Dodger Thoughts

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

Tag: Brent Leach

Early morning linking song


Good morning, starshiners …

  • Rubby De La Rosa, as we learned from our talk with De Jon Watson earlier this month, is feeling good. Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has more.
  • Video of a five-inning perfect game Clayton Kershaw threw in high school — with 15 strikeouts, while also hitting a home run — has been passed along by Ernest Reyes of Blue Heaven.
  • The only coverage that you need to read of Ronald Belisario’s admission that he used cocaine is at Hardball Talk, namely the exchange between Craig Calcaterra and Aaron Gleeman.
  • Left-handed reliever Brent Leach, 29, has returned to the Dodger organization, tweets Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus. Leach, who pitched 20 1/3 innings for the 2009 Dodgers, had a 5.95 ERA with a 1.729 WHIP and 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings in eight starts for Yokohama in the Japan Central League last year.
  • Goldstein adds that the Dodgers also signed 25-year-old righty Jared Lansford, a 2005 second-round draft choice by the A’s whose father is former major-leaguer Carney Lansford. Jared had a 4.54 ERA with 5.4 strikeouts per nine innings in 48 Double-A relief appearances last year.
  • Statement from the team today: “”The Los Angeles Dodgers are pleased that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court has approved its revised Disclosure Statement, which keeps the Dodgers on track to emerge from Bankruptcy  as planned on April 30. Bidders have shown tremendous interest in the opportunity to purchase the Dodgers and related assets, and the Dodgers look forward to a very successful conclusion to their bankruptcy case.”
  • Finally, “The Don Zimmer ‘Zim Bear’ Will Haunt Your Kids’ Dreams” (via Hardball Talk)

There are bacon ads, and then there are bacon ads

I’m now listening to the Friday, October 3, 1980 Dodgers-Astros game, thanks (again) to Stan from Tacoma. After the first inning came this epic from Vin Scully:

So what’s new? Not bacon. Bacon is almost as ancient as time itself. It was mentioned by Aesop in the sixth century B.C. It was a staple in medieval Europe. And in Norman England, bacon was so universally accepted, it was sometimes used as money. And monastery monks awarded bacon to husbands for not quarreling with their wives. Indeed, bacon is no Johnny-come-lately. Through the years, it has survived the competition of thousands of new products, and the bacon bin continues to be a popular spot in our modern supermarkets. One reason is the quick energy it survives, and another its matchless flavor. Which brings up the most flavorsome bacon of all: Farmer John. For this is a bacon with a sweet, savory goodness from hush-hush secrets in the curing, plus a much heartier Western flavor from Farmer John’s old-time Western way of doing the smoking. No other bacon like it — if you haven’t tried it, why delay any longer? The next time you shop, take home the bacon from Farmer John.

* * *

I continue to be impressed with Jerry Doggett’s work in this climactic series of 1980. With Scully on TV most of the time, much of the radio duties fell to Doggett, and he is rather superb. He is mixing in great background details but never letting them get in the way of keeping you abreast of the action, and his enthusiasm hits just the right note. Here’s a sample:

Here’s a breaking ball, ball two, two and nothing. Two and oh the count, and Cabell backs out of the batter’s box. Cabell lives in Anaheim Hills in the offseason. Some of the Dodgers live in Anaheim Hills: Jerry Reuss, Rick Monday. Reuss lives in the hills, and Monday is in Yorba Linda. The 2-0 pitch to Cabell: high for a ball, ball three. Enos needed a ride to the ballpark, and so he called up Reuss, says, “How ’bout a lift?” So Reuss, Monday and Cabell came to the ballpark together. But out there now, they don’t see eye to eye. (laughing) I wonder if they’re going to ride him home. If the Astros win, I don’t think the Dodgers are gonna want to wait that long for him. If they lose, Enos is welcome to the lift. There’s a foul, back out of play — he’s swinging on three-and-oh.

Doggett is kind of a forgotten figure in Dodger broadcasting these days, and I don’t recall him being in such good form in his final games, but he really was strong here and deserves to be remembered fondly.

In the game itself, the Dodgers got off to a rough start. Davey Lopes threw away a grounder from Astros leadoff hitter Joe Morgan in the first inning, leading to Don Sutton (the National League’s ERA leader) having to pitch out of a bases-loaded jam. Then after the Dodgers went down in order in the bottom of the first, Houston pitcher Ken Forsch delivered an RBI single to put the Astros up, 1-0. Doggett immediately recalled that Forsch and Nolan Ryan had hurt the Dodgers with the bat earlier in the year: Forsch had been 3 for 9 with three RBI against Los Angeles going into the at-bat, and Ryan hit a three-run homer on April 12, his first game at the plate in eight years.

* * *

Some pitchers get multiple looks, and some don’t. From May 15-July 24, 2009, Brent Leach had a 3.38 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings. Then his next five batters reached base and four scored, and he hasn’t seen the majors since. After a dalliance with starting pitching in the minors last season, Leach has been officially designated for assignment by the Dodgers, with news reports saying that he will play in Japan next season.

Leach’s departure clears a spot on the 40-man roster for Matt Guerrier. That leaves Hong-Chih Kuo and Scott Elbert as the only lefty relievers with major-league experience currently on the 40-man. Of course, we’ll start to see more non-roster invitees on minor-league contracts in the coming weeks.

* * *

Is it true that the Minnesota Vikings’ legendary Jim Marshall survived being trapped during a blizzard by burning his money? According to Brian Cronin at the Fabulous Forum, yes.

* * *

Happy holidays from Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers!

Kershaw LIII: Kershawme Opener


John Cordes/Icon SMI
Andre Ethier blasted two homers and drove in four runs in the Dodgers’ home opener a year ago today.

They were overshadowed by Orlando Hudson producing the first Dodger cycle in 39 years, but there were plenty of heroes that made last year’s Dodger opener a laugher in the best kind of way for the fans. Every Dodger starter had at least one hit, Andre Ethier homered twice, Chad Billingsley scattered four singles and a double over seven innings while striking out 11 – heck, even Will Ohman pitched a shutout inning. All against the Giants. The good times rolled on through April’s record streak of consecutive home victories to start a season.

Things are a bit cloudier a year later, with the Dodgers 3 1/2 games behind the Giants in the National League West before the home crowd has even seen a regular-season pitch. But Monday’s gray skies have cleared up, just as Albert Peterson predicted. Let’s go have some fun!

* * *

  • Joe Torre-managed teams have won 12 consecutive home openers, notes Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. Stephen has more Dodger home opener details here.
  • In the comments of that thread, BHSportsGuy lists the 15 Dodger pitchers credited with a win since Clayton Kershaw’s last on July 18.
  • Via Twitter, Stephen points to a nice feature by Tom Krasovic on Dick Enberg, reborn as a Padres play-by-play announcer. Related: Rob Neyer of ESPN.com heard Enberg say that he tried to write a screenplay about legendary spy/catcher Moe Berg.
  • Memories of Kevin Malone took a close look at the Dodger defense.
  • Padres pitcher Chris Young went on the disabled list, where he’ll find Arizona catcher Miguel Montero and might soon be joined by Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins. Juan Castro is the Phillies’ current replacement for Rollins.
  • Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods gets some nice Huffington Post exposure in writing about the anniversary of Mark Fidrych’s death and the connection with his childhood.
  • Blue Heaven passes along a March 6, 1948 letter from Branch Rickey to Walter O’Malley (written from Spring Training at Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic) calling for a trade of Eddie Stanky “even if we were getting nothing for him at all,” to create  an opening in the Brooklyn infield. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Stanky was traded within 24 hours with a player to be named later to the Boston Braves for a player to be named later, Bama Rowell, Ray Sanders and $40,000. (A month later, the Dodgers completed the trade by selling Sanders back to Boston for $60,000.)
  • Four-hit nights for Dodger minor leaguers on Monday: Xavier Paul had three singles and a homer for Albuquerque, Dee Gordon had three doubles, a single and an error for Chattanooga and Jerry Sands had two doubles and two singles for Great Lakes. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus writes that after an 0-for-6 start in AA, Gordon has six hits (including four doubles) in his past seven at-bats.
  • Isotopes reliever Brent Leach is having a Sherrill of a time in his first two games of the year.
  • Matt Hiserman, son of Times assistant sports editor Mike Hiserman and a college pitcher for the University of San Francisco, has come back inside of two months from a liner to the head that landed him in intensive care for four days, writes Eric Sondheimer of the Times.
  • The crackdown on Dodger Stadium pregame tailgating was scheduled to begin at dawn in Elysian Park, according to Zach Behrens of LAist (via L.A. Observed, which also points to a David Kipen piece talking about the origins of the Dodgers’ “LA” logo.).
  • How much of a difference does payroll make in baseball? Tom Tango writes at TMI: “If you spend at the league average (Payroll Index = 100 percent), your chance of making the playoffs is 27 percent. If you spend at double the league average (Payroll Index = 200 percent), your chances are 77 percent. And if you spend at half the league average, your chances dwindle to almost 0.”
  • Bob Timmermann wrote movingly about his grandmother, Ella Kimberling, for L.A. Observed’s Native Intelligence.
  • Quick entertainment notes from my day job: 1) Definitive details on Conan O’Brien’s move to TBS, 2) DirecTV will broadcast all five seasons of “The Wire” commercial-free, 3) Three major new hits (“The Good Wife,” “Modern Family” and “NCIS: Los Angeles” premiered within 25 hours of each other.
  • Leaving you with this: Brian Akin of Dear (Tommy) John Letters is thinking of hanging up his blog if he has to hang up his spikes. While I certainly hope he signs with another team, reading his latest post will serve as a reminder that no matter what, he should keep writing.

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