Mar 31

Opening Day Roster finalized (for now)

Ken Gurnick reports that the Dodgers made several roster moves today to set their 25-man roster as the season begins tomorrow. They placed Chad Billingsley and Ted Lilly on the 15-day disabled list and moved Chris Capuano and Aaron Harang to the bullpen. Hanley Ramirez and Scott Elbert are also on the DL. Billingsley’s placement on the list was backdated to March 22, so he’s eligible to come off no later than April 13. As Gurnick says, that means they’ll have to make another personnel decison on that date.

It looks as though Justin Sellers will start at shortstop for the start of the season, meaning Luis Cruz will likely be the starting third baseman. The two of them may rotate with Punto and Uribe (Yes, Uribe is still on the major league roster. The only reason I can think of is that he’s under contract and the team sees enough value in him not to release him outright and eat the last year of his deal).

The roster:

Pitchers — Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Josh Beckett, Zack Greinke, Brandon League, Kenley Jansen, Ronald Belisario, J.P. Howell, Paco Rodriguez, Matt Guerrier, Capuano, Harang

Catchers — A.J. Ellis, Tim Federowicz

Infielders — Adrian Gonzalez, Mark Ellis, Sellers, Cruz, Juan Uribe, Nick Punto

Outfielders — Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford, Skip Schumaker, Jerry Hairston

Oct 02

Sword of Damocles hangs over Dodger Stadium

Reds – Cardinals Gameday

It’s Chris Carpenter for the Redbirds and Mat Latos for the Redlegs. Game time 5:15PM PDT.

If the Cards win the Dodgers are done. If the Cards lose and the Dodgers win, the Cards’ magic number remains at one. If both the Cards and the Dodgers lose, the Dodgers are done. Not that there’s any pressure on the Dodgers or anything.

The home team sends Chris Capuano (12-11, 3.69 ERA) out to face Barry Zito (14-8, 4.19 ERA). Capuano has been pretty steady all season long for the Dodgers, while Zito has mounted somewhat of a comeback from the disappointment he’s been since coming over to the Giants. In fact, this is year 6 of a 7- year, $126M deal he signed in 2007, and it’s the first year he’s had more wins than losses in any season.

Lineup:

Ellis, M, 2B
Victorino, S, LF
Kemp, M, CF
Gonzalez, A, 1B
Ramirez, H, SS
Cruz, L, 3B
Ethier, A, RF
Ellis, A, C
Capuano, C, P

Giants – Dodgers Gameday

Annoyingly, the game is only being televised by KCAL and not on Prime Ticket, so I’m out of luck. If I were the MLB.TV people I’d have made this game the free one today, since it’s the only one with any playoff implications, but no. The free one is the Mets – Marlins game for unfathomable reasons.

Sep 27

Dodgers defeat Pads 8-4

Mark Saxon leads his ESPN LA game story for the Dodgers’ 8 – 4 win over the Padres tonight this way: “Maybe the Dodgers have finally snapped out of the maddening, month-long hitting slump that virtually swallowed up their season. Now, they have one last homestand to prove it matters.”

Hard to argue with that. When I went back into the kitchen with our dinner plates and switched the TV in there to ESPN for the scores I saw the Dodgers had 8 runs for the second night in a row and said to myself “why couldn’t they have been doing that for the last month?”

I note that Luis Cruz had more hits (3) than either Matt Kemp or Adrian Gonzalez (2 apiece) and Cruz and A.J. Ellis each had two RBI. Where would the Dodgers have been without Cruz? Do you realize he’s got a higher batting average than Kemp (.308 to .305) and Kemp’s OBP is only .035 higher (.370 to .335). ‘Course, the OPS numbers are significantly different (Cruz: .777; Kemp: .900). Capuano gave the Dodgers a good 5 1/3 innings, giving up just one run. He and Harang have been a lot better than most Dodger fans expected at the start of the year, I think.

I suspect it’s too little too late; a three-game deficit to the Cardinals with only six games to go will be awfully hard to make up unless the Redbirds completely collapse, which seems unlikely. It’s not entirely impossible, though, since their opponents for their last two series are the playoff-bound Nationals and the also-playoff-bound Reds. The Dodgers need to win all six of their games against the Rockies and the Giants to give themselves a real chance. If they keep hitting the way they have the last two nights, it’s not out of the question. Is it?

Sep 27

Game Thread 9/27/12

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

Gameday

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.