Yasiel Puig, Right Puig
Mark Ellis, Second Puig
Adrian Gonzalez, First Puig
Hanley Ramirez, Shortpuig
Scott Van Slyke, Left Puig
Juan Uribe, Third Puig
Skip Schumaker, Center Puig
Tim Federowicz, Tools of Puignorance
Ted Lilly, Puig
Category: Dodgers (Page 35 of 70)
Looking up with childlike anticipation into the pure nighttime Dodger sky, Yasiel Puig sees the one-out, ninth inning, Kyle Blanks fly ball that he’s going to catch and then rifle back from the warning track to double up Chris Denorfia at first base to end the game.
Yasiel Puig went 2 for 4, and the home runs came from Adrian Gonzalez and Scott Van Slyke, but his arm will be the legend of his major-league debut, a 2-1 Dodger victory. That throw was a work of art.
Yasiel Puig, RF
Yasiel Puig, 2B
Yasiel Puig, 1B
Yasiel Puig, C
Yasiel Puig, LF
Yasiel Puig, CF
Yasiel Puig, 3B
Yasiel Puig, SS
Yasiel Puig, P
And on the National Anthem, the Harvard-Westlake School Choir, with my nephew Benny among the singers.
Life is jagged lines.
In the majors, Yasiel Puig shouldn’t be expected to match the .383 on-base percentage and .599 slugging he has put up with Double-A Chattanooga in 2013, though to be clear, the Southern League isn’t nearly as deceptive a hitting environment as the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. Scott Van Slyke, for example, has a major-league OPS with the Dodgers this year of .909 following an Albuquerque OPS of 1.236. The gap should be less for Puig, and if it is, he’ll be hitting better than Andre Ethier is now.
As a result, there are few scenarios in which Puig’s arrival in Los Angeles on Monday won’t improve the Dodgers. Puig will play in the outfield and likely be more productive than the guy he’s replacing, Skip Schumaker. While he will still serve as a late-inning defensive replacement, Schumaker can also spend more time in the infield and be more productive than the guy he takes at-bats away from, Luis Cruz.
By my appropriation of the transitive property, that is the low bar that Puig needs to clear to be an asset. That doesn’t speak to what kind of leap Puig will actually make. Puig could be a band-aid for this struggling team, or he could be bionic. At different times, he’ll be both.
Life is jagged lines. Puig, like everyone else, will go up and down and down and up, his graph of success as prickly as a porcupine. He will have good games and bad games and games where you can’t decide what they were.
He will be like the last savior in the outfield, Matt Kemp.
Some Dodger fans have little sense of irony, but you have to admire how the rapid and rabid revolt against Kemp for his shortcomings in 2013 has been accompanied by urgent calls for him to be replaced by the player who most resembles him.
Seven years ago, Kemp was Puig – the raw kid with talent to burn and lessons to learn. Puig, like Kemp did when he hit the majors at age 21 in 2006, has a hugely bright future. But anyone putting their faith in Puig will almost certainly at some point need a level of patience that many fans have denied Kemp whenever he has struggled, no matter how much he has done for his team.
In 2007 and 2009, Kemp was hugely productive. In 2008 and 2010, people were calling for him to be traded.
Last May, he was the best player on the planet. This May? Read these letters to the Los Angeles Times.
It’s hard to believe that Matt Kemp has made the Dodgers’ $160-million investment disappear quicker than Bernie Madoff ever could have.
Herb Schoenberg
Tarzana
* * *
I have never heard of a team being worse off if a guy that’s hitting .251 with two home runs and 17 RBIs goes on the disabled list. I’m pretty sure that a minor leaguer could equal or exceed those numbers in half the time. How does Matt Kemp injure his hamstring when he hardly, if ever, goes full speed?
Geno Apicella
Placentia
* * *
Lest we forget, Matt Kemp is a paid performer and he’s not earning his keep. Baseball is a business. At any other company he would have been dismissed long ago for his woeful performance. Kemp would do well to invoke the ghost of the late Lyman Bostock who memorably asked the late Buzzie Bavasi, then the GM of the Angels, to withhold his salary because of poor performance.
Skip Nevell
Los Angeles
They’re all good, but Nevell’s is my favorite. “At any other company he would have been dismissed long ago for his woeful performance.”
“Long ago.” Just let that roll around in your head for a minute.
It never ceases to amaze me how many baseball fans act as if they’ve never seen a player slump, much less struggle to recover from surgery. They expect straight lines. I don’t know why, because in baseball, they don’t exist. The only straight lines in baseball go from home plate toward the right-field and left-field corners.
Even Mike Trout got the derisive whispers this past April. Imagine.
There’s no mistaking how difficult it has been to watch Kemp play this year. I don’t know exactly what his future holds, but I don’t see any reason to believe that what we’ve seen this season is the best we’ll see from him for the rest of his days. I don’t understand how baseball fans can have such short memories, when it’s a game built on lasting ones.
Kemp made a name – and a nickname – for himself out of the gate in 2006, hitting seven home runs in his first 15 games. A month later, he was back in the minors. I’m excited about Yasiel Puig’s arrival – curiosity, hope and the potential of witnessing the birth of greatness are a good combination to have when tuning into a game, especially when your team is in last place. But I pray I’m not alone in anticipating how uneven the road might be, not only over the coming days, but also weeks, months and years. It doesn’t pay to be too hopeful or too cynical.
Life is jagged lines, and baseball is life.
With A.J. Ellis headed to the disabled list today and Matt Magill coming up to give Hyun-Jin Ryu’s ailing foot more time to heal, let’s take a quick snapshot of the projected 2013 Dodger regular lineup.
C – A.J. Ellis, .364 on-base percentage, .369 slugging, leading majors with 12 of 25 basestealers caught, on disabled list.
1B – Adrian Gonzalez, mostly healthy all season and hitting: .382 on-base percentage, .503 slugging.
2B – Mark Ellis, .265/.227 in 50 plate appearances with two errors since coming off the disabled list.
SS – Hanley Ramirez, 12 plate appearances in 2013 but likely to return next week.
3B – Luis Cruz, .152/.149 in 93 plate appearances, with teammates’ injuries keeping his tenure alive.
LF – Carl Crawford, .358/.470, playing in 51 of 54 games despite being nagged by injuries.
CF – Matt Kemp, .305/.335 with two homers, 14 walks and 60 strikeouts in 51 games. DIsabled.
RF – Andre Ethier, .332/.369, 5 for 34 with four walks since May 20.
Scott Van Slyke (.326/.667 in 46 plate appearances), Nick Punto (.391/.374 in 136 plate appearances) and Juan Uribe (.394/.414 in 104 plate appearances) have tried to pick up the slack. If you add up their plate appearances, they account for about 1.25 players.
After their worst May in history, the Dodgers are somehow only 6 1/2 games out of first place.
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind Dodger blue eyes
It has to be a great pitching performance to take Luis Cruz’ first home run of the season off the headline, but Hyun-Jin Ryu delivered.
In the best start of what has been a sterling debut as a Dodger, Ryu allowed two hits and no walks over nine innings, striking out seven and retiring 19 in a row at one point, in pitching the Dodgers to a 3-0 victory over the Angels.
The Dodgers have won two games in a row for the first time since May 14-15 against Washington.
Lowering his ERA to 2.89, Ryu simply dazzled, and seemed to get better as the game went on. A two-out, eighth-inning double by Chris Iannetta ended the 19-in-a-row streak that followed Howie Kendrick’s second-inning single, but on Ryu’s 101st pitch of the game, Cruz charged a slow grounder by J.B. Shuck and fielded it cleanly on the shorthop to end the threat and prevent the tying run from coming to the plate.
The play capped a whale of a night for Cruz, who has been hitting pop-ups all season but finally showed some pop, breaking a scoreless tie in the fifth with a two-run homer off former Dodger Joe Blanton. Cruz last homered 90 at-bats ago, September 30 against Colorado.
"Luis Cruz has hit a home run." – Vin Scully, with a trace of amazement #dodgers
— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) May 29, 2013
In the sixth, A.J. Ellis followed a Matt Kemp double with an RBI single to give the Dodgers their three-run lead.
After that, it was the Ryu show. His previous career high in innings was 7 1/3 in his last start (May 22 at Milwaukee) and in pitches was 114 on May 11 against Miami. He came out for the ninth, and began it by striking out pinch-hitter Brendan Harris, then retired Erick Aybar on a grounder to third. Superstar Mike Trout, trying to keep the game alive, grounded to Mark Ellis at second base, and with 113 pitches, Ryu had his first career complete game and shutout in the States.
In honor of Monday attendee Buzz Aldrin …
It’s one of the oldest rules at Dodger Thoughts: It isn’t a turning point if you’re asking if it’s a turning point.
But what you can say about tonight’s game is this: It was some kind of relief.
Down 6-1 in the fourth inning, the Dodgers staged their biggest rally of the year to take the lead … only to lose it … only to regain it … and then hold on for an 8-7 victory over the Angels, ending their opponents’ eight-game winning streak.
The Angels are hitting Greinke like it’s a Whack-a-Mole with one mole.
— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) May 28, 2013
The Dodgers did it without Matt Kemp (0 for 5 with four strikeouts and what could have been called an error in the first inning) and mostly without Zack Greinke (four innings, 25 batters, 11 baserunners), thanks to this rather astonishing roll call.
• Adrian Gonzalez, 4 for 4 with four runs and two doubles (and 9 for 11 in his past three games)
• Scott Van Slyke, 2 for 4 with two doubles
• Juan Uribe, 3 for 3 with a double, all off the bench
• Luis Cruz, 1 for 3 with his first unintentional walk in 199 plate appearances since August 29.
• Five innings of one-run relief from Matt Guerrier, Javy Guerra, Ronald Belisario, Kenley Jansen and Brandon League.
• Six of the 11 doubles, a Dodger Stadium record according to Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. (The previous record, by the way, of 10 was set at the 4+1 game.)
Clip and save this one – an actual 2013 Dodger rally.
Whack-a-Moles’ revenge! #dodgers
— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) May 28, 2013
Nick Punto, SS
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Scott Van Slyke, RF
Ramon Hernandez, C
Jerry Hairston Jr., LF
Luis Cruz, 3B
Zack Greinke, P
• Hairston was activated from the disabled list, with Dee Gordon going to Albuquerque.
• With a 7-15 record so far in May, the Dodgers need to go 4-1 in the month’s final five games to avoid their worst May in Los Angeles.
• The Dodgers have not won or lost two games in a row since May 18-19.
• Luis Cruz has played in 162 career games going into tonight’s start. His last appearance was May 17.
• According to Eric Stephen on Twitter, Josh Beckett experienced numbness in fingers and has had his throwing program temporarily shut down, and Scott Elbert’s “never-ending rehab assignment” moves to Albuquerque on Wednesday.
• Awaiting word on whether A.J. Ellis is just having a day off today, or whether Sunday’s hit-by-pitch will sideline him for any duration.
I’m never able to put this in the proper perspective, but my best wishes to you on this Memorial Day.
“The Dodgers have 53 plate appearances with the bases loaded this season, tied for 5th most in MLB, but are the only team without an extra-base hit in that situation. The Dodgers rank dead last with a .303 OPS with the bases loaded, which would be the worst mark by any team since 1946.”
As you can see from the Baseball-Reference.com chart below (linked here), the site doesn’t really have records of batting with the bases loaded before 1945 – and I’m not exactly confident that those 1946 marks don’t have some holes in them.
The Dodgers have five sacrifice flies with the bases loaded this season.
| Rk | Year | PA | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CIN | 1946 | .272 | 53 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 5 | .118 | .135 | .137 | .272 |
| 2 | CHW | 1946 | .286 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | .000 | .286 | .000 | .286 |
| 3 | LAD | 2013 | .303 | 53 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 3 | 14 | .133 | .170 | .133 | .303 |
| 4 | WSN | 2013 | .335 | 28 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 11 | .154 | .143 | .192 | .335 |
| 5 | PHA | 1946 | .351 | 38 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 4 | .139 | .184 | .167 | .351 |
| 6 | WSH | 1947 | .368 | 78 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 3 | 12 | .149 | .192 | .176 | .368 |
| 7 | OAK | 1978 | .381 | 101 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 43 | 6 | 19 | .143 | .178 | .202 | .381 |
| 8 | CHC | 2013 | .394 | 36 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 2 | 8 | .167 | .194 | .200 | .394 |
| 9 | DET | 1945 | .395 | 29 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 3 | 1 | .154 | .241 | .154 | .395 |
| 10 | SEA | 1980 | .407 | 124 | 19 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 6 | 21 | .174 | .205 | .202 | .407 |
| 11 | LAD | 1987 | .409 | 119 | 19 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 51 | 4 | 24 | .171 | .193 | .216 | .409 |
| 12 | CHW | 1945 | .416 | 28 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 6 | .130 | .286 | .130 | .416 |
| 13 | PHI | 2013 | .419 | 28 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 8 | .160 | .179 | .240 | .419 |
| 14 | NYG | 1955 | .425 | 103 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 55 | 6 | 16 | .157 | .184 | .241 | .425 |
| 15 | ATL | 1968 | .425 | 108 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 5 | 14 | .194 | .231 | .194 | .425 |
| 16 | CIN | 1982 | .426 | 110 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 50 | 5 | 21 | .186 | .209 | .216 | .426 |
| 17 | CHC | 1948 | .426 | 53 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 3 | 5 | .180 | .226 | .200 | .426 |
| 18 | SLB | 1949 | .432 | 98 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 52 | 6 | 11 | .163 | .214 | .217 | .432 |
| 19 | SFG | 1983 | .432 | 127 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 64 | 5 | 22 | .173 | .205 | .227 | .432 |
| 20 | HOU | 2012 | .439 | 132 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 59 | 10 | 33 | .130 | .205 | .235 | .439 |
| 21 | NYG | 1956 | .441 | 111 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 6 | 19 | .170 | .207 | .234 | .441 |
| 22 | NYM | 1968 | .445 | 122 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 62 | 6 | 35 | .188 | .221 | .223 | .445 |
| 23 | KCR | 1992 | .448 | 107 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 61 | 4 | 17 | .174 | .215 | .233 | .448 |
| 24 | NYY | 1981 | .452 | 83 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 45 | 6 | 12 | .176 | .217 | .235 | .452 |
| 25 | NYY | 1945 | .455 | 38 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 7 | .135 | .158 | .297 | .455 |
