Dodger Thoughts

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

Month: October 2014 (Page 3 of 4)

Don Mattingly on what NLDS decision he would change

NLDS-Game Four-Los Angeles Dodgers against the St.Louis Cardinals

Don Mattingly addresses the Dodgers after the final game of the NLDS. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

By Jon Weisman

Immediately after an end-of-season meeting with his coaches, Don Mattingly sat down with Dodger beat writers this afternoon for a final, cover-the-bases interview before heading off to the offseason — and impending fatherhood. Mattingly’s fourth son (in addition to two stepsons) has a due date in early December.

Ken Gurnick of MLB.com will have a recap of the 40-minute session (update: here it is), so I’ll just focus on a few of the many topics that came up, including one of the questions I asked: What was the most difficult decision he had to make during the National League Division Series?

Read More

In case you missed it: Into the offseason

[mlbvideo id=”36775151″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman

Above, a highlight package of the Dodgers’ 2014 season. Below, some odds and ends for the first offseason Thursday …

Read More

Andre Ethier’s acting gig on ‘Lab Rats’ comes with a Don Newcombe connection

[wpvideo pC28K6mP]

Tony Rivetti/Disney XD

Tony Rivetti/DisneyXD

By Jon Weisman

Andre Ethier, Alien Hunter. Don Newcombe, proud stepfather.

Back in April, we told you that Ethier would be a guest star on the DisneyXD series “Lab Rats.” That episode airs Monday at 6:15 p.m., and Dodger legend Don Newcombe, whose stepson Chris Peterson is the co-creator and executive producer of the show, was on set the day it was filmed.

“Don is an amazing man and he has taught me so much,” Peterson said. “Every time he comes on set, he beams with pride. To think about all the amazing things he has done in his own career, to think of what this legend means to the institution of Major League Baseball — and here he is on the ‘Lab Rats’ set, prouder than ever.

“We’re extremely close, and because of that he feels close to the show. He has known the cast from day one, and he loves interacting with all of them. At home, he never misses an episode of “Lab Rats,” and I often get a call right after we air to hear how much he enjoyed it.

Read More

Ten years ago, a much-needed Lima Time

[mlbvideo id=”23754021″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

By Jon Weisman

Lima Time.

It was the perfect antidote to sadness, the perfect break — however temporary — from gloom.

Thursday is the 10th anniversary of Jose Lima’s shutout of the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of the 2004 National League Division Series — the first Dodger playoff victory in 16 years — but today seems like the right day to remember it.

Read More

The end unjustifies the means

NLDS-Los Angeles Dodgers workout at Busch Stadium

By Jon Weisman

From 1989-1994, the Dodgers didn’t play in a playoff game.

From 1997-2007, the Dodgers played in four postseason series, but didn’t come close to winning any of them, losing 12 of 13 games.

It was the next year that the numbness turned to pain. After sweeps in the 2008 and 2009 National League Division Series, the Dodgers entered two winnable National League Championship Series, but gave up gut-stabbing doubles and homers that led to their demise.

Last year came the slow torture of not being able to score when the pitching was superb, leaving no room to absorb an unexpected Clayton Kershaw beating in the sixth and final NLCS game.

This year, in the NLDS, I don’t even know what to say. Never have I seen four consecutive games with backbreaking home runs after the sixth inning. I could not even imagine it.

When singles in the seventh inning by Matt Holliday and Jhonny Peralta each eluded Dee Gordon and Hanley Ramirez by inches, I still couldn’t believe it.

When Matt Adams came up as the winning run, with Kershaw on the ropes, I wouldn’t believe it.

And when Kershaw let go of that pitch, and that curveball hung in the air like a child’s balloon waiting to be cruelly punctured, I shouted “No!”

No.

I truly believe this team deserved better.

It kills me that Kershaw will be scarlet-lettered for a postseason performance in which he tried to put the team on his back and held them up so high for so long.

That the most well-balanced offense the Dodgers have had in years would lose three games by one run and the other by two.

That a manager I respect, who isn’t perfect but who rarely gets enough credit for what he does well, couldn’t even luck into having one of many impossible decisions with the pitching staff end right.

Most of all, it kills me that fans who have been so passionate have been forced to wait another year for relief and release.

What might have been.

Thanks to everyone who has read Dodger Insider this year. We’ll be back Wednesday to kick off the offseason.

Andre Ethier starts ahead of Yasiel Puig in NLDS Game 4

NLDS-Game Three-Los Angeles Dodgers against the St.Louis Cardinals

For more photos from Monday, visit LA Photog Blog.

Dodgers at Cardinals, 2:07 p.m.
Dodgers
Dee Gordon, 2B
Carl Crawford, LF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, RF
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Andre Ethier, CF
Juan Uribe, 3B
A.J. Ellis, C
Clayton Kershaw, P

Cardinals
Matt Carpenter, 3B
Randal Grichuk, RF
Matt Holliday, LF
Jhonny Peralta, SS
Matt Adams, 1B
Yadier Molina, C
Jon Jay, CF
Kolten Wong, 2B
Shelby Miller, P

By Jon Weisman

Yasiel Puig, who has a .774 OPS in the National League Division Series but has struck out in eight of his past nine at-bats, has been replaced in the Dodger starting lineup by Andre Ethier.

Ethier will bat sixth, while left fielder Carl Crawford moves up to the No. 2 spot behind Dee Gordon.

Since August 29, Ethier has made one start in a game that had meaning for the Dodgers, going 0 for 2 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch September 7 against Arizona. In his final 46 plate appearances of the regular season, Ethier went 12 for 39 with a .413 on-base percentage and .436 slugging percentage, then went 1 for 2 in Game 1 of the NLDS.

* * *

A few pieces related to starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw to pass along.

While A.J. Cassavell breaks down the risks of pitching on three days’ rest at MLB.com, Russell A. Carleton at Baseball Prospectus notes that the Cardinals do not own Clayton Kershaw.

… When we look at Kershaw’s performance against the Cardinals, we see that his BABIP is quite high at .343. I know that during the postseason everyone likes to pretend that games are won and lost based on magical fairy dust, grit, and character. But frankly, a lot of what drives a baseball game is dumb luck. That’s not comfortable for people to hear, but the sooner that you accept that, the sooner we can have a real conversation about baseball. …

Clayton Kershaw has gotten very unlucky over the last four years against the St. Louis Cardinals, and luck is not a character trait. Luck just kinda happens. If you made bets on a series of coin flips and won seven in a row, that would be an unlikely event (though possible). Yes, you still have the money you just won in your pocket, but it’s not because you have a special skill for calling coin flips or because you are a morally righteous person. You caught a run of good luck. Congrats. Don’t expect it to last. …

Read More

Down but not out, the Dodgers can still make a splash

Jill Weisleder/Los Angeles Dodgers

Jill Weisleder/Los Angeles Dodgers

Things happen that you don’t expect. Things happen that you should expect but aren’t ready for. Prepare, step up and believe.

— Jon Weisman

Think positive: NLCS Game 1 starter Hyun-Jin Ryu makes strong return in NLDS Game 3

[mlbvideo id=”36766341″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

By Jon Weisman

It was a delight while he lasted.

Pitching in his first game in 24 days and making an actual full-fledged start for the first time in exactly a month, Hyun-Jin Ryu shone for the Dodgers in Game 3 of the National League Division Series.

Ryu only allowed the requisite Matt Carpenter home run over his six innings of work, plus five singles and a walk, while striking out four. And he seemed to only improve after facing his biggest challenge of the ninth.

One out after Carpenter’s leadoff homer in the third, Matt Holliday singled and Jhonny Peralta worked the count to 3-1. At this point in the game, Ryu had thrown 57 pitches and only had eight outs to show for it.

But Ryu struck out Peralta on consecutive changeups, then got Matt Adams to pop out (with Hanley Ramirez making an over-the-shoulder catch in no man’s land).

Ryu needed only 15 pitches total to sail through the next two innings, then finished his night with a perfect sixth. His final 10 outs came on 37 pitches.

Read More

Dodgers must return from infinity and beyond

[mlbvideo id=”36766127″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

By Jon Weisman

Right now, it feels like it’s the uniform. I’m not sure Mariano Rivera wouldn’t give up a home run coming out of the Dodger bullpen right now.

I don’t really believe slumps are contagious, but right now, Dodger relievers are spreading illness like a certain disease the world is beginning to reckon with. Even by the most negative appraisal of their performance in the regular season, the bullpen has been unreal in how fast it has allowed critical runs this postseason.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a91WQYj0TXI&w=550&h=309]

In all three games of the National League Division Series, the bullpen has given up a homer before getting an out. That’s not normal, for anyone.

Tonight, in the seventh inning of Game 3, Scott Elbert used three pitches against his first three batters. Yadier Molina doubled on the first. John Jay sacrificed on the second. And Kolten Wong, while not exactly auditioning for the role of Ozzie Smith, hit his fourth career home run off a left-handed pitcher, putting St. Louis ahead to stay in a 3-1 victory.

I find my comfort in how ridiculous this has all been. Dodger relievers have allowed six runs on three home runs in 4 1/3 innings, a 12.47 ERA and 6.5 homers per nine innings which, I don’t think I’m wrong to say, is atypical. It’s not unlike Yasiel Puig’s stunning streak of seven straight strikeouts, followed by his booming triple to right that helped tie the game for the Dodgers in the sixth. Players performing at their worst don’t figure to stay at their worst.

Read More

Clayton Kershaw to start Game 4, Dan Haren part of nine-man bullpen in Game 3

[mlbvideo id=”36760257″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

Dodgers at Cardinals, 6:37 p.m.
Dodgers
Dee Gordon, 2B
Yasiel Puig, CF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, RF
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Carl Crawford, LF
Juan Uribe, 3B
A.J. Ellis, C
Hyun-Jin Ryu, P

Cardinals
Matt Carpenter, 3B
Randal Grichuk, RF
Matt Holliday, LF
Jhonny Peralta, SS
Matt Adams, 1B
Yadier Molina, C
Jon Jay, CF
Kolten Wong, 2B
John Lackey, P

By Jon Weisman

All remaining mystery about Dan Haren’s role in the 2014 National League Division Series has been eliminated. He has been set up as tonight’s long reliever, and Clayton Kershaw has been announced by Don Mattingly as the Game 4 starter.

Nine of Haren’s 11 career relief appearances came 10 seasons ago as a newbie with the Cardinals. The 10th came 2 1/2 years ago in the 14th inning with the Angels, and he pitched a perfect inning. The 11th was in August 2013 with Washington, and he gave up a single while throwing another shutout inning.

In neither of those two recent occasions was he asked to rush into the game. So if Hyun-Jin Ryu got into any trouble early tonight in his first outing in nearly a month, you would no doubt see a short reliever in for damage control, while Haren took his time in the bullpen to get himself ready for the start of an inning.

Haren’s last competitive action came September 27, so he’s on eight days’ rest right now. He had a 2.43 ERA in his final 10 starts of the regular season with 7.6 strikeouts per nine innings and 50 baserunners in 59 1/3 innings. He had seven quality starts out of those 10.

Read More

Meanwhile, at Dodger Stadium …

empty

By Claire Miller

Most people wake up Monday morning dreading to go into the office. The weekend is over, and it’s back to the daily grind. But when you work for an organization whose product is unpredictable, Monday mornings aren’t so mundane. Especially when your product is the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that is about to play Game 3 of the National League Division Series in St. Louis.

Needless to say, this Monday isn’t an ordinary Monday at the office for us. We’re not hosting, so there’s no pregame preparations to take care of or commotion that comes along with the game-day hustle and bustle. It’s pretty quiet among the cubicles, but you can almost hear everyone’s minds buzzing with the same thought: What’s going to happen tonight?

Read More

Yasiel Puig, Dee Gordon and the strike zone in the NLDS

NLDS Game 1-Los Angeles Dodgers vs St.Louis Cardinals

By Jon Weisman

The Dodger offense has been setting the table, but that table has been upside-down.

Thanks to A.J. Ellis, Clayton Kershaw, Andre Ethier and Zack Greinke, the bottom two slots in the Dodger batting order have combined to go 8 for 13 with a walk, two doubles and a home run in the National League Division Series. Overall, Dodger hitters have a .388 on-base percentage and .493 slugging percentage through the first two games.

The top of the order has been less consistent. Dee Gordon is 1 for 9 with a walk and four strikeouts. Yasiel Puig started off 2 for 3 with a walk and that pitch that hit him, but since then he has struck out five consecutive times, immediately re-launching the easy narrative that he has become too emotional and undisciplined.

While Puig’s swing zone has become too wide, he hasn’t been going down easy.

Read More

Baseball’s Yeti: The multi-inning save

[mlbvideo id=”25282197″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

For images from Saturday, visit LA Photog Blog.

By Jon Weisman

Dodger closer Steve Howe got the save in the final game of the 1981 World Series, but it was a save you have to rub your eyes and gawk at today.

The star-crossed lefty pitched the last 3 2/3 innings of the Dodgers’ 9-2 Game 6 victory over the Yankees. He threw 54 pitches, three nights after throwing 33 pitches in the final three innings of the Dodgers’ 8-7 Game 4 victory.

How Howe came to my mind today was simple: The Dodgers have a bonafide reliever supreme in Kenley Jansen, but he pitches in an era when it’s rare to see a closer get even four outs. Jansen hasn’t gone past that barrier since he pitched the final two innings of a 14-inning Dodger victory nearly 15 months ago, on July 10, 2013. He has pitched two innings 11 times in his career — never more than that, and none was a save opportunity.

Howlin’ Howe pitched at least two innings 11 times in the 1981 regular season alone, twice going three innings. Sometimes, he was rested, but in a week from May 9-15, for example, he pitched in five games, including a pair of two-inning saves in a three-day span.

However, Howe didn’t spend the entire ’81 postseason rattling off three-inning blitzes. He pitched exactly an inning four times in the first two rounds of the playoffs, then allowed two runs in a third of an inning in Game 2 of the 1981 World Series. The Dodgers basically cut loose on Howe when they knew there were few tomorrows remaining in the season.

Holistically, Howe represents not one but two aspects of a bygone era. One, of course, is the utter inattention to pitch counts. But another that’s more subtle but also extremely relevant is this: Perfection was not expected.

Read More

Kenley Jansen closes out fouling Cardinals

[mlbvideo id=”36752723″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman

It’s not that Kenley Jansen wasn’t dominant finishing off Saturday’s National League Division Series victory over St. Louis. It’s that the Cardinals almost seemed to ignore his dominance.

Jansen threw between 93 and 98 miles per hour on all but one of his 20 pitches, with good movement, but Yadier Molina and Kolten Wong combined to foul off six of the first 14 of them, while swinging and missing at only one pitch apiece. But Jansen did set each down, one on a nothing grounder to Juan Uribe, the other on a whiff.

Randal Grichuk, who homered in his first at-bat of the NLDS off Clayton Kershaw, was the last out but also the easiest, lasting five pitches but also swinging and missing at three of them, including the game’s finale.

In 11 days since September 23, Jansen has pitched in two games, throwing eight pitches on September 28 and the 20 Saturday. He’ll have another day off today, then be on call to go Monday and Tuesday in St. Louis. The chances that he’ll work more than an inning in a game have only risen.

Read More

Whoever’s pitching, Matt Carpenter is hammering

[mlbvideo id=”36752407″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman

On Friday, Don Mattingly was hit hard for not replacing Clayton Kershaw with J.P. Howell in the seventh inning.

Tonight, in the Dodgers’ 3-2 victory over St. Louis in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, Mattingly got almost as much grief when he replaced Zack Greinke with Howell.

Howell, whom it seems safe to say is in a slump after being at the top of his game for nearly the entire regular season, gave up a game-tying two-run homer to Matt Carpenter, the batter he would have faced with the bases loaded if Kershaw had been pulled one batter sooner.

It showed pretty starkly why Mattingly was reluctant to give up on his best pitcher in Game  1.

Read More

Page 3 of 4

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén