review video of Mr. Puig which is full of memories of last season and the first two months of this one.

35 thoughts on “Game 60, 2014”

  1. Last night’s game was the first this year where I stopped watching, not out of frustration or anxiety, but because I couldn’t stay interested. Because it felt like the team couldn’t stay interested. I’m glad to have a day off. I’ll tune in again tomorrow, and hope that Mattingly’s candor will have some kind of effect.

  3. I am ready for this lineup sooner than later:

    2b Gordon

    cf Pederson

    rf Puig

    lf Kemp

    1b Ramirez

    3b Seager

    ss Arruebueno

    c %

  4. Is Kemp’s batting stance start with his left elbow in the strike zone? It looks like it on TV.

    • Since I can remember he has stood very close to the plate, often raising his elbows and standing up straight to avoid high inside pitches that the umps usually call as strikes.

  5. Kemp seemed to be hitting the ball pretty good until benched for 5 days and moved to left. His defense might not have been good but his bad day in a cold and windy New York should not have been the last straw.

    The conditions were so bad the Mets let a popup drop in the infield with no one close to it when it fell. Maybe too much attention was given to Puig running to second when he didn’t need to due to the delayed called infield fly rule that not enough was said about the playing conditions.

    • Yep, I had noticed the same thing and thought DM was overreacting. From May 3 through the last game of the Mets series on May 22, he was hitting a healthy .344/.382/.489. Since starting in LF, from May 28 through June3, he has gone .143/.138/.179.

  6. What does is say when one of the Dodgers’ brightest spots is the relief pitching of Paul Maholm? Last night 2 IP, 1 H. 1 K..

    He hasn’t given up much of anything out of the pen. Last 5 appearances amount to a quality start and then some. 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 4 K, 2 BB. Dunno about inherited runners. Do know he looks like he actually might be useful out of the pen IF he maintains. And not that he belongs in high leverage situations, at least not yet.

    Blind hogs and acorns and all that. But this hog seems to have found acorns 5 straight times.

    • From Jon’s Dodger Insider a couple days ago reviewing the past couple of weeks of relief.

      “For the group, that’s a 1.84 ERA in 34 1/3 innings (9.2 K/9) while stranding three out of a dozen inherited runners. Out of 34 combined appearances, 28 have yielded no runs. That’s not flawless — which, frankly, is the only level fans seem to have a tolerance for. But it is on the right track.

      And it’s probably no coincidence that Dodger relievers are averaging only 2.1 innings per day (including the off day May 19) during that time.”

    • Yep, I had noticed the same thing and thought DM was overreacting. From May 3 through the last game of the Mets series on May 22, he was hitting a healthy .344/.382/.489. Since starting in LF, from May 28 through June3, he has gone .143/.138/.179.

  7. This offense is terrible.

    ANOTHER “non-quality” game with less than four runs scored . . . and ANOTHER game with less than 10 hits (that statistic is the only thing they have been hitting consistently). We have gone back in time/regressed to where the pitchers know they must be perfect . . . and play for a tie.

    • RBI, seems like your old monicker is appropriate for this year’s team.
      (Of course, same time last year we were saying how apropos it was for THAT team.)

    • I know we have had a few here and there, but it seems like it has been ages

    • We should be better, I agree, but we are 4th in NL in RS/G and 2nd in % of base runners scoring.

        • It might seem worse because we often don’t have ANY baserunners 🙂

          • We are 5th. StL is first and has had about 100 more base runners than the Dodgers, but we have scored 12 more than they have.

        • They are at 15%, which means for every 15 runs (not including dingers) you get to agonize over 100 base runners.

          • But the bottom line is not any statistic but your W’s and where you are in the standings.

          • Of course, but understanding the various elements through other statistics that go into wins and losses overtime can be edifying and for players and management can be useful in trying to improve performance..

          • Agree in theory . . . but in this case, it just adds more frustration/confusion . . . how can they be so good in this area, but be so (relatively) poor overall? The last 10 days or so has put the glaring spotlight on the anemic offense.

          • According to the sub-head at TrueBlueLA, “The Dodgers have scored three or fewer runs in five of their last seven games.”

            That’s not gonna get it done.

          • The numbers aren’t meant to console you in regard to an individual game, a series or the past couple of weeks. What they do show is that for the month of May our hitting as a team improved from OPS .718 to .760. What went south was our pitching which went from OPS against in March/April of .666 to .748 in May. Now, over the past 2 weeks pitching is down again to .602, but our offense has fallen as well to .653!

  14. Agon really not seeing the ball well right now. He’s swinging at some bad pitches.