1) After Tuesday’s 9-7 victory over Colorado, the Dodgers announced that Clayton Kershaw had done enough this year and would not be pitching today or in the remaining four games of the 2010 season. (Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has details following his report of the game, which saw Hiroki Kuroda enter the seventh inning with a 6-2 lead but get no decision.)
Kershaw has thrown 20 more innings than he did in 2009’s combined regular season and postseason. He finishes his age-22 year with a 2.91 ERA (133 ERA+), 212 strikeouts in 204 1/3 innings, a career low 3.6 walks per nine innings, an opponents’ OPS of .615 …
2) … and 18 sacrifice bunts.
3) Matt Kemp’s 24th homer in the third inning moved him one ahead of Andre Ethier.
4) James Loney got his 85th RBI on his 10th homer (putting him in the 10-homer, 10-steal club), keeping him five RBI ahead of Ethier, who got his 80th, and Kemp, who drove in 78 and 79.
5) The Dodgers’ rare offensive onslaught – seven extra-base hits, capped by Casey Blake’s second homer of the game in the ninth – helped them survive a bumpy pitching night and fend off Joe Torre’s 1,997th loss. Two victories in his final four games will keep him out of the 2,000 club. (Torre plans to hand the managerial to two players, quite possibly Russell Martin and Brad Ausmus, in two of those games, but will still take the wins or losses on his own ledger.)
6) Rafael Furcal had two triples in five at-bats, each time driving in a run and then scoring, to raise his batting average to .301. Jamey Carroll went 1 for 1 to bump up to .293 and needs four consecutive hits to go over .300. A.J. Ellis (batting .483 this month) went 2 for 3 to reach .287. Ellis can finish at or above .300 by going 2 for 2, 3 for 5 or 4 for 9.
8) Jamey Carroll did not homer.
9) The Dodgers are 9-16 in September, and need to win just one more game in their final four to avoid their worst final month ever.
10) Tuesday was Everybody Gets a Trophy Day, with the bottom six post-All-Star-break teams all winning. The Dodgers are now playing .400 ball in the second half.
The Bottom Standings after tonight’s games:
26-43, .377 Kansas City (won)
26-43, .377 Pittsburgh (won)
26-43, .377 Seattle (won)
28-42, .400 Los Angeles (won)
29-40, .420 Washington (won)
29-39, .426 New York Mets (won)
* * *
- The Dodgers are moving their Single-A minor league team from Inland Empire to Rancho Cucamonga.
- I’ve written fondly in the past about the glory days of Baseball Digest. Bob Hertzel shares his own memories of the magazine at Baseball Prospectus.
- Closing arguments come today in the McCourt trial. Josh Fisher of Dodger Divorce and Bill Shaikin of the Times set the stage.
- Some big off-the-field names leaving the baseball world soon: MLB chief operating officer Bob DuPuy and MLB players union COO Gene Orza.
- After writing about how he became a prospect analyst, John Sickels of Minor League Ball asked readers to name the No. 1 sabermetric question they would like to see answered.
- Ken Arneson has a wonderful piece about the riddle of making sabermetrics palatable to the public.
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