Tag Archives: Hanley Ramirez

Apr 30

Game 27, 2014

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Rain and snow cause trouble for the Dodgers’ schedule.

Tuesday’s game has been rescheduled as part of a day-night doubleheader Thursday, with the second game starting at 6:10 p.m. CT, ahead of an overnight flight to Miami, where the Dodgers play a Friday evening game against the Marlins.

Worse, there is a 70 percent chance of precipitation (snow and rain) for both Wednesday and Thursday.

Dodgers at Twins, 5:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA Update: The game is free on MLB.tv

Thanks to yesterday’s rain/snowout, Zack Greinke gets an extra day off before pitching this game. He’s 4-8 with a 4.73 ERA in 22 outings against the Twins, including 18 starts. On the other hand, this season he’s 4-0 with a 2.45 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 29 1/3 innings and in the midst of a streak of 16 starts of at least five innings without allowing more than two runs.

Starting for the Twins is Kyle Gibson, who’s 3-1 with a 3.63 ERA this season. This is only his second season in the bigs, and last year he only threw 51-plus innings, going 2-4 with a 6.53 ERA. He’s still almost a rookie.

Hanley Ramirez says his thumb’s fine and he expects to play. The weather may not cooperate, though, as rain is forecast for Wednesday.

Lineup when (or if) available.

Apr 18

Game 17, 2014

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D-Backs at Dodgers, 7:10PM, TV: SPNLA.

This is already the third series between the two teams in the young season. Greinke (3-0, 2.76 ERA) has faced the Diamondbacks once this year and won; he’ll try to do it again. Miley (2-2, 5.04 ERA) has faced the Dodgers twice already and has lost both games.

Whether Hanley Ramirez plays or not will be a game-time decision based on how his left hand feels after getting hit by Ryan Vogelsong Wednesday night. Adrian Gonzalez has a twelve-game hitting streak.

Lineup when available.

Apr 02

Game Five, 2014

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Dodgers v. Padres at Petco Park, on SPNLA TV at 7:10PM PST. The Dodgers send out Dan Haren for his first start for his new team in 2014 while the Padres send out Tyson Ross, a 26-year-old in his second year with San Diego.

Lineup:

In other news, the Dodgers claimed infielder Carlos Triunfel off waivers from Seattle. They’ve optioned him to Albuquerque. You may well ask why they need another middle infielder and shortstop, what with Hanley Ramirez, Corey Seager, Alex Guerrero (being moved to second base) and Erisbel Arruebarrena already on board.

Jan 22

Spurned!

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Now that Tanaka-san decided to try his luck with the Yankees, what do the Dodgers do? Do they really need another starter?

Yes, yes: “You can never have too much pitching.” And it’s true that after Kershaw, Greinke and Ryu the Dodgers have questions. Will Haren return to his earlier form, or is he now a .500 pitcher? Will Beckett and Billingsley recover fully from their respective injuries? Who knows?

Ervin Santana, Ubaldo Jimenez, Matt Garza and Bronson Arroyo, among others, remain unsigned. Santana and Jimenez received qualifying offers, which means that landing them would cost the Dodgers a draft pick. That seems unlikely, given the team’s imperative to rebuild the farm system gutted by Frank McCourt. Neither Garza nor Arroyo received qualifying offers, which could put them in play.

I dunno. I think they need to get Hanley Ramirez’s contract extended before offering more money to any of those guys.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox and Jerry Crasnick of ESPN both Tweet that the Dodgers have signed ex-Angel Chone Figgins to a minor league contract and invited him to camp as a non-roster guy. If he’s got anything at all left (he sat out last year and is 36 years old) he could be one of the utility guys the Dodgers desperately need.

Mar 31

Opening Day Roster finalized (for now)

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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

Mar 21

Ramirez out for 8 weeks

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That thumb that Ramirez injured in the WBC requires surgery to repair the ligament which stabilizes the thumb. The digit will be immobilized for three weeks before he can start using it again. I remember this. I broke a ring finger when I was about ten and wore a boxing glove-like soft cast to keep it from moving around. All summer. In Palos Verdes.

Anyway, it looks like Luis Cruz will play short, unless the Dodgers suck it up and play Dee Gordon there. That would leave Cruz at third. Otherwise they could platoon Uribe, Hairston and Punto at Cruz’s former spot at the hot corner.

Those guys strike fear into the hearts of opposing pitchers, I’m sure.

Update: In other personnel news, Guerra and Gwynn have been cut and sent to Albuquerque, as were Tolleson and Justin Sellers. They also cut Dallas McPherson, Ramon Castro, and Nick Evans.

Mar 18

Dodgers – D-Backs on Prime Ticket

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I just realized it. The game started 45 minutes ago, and the D-Backs lead 3 – 0 in the third. Josh Wall started, went two innings and was relieved by Peter Moylan. Crawford is hitting leadoff and singled in the third.

In personnel news, the team reassigned Tony Gwynn and Wilkin Castillo to Albuquerque and released Ramon Castro.

Josh Beckett and Chad Billingsley both were relieved of their starting assignments today and tomorrow respectively, Beckett with the flu and Billingsley with a bruised right index finger. Greinke is set to start on Wednesday.

Update: Chad Moriyama has injury updates on Hanley Ramirez, Greinke, Billingsley, Crawford, Beckett, Withrow and Gordon. The most serious of these may be Ramirez’s thumb, which he jammed playing in the title game of the WBC yesterday. He dove for a ground ball while playing third. He stayed in for another at-bat and even got a hit, but he came out after that. He’ll have an MRI today at Camelback Ranch.

Oct 01

Walkoff win!

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It’s not every day you see a manager pull a double switch which involves pulling the guy who hit a two-run home run earlier in the game and putting a relief pitcher in his spot. That’s what Don Mattingly did in this game, however, taking Andre Ethier out of the number-two spot and replacing him with closer Brandon League while putting little-used utility-man Elian Herrera in the number-nine spot. It paid off in spades when Herrera came up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and lined a single off the glove of the drawn-in Marco Scutaro at second base, scoring Hanley Ramirez to give the Dodgers a 3 – 2 win and keeping their slim playoff hopes alive.

This was a tight game all evening, with the Dodgers falling behind 1 – 0 on a double by Buster Posey in the very first inning, scoring Scutaro, who’d walked. Ethier got the run back and one more with a booming home run to center field after a Mark Ellis single. The Dodgers had a chance to score an insurance run in the sixth inning, but Adrian Gonzalez’s career-high 47th double of the year was wasted when he was out at the plate on an excellent throw by Dodger cast-off Xavier Nady after a single by Shane Victorino. Then in the eighth inning the Giants tied the game on a double by Angel Pagan and a single by Scutaro, who took second on Victorino’s ill-advised throw to the plate. Fortunately for the Dodgers, pitcher Kenley Jansen got the next two Giants out with no further damage. League got the Giants out in the ninth, allowing a single by Aubrey Huff but no further damage. That set the stage for Herrera’s heroics in the bottom of the inning.

St. Louis defeated Cincinnati 4 – 2 earlier in the evening, reducing its magic number to one. The Dodgers’ only hope is to win the final two games against the Giants while the Reds defeat the Cardinals in the final two games of the season. That would leave the Dodgers and Cardinals with identical 87 – 75 records and force a one-game playoff between the two teams to determine which goes on to another one game playoff against the Atlanta Braves, who won the National League’s Wild Card #1.