Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

Category: Status report (Page 4 of 10)

On the first day of baseball, my true love gave to me

Dodgers at Padres, 4:05 p.m.
Kershaw CCXLIII: Kershawtlight
Chase Utley, 2B
Corey Seager, SS
Justin Turner, 3B
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Yasiel Puig, RF
Carl Crawford, LF
Joc Pederson, CF
A.J. Ellis, C
Clayton Kershaw, P

By Jon Weisman

Watching Madison Bumgarner of the Giants issue a bases-loaded walk in the first inning today grooved me to remember not to invest too deeply in Opening Day.

That RWI was the set-up to a punchline. The next batter hit into an inning-ending double play, and as far as I was concerned, baseball began being baseball right away in 2016.

And we’ve got a lot of baseball ahead of us.

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Dodgers announce 2016 Opening Day roster

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

The pieces have been falling together for the past several days, and now, the puzzle is in place. Here’s the Opening Day roster, the first under manager Dave Roberts, for the 2016 Los Angeles Dodgers …

Starting pitchers (5): Scott Kazmir, Clayton Kershaw, Kenta Maeda, Ross Stripling, Alex Wood

Relief pitchers (7): Pedro Baez, Joe Blanton, Louis Coleman, Yimi Garcia, Chris Hatcher, J.P. Howell, Kenley Jansen

Catchers (2): Austin Barnes, A.J. Ellis

Infielders (6): Charlie Culberson, Adrian Gonzalez, Kiké Hernandez, Corey Seager, Justin Turner, Chase Utley

Outfielders (5): Carl Crawford, Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig, Trayce Thompson, Scott Van Slyke

Disabled list (10): Brett Anderson (60-day), Mike Bolsinger, Andre Ethier, Yasmani Grandal, Alex Guerrero, Howie Kendrick, Brandon McCarthy(60-day), Frankie Montas(60-day), Josh Ravin, Hyun-Jin Ryu

No, not everyone got hurt: 2016 Spring Training stars

Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Diego Padres

By Jon Weisman

One week from Opening Day, it’s safe to say that injuries have dampened Spring Training for the Dodgers this year, like picking the wrong line at Philippe’s 30 minutes before game time. If there’s an upside, it’s that aside from the injuries, there’s been a feast for the baseball senses. Nearly everyone on the field is meeting or exceeding expectations. Here are some of the brightest (and, knock on wood) healthiest lights at Camelback Ranch this month:

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With Ethier sidelined, who gains a roster spot?

Photos by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Photos by Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Roster move: The Dodgers have reassigned non-roster reliever Matt West to minor-league camp. The Dodgers have 41 active players remaining in big-league camp.

By Jon Weisman

On this last Wednesday without baseball until the All-Star Break, let’s consider the domino effect of Andre Ethier’s fractured leg, which not only opens up a spot in the Dodger starting lineup but also the bench.

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Video: Dodgers featured on MLB Network

On Monday, MLB Network featured the Dodgers on its “30 Clubs in 30 Days” series. Below are several clips from the day …

— Jon Weisman

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Updates on Puig, Utley, McCarthy and Kershaw

Los Angeles Dodgers Fanfest

By Jon Weisman

Now that all the hoopla of Saturday’s FanFest has given way to rain, wind and an element to be named later, let’s check in on the latest with a few of your intrepid Dodger heroes.

Yasiel Puig

About three feet in front of me Saturday, near the FanFest stage, Dave Roberts and Yasiel Puig shared an enthusiastic hello and embrace. When I tweeted this, I was met with some skepticism, but the relationship ball is rolling, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.

“I just had a good sit-down with him,” Roberts said. “It was refreshing for me to have a good face-to-face with him, to talk about our vision, and it’s more of, ‘Let’s wipe the slate clean’ and everything’s new. There’s the same core of players but a completely new coaching staff, and we just want him to be himself and let’s start fresh.”

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From 2015 to 2016: Do you hear what I hear?

Juan Ocampo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Juan Ocampo/Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

Somewhere in the opaque, decaying memories of my brain, I can hear fans cheering at Dodger Stadium.

The year was 2015. The Dodgers were National League West champions, and they had taken the lead in the first inning of the deciding game of their first postseason series.

For all that had gone wrong, for all the preseason and midseason and even postseason plans chipped and broken, all this had gone right. Los Angeles was eight innings and eight games from winning a World Series.

Against all expectations, the Dodgers were peppering the superb Mets right-hander, Jacob deGrom. After Howie Kendrick lined out to start the bottom of the first inning, rookie shortstop Corey Seager hit the first of four consecutive singles, and Dodger Stadium was electric.

I don’t know how much longer that memory will last. Already, it’s mostly theoretical. I’m not actually hearing the cheering. I just know the cheering was there, and I’m projecting that sound inside my head.

* * *

Now in my brain, I hear bickering. Not muffled. Loud and clear.

It’s not surprising that we bicker. We’re a family, we Dodger fans. The bickering drives everybody crazy, but it doesn’t stop.

We all want the best. And yet, back and forth during the offseason … They don’t know anything. But they think they know everything! 

We’re not only second-guessing methods, we’re questioning intentions.

I’m done with you people. 

Doors slam.

You just don’t understand. 

Windows shatter.

Just listen to me!

Houses explode. Family is complicated, man.

* * *

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Let Vin Scully into your brain, and you’ll hear, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” You’ve heard him say it a dozen times, if not a hundred.

Here’s something else I’ve heard a dozen times this offseason, if not a hundred: “What is the Dodgers’ plan? Do they even have a plan?”

So, I see that, and I scratch my head, because the Dodgers have stated their plan, over and over and over again. Here’s one of a dozen times, if not a hundred.

“We’re tasked with doing everything we can to put ourselves in position to win a World Championship this year, while maintaining the position to sustain success over the long haul,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said early this month.

That’s a plan. No, no — that is a plan.

In greater specifics, the plan included steps to maintain and improve the pitching depth. Most notably, three things went awry. The bidding for Zack Greinke went beyond the parameters of the plan. Then, when problems cropped up before finalizing other potential acquisitions, they broke apart. (This happens every year, occasionally played out front and center in the news, often in private, never to be known.)

In short, the Dodgers made a plan, and Scully can tell you what happened next.

When things don’t go according to plan, one of two things happen. People get angry, or people regroup and move forward.

For the Dodgers, the plan remains in place, with new efforts to execute it (most recently in the signing of Scott Kazmir) because the alternative is to operate just the way you’d doubt the most  — without any foresight at all.

Now you can argue that the Dodgers should have done X or Y or Z. That the Dodgers haven’t done so doesn’t mean they don’t have a plan, or philosophy, or strategy. It doesn’t mean they have given up on 2016 or any year.

My plan is to raise my kids as people with decency and the opportunity to do whatever they possibly can with their lives. Will it be successful? I can only hope. It involves a dozen things going right, if not a hundred.

That’s true even though 29 other families raising children with decency and opportunity doesn’t prevent the same for mine.

* * *

In the end, people hear what they want to hear, and see what they want to see.

Focus on the second half of Joc Pederson’s season and the first half of Chris Hatcher’s, and despair. Do the opposite, and hope. Take in their entire seasons, and you have an open mind, knowing that baseball is predictable and unpredictable at once.

The open-minded make the quietest sound. Maybe they’re the bass players of the band, stagehands at the spectacular, librarians at the gates.

For some — for more each year since 1988 — being a Dodger fan is all or nothing. But all or nothing is a fraught way to live, especially when all or something is a true alternative. You don’t have to sacrifice your dreams to take pleasure in smaller victories. The goal remains the same.

I believe in the all or something.

* * *

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Somewhere in my brain, unleashed like a can hissing open, I hear the crackle of the cleats on Camelback grit, and picture the stream of ballplayers old and young ambling through the low February sun to their morning stretch in Arizona. I hear the pop — that astonishing, glorious pop — of ball into glove.

I’ve said this before, but I don’t miss baseball in the winter. The season is long and grueling and intense, and the break — a relatively short break, three months vs. nine — is welcome. I’m in no hurry to get back to baseball, because I know baseball is coming fast.

Then that crackle and pop arrives, and they are blessed sounds, sounds of serenity, sounds that, at least for a short while, tend to muffle all worries. It’s temporary. It fades into the grind that scrapes its way through spring all the way to fall.

Elation and deflation will do battle in 2016, as they do every year. So will the forces of belief and doom. Like the train rolling out in “The Music Man,” it will all begin again. Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker ya can talk, ya can bicker bicker bicker, ya can talk, ya can talk.

Line drives will be snagged, dribblers will roll into glory. The odds will prevail, until they don’t, until they do again.

It’s a game, though we take it seriously. It’s a game we invest our days, our years, our lives in.

It is not a game for the thoughtless. It’s a game for the dedicated. It’s a game that fans, players, coaches and executives stake their lives to.

And why?

To hear those cheers. At least for a moment. Hopefully for an eternity. Loud and clear, and never-ending.

Eight storylines for 2016 you can ponder now

Ryu Pederson

By Jon Weisman

It’s no secret that this will be another offseason of change for the Dodgers.

Already, manager Don Mattingly and vice president of medical services Stan Conte have departed. Five days after the World Series ends — sometime before November 10 — free agency begins. And you never know what the trade market will bring or take away.

The winter months will address several issues facing the Dodgers. But whatever happens will still leave several questions that won’t be answered until we’re well into the 2016 season.

Among them, these:

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Will playoffs take Dodgers over the moon?

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

And now, it’s time to come out of our safe place.

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Dodgers went nearly wire-to-wire on title run

LAD_15-1000x790_clinch

By Jon Weisman

In what has perhaps seemed like an up-and-down season, Los Angeles truly ruled the National League West, leading nearly every day from April to tonight’s title-clinching, 8-0 victory.

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Keep your hat on

Matthew Mesa/Los Angeles Dodgers

Matthew Mesa/Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

So, I realize there are many Dodger fans who aren’t freaking out, who understand the 99.9 percent inevitability of the Dodgers’ winning the National League West and their fair shot at the World Series. This piece is for the other group.

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How many roads must a team walk down, before they call it a team?

Jon SooHoo/ Los Angeles Dodgers

Jon SooHoo/ Los Angeles Dodgers

Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 7:10 p.m.
Chase Utley, 2B
Corey Seager, 3B
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Andre Ethier, RF
Yasmani Grandal, C
Scott Van Slyke, LF
Joc Pederson, CF
Jimmy Rollins, SS
Carlos Frias, P

By Jon Weisman

The Giants pitched three straight shutouts in May, and the Dodgers’ season was over. That’s what I was told.

The Dodgers lost five straight on the road in Oakland and Houston, and their season was over. That’s what I was told.

There were two no-hitters in nine days, and the Dodgers’ season was over. That’s what I was told.

So my question is, now that the Dodgers have lost four straight and lead the National League West by six games with 12 to play, what are people worried about? I mean, the season’s been over since May. Over and over and over.

Or is it that the season wasn’t over then, or then, or then, and isn’t over now?

Losses and injuries — the latest being Zack Greinke’s sore right calf, forcing him out of tonight’s start — don’t look pretty. There’s certainly a scenario for the season to end sooner than Dodger fans want it to. I get impatience. I get insecurity. Personally, I’m still hoping the division is wrapped up before the Dodgers even set foot again in San Francisco.

But just consider this a friendly reminder not to assume the worst. Because in case you haven’t noticed, this has been a pretty resilient team.

Magic number of 13: So far away, yet so close

San Francisco Giants vs Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

San Francisco’s Giants could finish their 2015 season on a 22-game winning streak, and the Dodgers would still win the National League West by playing .650 ball over the final three weeks.

That’s what it means for the Dodgers to have a magic number of 13 to clinch the division on September 13, after Zack Greinke pitched eight shutout innings in today’s 4-3 victory over the Diamondbacks.

San Francisco swept the Padres over three games this weekend to move from 8 1/2 back of Los Angeles to 7 1/2, with 19 games remaining on the Giant schedule. But the Giants still face some appropriately giant odds.

Among other things, in addition to being the magic number, 13 is also the number of games the Dodgers have remaining against sub-.500 teams: six against Colorado, four against Arizona and three vs. San Diego.

The Dodgers can’t coast to the finish. However, if the Dodgers play .500 ball down the stretch (10-10), San Francisco has to go 17-2 to catch Los Angeles and force a one-game playoff.

There’s even a decent chance the NL West race will be over before September 28, rendering the feared four-game Dodger-Giants series in San Francisco meaningless. Over the next two weeks, the Dodgers play 10 games against sub-.500 teams. Win seven of those 10, throw in one measly victory over the Pirates next weekend (with Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw potentially pitching), and the Giants would have to go 8-4 just to be alive when the Dodgers land in San Francisco.

Ruggiano, Schebler, Seager, Utley: Celebrating the September quartet

[mlbvideo id=”469320083″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

Justin Ruggiano (Photos by Jon SooHoo)

Justin Ruggiano (Photos by Jon SooHoo)

By Jon Weisman

Despite my having a little fun on Twitter this morning at the expense of those supporting the hysterical Yoenis Cespedes for MVP campaign, no, I’m not seriously launching a #ruggianomvp crusade.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy what Justin Ruggiano and three other players who also weren’t Dodgers a month ago — Scott Schebler, Corey Seager and Chase Utley — have meant for the Dodgers.

Look at these numbers for September …

Quartet

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Stretch run scrutiny: Breaking down the remaining Dodger and Giant schedules

San Francisco Giants vs Los Angeles Dodgers

By Jon Weisman

Well, that was lovely. Now what?

In late July, we talked about how difficult the San Francisco Giants’ schedule would be from August 6-September 2, when they faced 26 consecutive games against winning teams. Aside from a four-game sweep of the Nationals, it didn’t go great.

  • August 6-9: at Chicago (0-4)
  • August 11-12: vs. Houston (1-1)
  • August 13-16: vs. Washington (4-0)
  • August 17-19: at St. Louis (1-2)
  • August 20-23: at Pittsburgh (1-3)
  • August 25-27: vs. Chicago (2-1)
  • August 28-30: vs. St. Louis (1-2)
  • August 31-September 2: at Los Angeles (0-3)

A three-game sweep of the Dodgers would made the defending World Series champion Giants triumphant — muddied but unbowed tug-o’-war survivors at the state fair. It would have meant a 13-13 run through the gauntlet, cutting the Dodgers’ National League West lead to 1/2 game.

Instead, San Francisco was dragged to a 10-16 crumble through the 26 games, sliding 6 1/2 games behind Los Angeles.

But today’s a new day, September practically a new month, and the Giants do have much easier possibilities for feats of strength in their remaining 29 games — 25 of which are against sub-.500 teams.

Let’s look at the final 32 days of the regular season.

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