Dodger Thoughts

People getting impatient with Matt Kemp for a few hitless games is pretty silly. But Andre Ethier has been a source of frustration for some time now.

Tuesday’s game-ending double play was a tipping point for a few people to point the spotlight at him, including Steve Dilbeck of Dodgers Now, Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. and — in the most detail — Mike Petriello of Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness.

Petriello notes that a second-half slump is nothing new for Ethier, although in the past it was easier to blame things on injuries. This year, he’s not so sure:

… While the poor K/BB trend isn’t good, I don’t think he’s suddenly lost all patience and ability to make contact. It seems to me that it’s more of a symptom than a cause, and that the real root of the trouble is simply this: other managers aren’t blind.

Here’s what I mean by that. Check out the percentage of lefty pitching that Ethier has faced over the last six years, shown in the table at right. For years, Ethier routinely faced lefties 25-30% of the time. This year it’s well over 40%, and as I hardly need to tell you, Ethier is absolutely awful against lefty pitching. Well, I don’t need to tell you, but I will – in over 1,000 career plate appearances against southpaws, Ethier hits only .238/.298/.351 (.650); this year, it’s even worse .216/.281/.315 (.596). Despite his briefly effective first few weeks against lefties this year, Ethier’s back to his typical awful performance against them, and other managers are taking advantage of that fact. If there’s any mystery here, it’s why it took them so long to do this since Ethier’s never really been able to hit them.

Yet either because Don Mattingly is unwilling to offend a star or he simply has no one on the active roster to turn to (and while I know Mattingly-bashing is a fun sport, I’m more inclined to believe the latter, because the bench is short and does anyone really like Rivera that much?) Ethier continues to hit against lefties.  …

It’s a problem without much of a solution, certainly not as long as first base is in its current quandary. The only moves I can think of are to call up Jerry Sands and Elian Herrera as platoon partners for first base and left field, and get rid of a couple of Juans. Otherwise, we’re just hoping for the best.

In the short term, Stephen offers a source of optimism for tonight:

… A pair of left-handers have had success against Cain in their careers. Andre Ethier is 24-for-50 with two doubles and a triple, hitting .480/.500/.560 against Cain in his career, and is 2-for-3 with a double this season. Ethier has still sitting on 29 doubles on August 5, one double shy of becoming the first Dodger in the 129-year history of the franchise with six consecutive seasons of 30 doubles or more.

James Loney is hitting .364/.429/.533 (16-for-44 with five doubles and a triple) against Cain with 11 RBI in 17 games, including 2-for-3 this season. …

The Dodgers began the season hot at home and cold on the road. Now they are cold at home and hot on the road.

Here are the explanations:

• Through player transactions, the team has evolved from one more suited to playing at home to the opposite (possibility: 15 percent)
• Coincidence (possibility: 80 percent)
• Tides (possibility: 5 percent)
• Anything else (possibility: <0.5 percent)

* * *

Stephen Fife has a 6.05 ERA with Triple-A Albuquerque since being sent back down, largely because he allowed nine runs in 4 2/3 innings on August 16. He has two quality starts in his other outings. In 19 1/3 innings, he has the same number of strikeouts (nine) as homers (three) and walks (six) combined.

I’m still comfortable with the idea that Joe Blanton – as disappointing as he’s been – was a better bet than Fife. Perhaps the tides will allow Rubby De La Rosa to be better still.

* * *

Elsewhere …

• On his 36th birthday, former Dodger Randy Wolf has been released by the Brewers. Wolf had a 5.69 ERA, 1.574 WHIP and 6.13 strikeouts per nine innings this season. Milwaukee will swallow the remainder of his $9.5 million salary for 2012 and a $1.5 million buyout of his 2013 option.
• A few people wrote Tuesday about what impending free agent Nick Swisher of the Yankees will be worth on the open market; Dave Cameron of Fangraphs used Andre Ethier as a comparison.
• Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports devotes his column to the Matt Kemp-Tim Lincecum at-bat with the bases loaded Tuesday.
• The double-shot of 10-strikeout, no-walk performances by Madison Bumgarner and Clayton Kershaw on Monday marked only the third time since 1920 such a feat happened in the same game, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
• Former Dodger Jon Link has a 0.75 ERA in a comeback-from-release attempt with the Marlins’ New Orleans affiliate, writes Christopher Jackson of Albuquerque Baseball Examiner.
  

  … Link was cut (by Norfolk) on June 12 and was still unemployed going into July.

  “A month without a paycheck and a baby on the way is not the best situation to be in,” he said. …

• Carson Cistulli of Fangraphs has fun with an 1887 newspaper baseball clipping.
• Umpire Jim Joyce performed life-saving CPR on an Arizona Diamondbacks employee Monday.
• Best wishes to MLB players union chief Michael Weiner, who is being treated for a brain tumor.

Heavens to Murgatroyd.

What a revoltin’ development.

Sheesh.

These and other expressions summarize tonight’s 4-1 Dodger loss to the Giants.

For starters, the Dodgers lost by three runs on a night they gave away at least three runs – all after starting pitcher Joe Blanton surrendered two runs before he got an out.

Blanton allowed 10 of the first 19 batters he faced to reach base and was charged with all four San Francisco runs in another disappointing outing that actually lowered his ERA as a Dodger to 7.71. But even as Blanton struggled and Tim Linecum (who retired his first 10 batters) dominated through the first five innings, the game was very winnable, but for some ugly play by the Dodgers.

I’m not exactly a perfectionist, but I offer you the following from the top of the fourth:

• With one out, No. 7 hitter Gregor Blanco singles to center on a ball that Hanley Ramirez seemed to approach glacially. Not an effort issue but a speed issue.
• A Blanton pickoff throw goes awry, and suddenly instead of having a runner on first with one out and the No. 8 and 9 hitters coming up, he’s on third.
• Brandon Crawford reaches and pokes a looper to left field. And again, I know it’s not an effort issue with Shane Victorino, but I thought it would be at best a sacrifice fly. Instead, it was an RBI single.
• Because there is still only one out, Lincecum is able to sacrifice Crawford to second base.
• And with two out, Angel Pagan hits a ground ball up the middle that again illustrated how important range is. Adam Kennedy (2 for 3 at the plate) couldn’t reach it, and in came the fourth Giant run of the game.

Now, it wasn’t exactly Three Stooges ball out there, but it was frustrating to know that if any one of those four plays were made, the Giants don’t score two runs in the inning, and if any of the first three plays are made, they don’t score at all.

To top it all off, the Dodgers finally got to Lincecum in the sixth inning, with their first four batters reaching base, but only got a single run out of it because A.J. Ellis was nailed at home trying to score from second on a Victorino single – down by four with nobody out. You’ll almost never see that.

The Dodgers lost in every facet of the game today. It happens. Sometimes my kids misbehave, sometimes they don’t clean their rooms, sometimes they skin their knees, and sometimes it all happens in the same day. Life can be hard to watch.

Most of me had given up on the game by the ninth inning, but thanks to Dodger relievers Scott Elbert, Brandon League, Randy Choate and Jamey Wright retiring 10 of the 11 batters they faced, part of me had hope – which grew when Matt Kemp singled with one out. (Kemp went 1 for 3 with a sacrifice fly and made hard contact in three of the four at-bats, including a deep fly to right with the bases loaded in that sixth inning, so I think you can see signs of him busting out of his mini-slump). But with Hanley Ramirez on deck as the potential tying run, Andre Ethier completed a long evening by grounding into a game-ending double play.

That’s all, folks.

Don Mattingly was suspended for two games and fined by Major League Baseball for “excessive arguing” during Thursday’s game at Pittsburgh.

No discipline has been announced for Matt Kemp, and apparently will get none. There had been speculation that MLB was holding off punishing Kemp until after this weekend’s Civil Rights Game festivities (see photos), at which Kemp was presenting Don Newcombe with an award. But it appears that the fact that Kemp was ejected while cheering for Andre Ethier has been considered a mitigating circumstance.

Kenley Jansen had thrown six pitches since Friday, and there’s no report that he’s injured. That didn’t dissuade Don Mattingly from insisting on holding back Jansen for a save situation in extra innings that might never come.

And it didn’t.

One inning after Brandon League barely escaped a 10th-inning jam, the righty allowed two 11th-inning singles with two out. The fourth Dodger reliever not named Jansen, Jamey Wright (who threw 16 mostly ineffective pitches Thursday), entered the game and served up a single to Juan Francisco that gave Atlanta a 4-3 victory.

A postgame replay showed Mattingly cursing as the winning hit went into left field.

Dodger relievers tonight faced allowed seven of 17 batters to reach base. Braves relievers allowed four of 16 batters to do so.

With San Francisco scoring eight runs in the third inning at San Diego, the Dodgers figure to begin play Saturday half a game behind the Giants.

Previously tonight:

Dodgers, Braves tied 3-3 in 10th

Dodgers survive 10th-inning scare, head into 11th

With the Dodgers and Braves tied heading into the bottom of the 10th inning, Randy Choate entered the game for the Dodgers (a little late for those who would have liked to have seen him face Jason Heyward in the eighth with the tying run on base). Choate struck out his first batter but allowed a single to Michael Bourn.

As the Dodgers’ top reliever, Kenley Jansen, idled away, Don Mattingly turned to struggling July acquisition Brandon League.

Then came a critical error. Matt Treanor threw down to second base trying to catch Bourn stealing, and the ball skidded past both Hanley Ramirez and Mark Ellis into center field, allowing Bourn to take the winning run to third base with still only one out.

League went 3-0 to Martin Prado, but came back to strike him out (on a low 3-2 pitch). Then, after walking Heyward, League induced a harmless fly to center from Chipper Jones.

And we moved on to the 11th …