Dodger Thoughts

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

Tag: Brandon League (Page 2 of 2)

From the magazine: ‘Father’s Daze’

Ahead of Father’s Day, I talked to several Dodgers about how they remained connected with their families when they spend so much of their lives away from home.  Below, the reprint from this month’s Dodger Insider magazine (click each page to enlarge):

— Jon Weisman

Father's Daze 1

Read More

Inside the shutdown streak of Brandon League

LOS ANGELES DODGERS AT ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS

By Jon Weisman

I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve thought I’m the naive one for not giving up on a player. But then came Juan Uribe. And now comes Brandon League.

A pitcher that a number of Dodger fans were rooting for to be released, who allowed 87 baserunners and a 5.30 ERA in 54 1/3 innings in 2013 and half of his inherited runners to score, has now thrown 16 1/3 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run, stranded seven of eight inherited runners and been unscored upon in 12 of 14 appearances in 2014.

Here’s a game-by-game look at the 10 appearances that have encompassed his scoreless streak, followed by what passes as analysis from me (with help from Baseball-Reference.com).

Read More

Domination and redemption

[mlbvideo id=”32585911″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman

What can you say about Dee Gordon?  He goes 5 for 6 with two RBI and three steals, while also making a huge defensive play.

And what can you say about Brandon League? Is he on the Juan Uribe redemption path? On a night the Dodgers were trying to buy Kenley Jansen another day of rest, League stepped in after Brian Wilson, Chris Withrow and Chris Perez couldn’t hold a 7-2 lead, and shut out Miami in the 10th and 11th innings of a 9-7 Dodger victory. League has now thrown 11 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run.

And while we’re at it, what can you say about Carl Crawford? Coming off the bench in the midst of a terrible slump, he blasted a two-run homer in the top of the 11th to lift give the Dodgers to victory one day before they face Marlins ace Jose Fernandez.

No, it wasn’t a walk in the park after Yasiel Puig’s titanic three-run homer. It was another extra-inning slog for a weary team. But that’s baseball – comedy, tragedy and triumph all rolled into one.

Notes on a quiet night

LOS ANGELES DODGERS V PHILADELPHIA PHILLIESBy Jon Weisman

You don’t set out to lose a game, but it’s hard for me not to take a game like Monday’s 7-0 loss to Cliff Lee and the Phillies as a write-off. When Lee is so dominant that he can retire 20 guys in a row, my first thought is … hopefully, the Dodgers will have their answer soon in Clayton Kershaw.

  • How effective was Lee? There were five balls hit to the outfield all night: a single to center, a single to left and three flies into Tony Gwynn Jr.’s glove. No putouts were recorded in left field or right field, and in fact, neither John Mayberry Jr. nor Marlon Byrd so much as touched a live ball in right field all night.
  • Two Dodger batters reached the outfield after the second inning: Justin Turner sixth-inning fly to center and Tim Federowicz’s eighth-inning single.
  • Still playing .600 ball this season, the Dodgers were able to reset most of their bullpen, with Kenley Jansen, J.P Howell, Brian Wilson, Chris Withrow and Chris Perez all getting a day off, thanks to Brandon League and Jose Dominguez eating up two innings.
  • League has retired 12 of the past 15 batters he has faced.
  • It’s just not that easy to play this game, no matter how much you might think it is. If it were easy, Paul Maholm wouldn’t walk the power-challenged Gwynn leading off the game, or lob a short throw way over Adrian Gonzalez’s head for a run-scoring error in the fifth.
  • Carlos Ruiz will always be Carlos Ruiz, huh? With two doubles, a homer and a walk, the 35-year-old Phillies catcher raised his career OPS against Los Angeles to .880 (.423 OBP, .458 slugging). That doesn’t include a .989 postseason OPS against the Dodgers (.472 OBP, .517 slugging).
  • Monday’s late innings brought us the 2014 debuts of Justin Turner at third base and Scott Van Slyke in center field. Adrian Gonzalez is the last Dodger to play every inning at his position this year.
  • The loss was the first for the Dodgers by more than two runs since April 5, ending a streak of 12 games in a row in which they were winning or could have won with one swing of the bat in the ninth inning.

March 14 pregame: Kershaw’s careful curveball

[mlbvideo id=”31524827″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

Dodgers vs. Cubs, 1:05 p.m.
Dee Gordon, 2B
Carl Crawford, LF
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Andre Ethier, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
AJ Ellis, C
Miguel Rojas, SS
Josh Beckett, RHP

By Jon Weisman

Above, my favorite play of Spring Training to date: Justin Turner to Red Patterson on the fly …

Below, news and links aplenty …

  • Clayton Kershaw didn’t throw a single curveball with a three-ball count in 2013 and has done so only once since 2010, writes Cory DiBenedetto in a short analysis for Gammons Daily. Kershaw also hasn’t allowed a home run on his curveball — on any count — in the past four seasons. (In case you’re wondering, the famous “Public Enemy No. 1” curve came on a 1-2 count.)
  • Sam Demel and Kershaw are the scheduled starters for Saturday’s split-squad games. Both games are at Camelback Ranch, though the night game against the White Sox is technically a road game. For Kershaw, it will be his last game action before the regular season begins March 22 in Australia.
  • ESPN’s Future Power Rankings, which “attempt to measure how well each team is set up for sustained success over the next five years,” place the Dodgers third among MLB teams, behind Boston and St. Louis. A year ago, ESPN had the Dodgers eighth, which at the time struck me as too low given the team’s burgeoning resources.
  • Related: The Dodgers have the best “core five” in the game, according to David Schoenfield of ESPN.

    1. Los Angeles Dodgers
    Clayton Kershaw, Hanley Ramirez, Yasiel Puig, Zack Greinke, Adrian Gonzalez

    This group could be even better than it was in 2013 with full seasons from Ramirez and Puig. Greinke was so dominant over his final 16 starts (1.57 ERA) that he’s a reasonable Cy Young candidate behind his best-starter-in-baseball teammate. The fifth player on the list could be Gonzalez or Matt Kemp or even third starter Hyun-Jin Ryu.

  • Manny Mota, who has graciously passed his No. 11 jersey to Erisbel Arruebarrena, remembers Roberto Clemente in this interview with Lyle Spencer of MLB.com.
  • Stan Conte spoke in some detail about injury prevention and predicting injuries at the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Analytics Conference on Thursday. J.P Hoornstra of the Daily News has details, and Christina Kahrl of ESPN.com has more as well.
  • Don Mattingly is back in camp today after two days away on bereavement leave.
  • Yasiel Puig went 4 for 10 in intrasquad play Thursday — he starts in right field today.
  • Scheduled to follow Josh Beckett, who is testing a sprained right thumb, on the mound today are Jose Dominguez, Paco Rodriguez, Javy Guerra, Chris Withrow and Jamey Wright.
  • Red Patterson pitched 3 1/3 shutout innings for the Dodgers on Thursday, but Seth Rosin finally gave up his first earned run. If you’re keeping track, Patterson has a 0.93 ERA this spring, while Rosin is at 1.64.
  • Rosin still leads the staff in strikeouts (12) and is tied with Hyun-Jin Ryu for the most innings (11).
  • Brandon League talked about his spring to Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. Stephen also gets Mattingly’s thoughts on League’s progress.
  • Brett Tomko, 41 next month and seven seasons removed from his Dodger days, is going to Kansas City on a minor-league deal, a week after the Royals parted ways with a Dodger teammate of Tomko’s, Brad Penny.
  • Tim Newcomb of SI.com presents a vision of the ballpark of the future. Pretty pictures.
  • Thursday in Jon SooHoo.

In case you missed it: Happy photo day

Los Angeles Dodgers workout

By Jon Weisman

Who are those guys again?

  • Paul Maholm has been slowed for precautionary reasons by some elbow tenderness. He threw on flat ground today.

    … “I’m just being smart and understand what’s needed to prepare for the season,” Maholm told Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. “I only really missed one bullpen session today and I expect to throw a bullpen Saturday, and it won’t set me back.” …

  • Yasiel Puig was held out of action today after fouling a ball off his right leg yesterday. According to the Dodger press notes, Puig will not undergo any further testing at this time and is expected to be a full participant in tomorrow’s workout.

    … “There was a little swelling and we don’t see the need to have him limp around out there,” Don Mattingly told Gurnick. “We feel he’ll be back tomorrow.” …

  • Gurnick added that Zach Lee returned to the mound for a short bullpen session for the first time in 10 days after suffering a mild lat strain.
  • “Tim Federowicz was limited in workouts Tuesday after feeling tightness in his side during blocking drills,” writes Bill Plunkett of the Register in a notebook item. “He was back to full participation Wednesday.”
  • The Dodgers will play intrasquad games Sunday (with pitchers Matt Magill, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Chris Perez, Brian Wilson, Kenley Jansen and J.P. Howell) and Monday (Stephen Fife, Dan Haren, Chris Reed, Paco Rodriguez and Jamey Wright) on the back fields of Camelback Ranch.
  • Miguel Rojas spoke to Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles about his anxiety over political violence in his home of Venezuela. “Rojas’ wife lives 35 minutes from Caracas, the nation’s capital and the center of unrest,” Saxon writes. “Rojas said she scarcely leaves the house these days.” J.P. Hoornstra has more at the Daily News.
  • Los Angeles Dodgers workoutBrandon League talked about his 2013 season with Dylan Hernandez of the Times.

    … “It was not just one thing,” he said. “It was not just mechanical. It wasn’t just preparation. It was one thing one time, something else another time.” …

  • “Meanwhile, reliever Jose Dominguez tried out a new slider grip suggested by legendary lefty Sandy Koufax and reported improved downward break on the pitch,” reports Gurnick for MLB.com.
  • Non-roster catcher Miguel Olivo, looking for a career rebirth, is the subject of this Saxon piece for ESPN Los Angeles. The 35-year-old has 145 career home runs. Random note: Only two catchers have hit that many for the Dodgers, Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza. In fact, since making his MLB debut in 2002, Olivo has nearly outhomered everyone who has played catcher for the Dodgers in that time:
    • Russell Martin 53
    • A.J. Ellis 25
    • Paul Lo Duca 25
    • Rod Barajas 21
    • Dioner Navarro 10
    • Jason Phillips 7
    • Tim Federowicz 4
    • Ramon Hernandez 2
    • Chad Kreuter 2
    • Matt Treanor 2
    • Danny Ardoin 1
    • Brad Ausmus 1
    • Gary Bennett 1
    • Mike Rose 1
    • Total 155
  • Baseball America has released its top 100 prospects list. The Dodgers’ usual suspects are there: Joc Pederson (34), Corey Seager (37), Julio Urias (51 and the youngest player in the 100) and Zach Lee (95). Dustin Nosler sums up the spectrum of propsect lists at Dodgers Digest.
  • The Dodgers rank second behind St. Louis in Jonah Keri’s “Offseason Stock Report” for Grantland.
  • David Schoenfield of ESPN.com explains why he thinks the Dodgers are the biggest lock of any team to win their division.
  • Eastern Park, where the Brooklyn baseball team played from 1891-97, is the subject of this piece by Ernest Reyes at Blue Heaven.

    … Eastern Park is said to be the birthplace of the famous Dodger name.  It is believed that this is the stadium where the nickname “Trolley Dodgers” came about.  The trolley and rail lines, that were located directly to the east of the stadium, were a constant hazard to fans attending games.  Frankly, this last item was a surprise to me as I began my research on this stadium.  I had always thought that Ebbets Field was were it originated, but that appears to not be the case. …

  • Former Dodger pitcher Chris Capuano has reportedly agreed to terms on a deal with the Boston Red Sox. With more is Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston.

In case you missed it: 32 to the infinite power

[mlbvideo id=”31367651″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
By Jon Weisman

Koufax in Camelback? Like Thanksgiving in February.

  • Here’s a roundup of recent Sandy Koufax stories by Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, Dylan Hernandez of the Times, Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A., Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles. and Bill Plunkett of the Register.
  • Koufax can also be seen in Monday’s photo gallery from Jon SooHoo. Here’s his gallery from today.
  • And here’s a post about Koufax at the Countdown Down Under MLBlog, as we approach the 50th anniversary of Koufax’s only (yes, only) Opening Day start.
  • By the way, Koufax isn’t the only Cy Young winner who can give advice …
  • Brandon League has had his throwing reduced in recent days because of a lat strain. Zach Lee, suffering from a similar problem, had plans to throw off a mound today.
  • What will the Dodgers’ lineup be in 2017? Dustin Nosler of Dodgers Digest speculates.
  • Seth Rosin prides himself on his “3-wood”-like versatility, writes Tyler Emerick for MLB.com.
  • Former Dodger pitcher Dana Eveland signed a minor-league deal with the Mets, according to Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish. Eveland went to Baltimore in the 2011 deal that brought to Los Angeles pitcher Jarrett Martin, who is profiled here by MLB.com and by J.P. Hoornstra of the Daily News.
  • Roger Angell, the baseball specialist for the New Yorker, was one of the formative writers of my youth and young adulthood. That declined somewhat in the past 10 years as he wrote less frequently and telescoped more on the New York scene when he did (understandably). But his piece this week for the New Yorker on aging and dying will stick with me as much as anything he has ever done.

Phenomenal bullpen key to Dodgers’ revival

It’s hard to overstate the importance that Hanley Ramirez and Yasiel Puig have had in the Dodgers’ turnaround from a 30-42 to a 30-7 team. They have had an enormous impact on an offense that otherwise has not performed much better in the second 54 games of 2013 than it did in the first 54.

A.J. Ellis, Adrian Gonzalez, Mark Ellis, Juan Uribe, Carl Crawford, Scott Van Slyke, Nick Punto and Jerry Hairston Jr. – five starters and three key bench players – all had lower OPSes in the middle third of the season, when the Dodgers went 36-18, than at the outset, according to Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.

The starting pitching has been steady as she goes during the hot streak, with everyone – including, of late, Chris Capuano – keeping the Dodgers in games. In addition, the team has been better hitting with runners in scoring position, some recent events in Chicago notwithstanding.

But when you look at how the Dodgers have been playing .811 ball since June 22, winning games like they were free throws, much of it comes down to this – the bullpen simply just keeps getting guys out.

Perhaps no moment epitomized that more than when the Dodgers inserted Brandon League, simply horrible for much of this season, into the seventh inning of Saturday’s game with Cubs at the corners and the tying run at the plate.

Since entering the All-Star break with a 6.25 ERA, League hadn’t allowed an earned run or an inherited run in eight innings over six appearances, with opponents OPSing a scant .343. Don Mattingly had slowly moved League out of mop-up situations into higher-leverage moments, but this was the first time League had been used to protect a lead of three runs or less in nearly seven weeks since June 25.

League threw four pitches, induced the Dodgers’ fourth double play of the game, and strolled off the field.

In the next inning, Ronald Belisario gave up two singles to the four batters he raced – a relatively shocking development for a bullpen that has been so reliable – and then making matters worse, Paco Rodriguez came in and threw six straight pitches out of the strike zone, loading the bases with a 2-0 count to the go-ahead run, Chicago’s cleanup hitter, Welington Castillo (admittedly, not your prototypical cleanup hitter).

Rodriguez got the count back to 3-2, then struck Castillo out.

If teams don’t score against you, they’re not going to beat you. The Dodger bullpen has smothered nearly every single fire they have encountered since the fourth week of June.

Keep in mind the bottom four guys are not really relevant to the conversation, having mainly pitched in the rare garbage situations the Dodgers have been in since June 22. The four primary relievers (five if you count Withrow) have ERAs below 2.00, opponents’ OPS below .600 and have stranded 31 of 34 inherited runners. Thrown in a temporarily improved League as a bonus, and that’s a hellacious bullpen that could also find addition by subtraction if Carlos Marmol is jettisoned for someone more reliable, unless Marmol follows in League’s footsteps.

Can they keep this up? Well, no. Not bloody likely. Relievers don’t stay hot forever, particularly guys who are proven inconsistents like Belisario. The question is whether it will be a blown save here or there, or the more frequent meltdowns of the season’s first 72 games.

There’s also concern over how many games some of the relievers have been appearing in – especially Kenley Jansen. But the good news is that Jansen has been so efficient lately – he has retired 22 consecutive batters with 10 strikeouts – they’ve essentially been low-stress outings. Here are Jansen’s daily pitch counts since June 22 …

There was an eyebrow-raising stretch the week of June 23 and another following a 28-pitch outing July 23, but for the most part, Jansen has kept his pitch counts in check and had a nice checkerboard of days off.

Of course, the fastest way for the closer to get rest is for the Dodgers to start losing again. Otherwise, yeah, there will be a day when the Dodgers are in a tight one and they’ll want to try to get by without using their big ex-catcher.

The Dodgers’ surge has been too good to be true, but there’s no denying it has happened. Whether you should believe it can continue should depend in large part in your belief in this bullpen.

Dodgers at Cubs, 11:20 a.m.

Dodgers in a race to the upside down

Sure, OK, we can start with the bullpen. It’s hardly the only thing going on with the Dodgers, but it’s something. Oh yes, it’s something.

You need good relief to win, but you can’t plan for good relief. 

This comes up every year, so it’s tedious to point out, but it doesn’t seem to go without saying.

I’m going to ask take my years-old research into this on faith; whether you choose to do so is up to you. But what you find is that there is virtually no consistency year-to-year among relief pitchers. The best might give you two or three consecutive good years. The very best.

The reasons for this should be clear. You don’t become a reliever unless you are flawed in some way that prevents you from being a starter. That obviously doesn’t mean you can’t be a fantastic reliever in a given year, but for the most part, relievers are pitchers who aren’t designed to be great over the long haul. They typically have a limited number of pitches, which leaves them vulnerable to being figured out over time. The good ones end up getting overworked, or maybe they were never that good in the first place, instead merely a triumph of small sample size. We could go on, but let’s sum it up this way: Mariano Rivera is not reality.

The 2003 Dodger bullpen was incredible. It was also, in many significant ways, an accident.

Staffing a bullpen has always, fascinatingly, been Ned Colletti’s simultaneous strength and weakness. Colletti has had a knack for finding capable non-roster talent (Takashi Saito, Ronald Belisario) over the same years that he has invested multiyear deals in such inconsistent arms as Matt Guerrier and Brandon League. There is no correlation in the Colletti tenure between salary and performance, yet the expensive signings continue.

The point is that you can never feel good about your bullpen entering a season – never. I really believe that. You can’t feel anything at all. The best thing you can do is assemble a number of arms before Spring Training, a combination of youth and experience and promise and reclamation, and then hope for the best.

The peril of having someone with a long-term contract is that you feel obligated to keep him past the point of effectiveness. That’s the boat the Dodgers are in with League and Guerrier, even with a new ownership that doesn’t much worry about player salaries these days.

The Dodger bullpen is leaky through and through. Almost nothing is working right now. Just as you were gaining supreme confidence in Paco Rodriguez and Kenley Jansen, they found growing pains that left them struggling like the more experienced J.P Howell, League, Guerrier and, if you will, Belisario and Javy Guerra.

Fans tend to have unreasonable expectations of bullpens – you see outrage anytime any relief pitcher gives up a run, let alone a lead. I’m not sure where fans get the idea that every reliever on their team should have a 0.00 ERA, but there it is. Every Dodger relief pitcher since the heyday of Eric Gagne and Saito has been attacked for his failings, however momentary, however good that pitcher has been overall.  So when a bullpen is collectively struggling as much as the Dodger bullpen is, it’s frogs and locusts time.

Don Mattingly’s instinct has been correct in general to try to play matchups with his relievers. You can debate the specifics of all his choices – I don’t agree with them all – but the bottom line is, there’s little he can do when no one is reliable.

Mattingly’s bullpen Sunday faced 18 batters and got nine outs. When Jansen entered Saturday’s game in relief of Chris Capuano, he had thrown only 21 pitches in his previous 72 hours. Capuano had pitched well that night, but he was past the 90-pitch mark and going on a balky calf.

But when things are bad, things are bad.

Tim Federowicz is not a martyr.

This morning brought the news that Tim Federowicz, and not Luis Cruz or Ramon Hernandez, had been displaced from the active roster to make room for the return of Mark Ellis from the disabled list. Federowicz is more valuable than Cruz or Hernandez, but the hysteria this caused was rather remarkable.

When I called out this freakout on Twitter, several people lectured me, as if I didn’t know, that it wasn’t just about Federowicz, but that it was symptomatic of the Colletti Dodgers’ larger mismanagement in general or obsession with experience over youth in particular. As if I needed to be told that Colletti values experience, sometimes to the franchise’s detriment.

I’ve spent a lot of time on how to phrase this next section, because I don’t want to give the impression that you shouldn’t try to maximize every advantage you can. Federowicz can’t help the Dodgers that much right now, but sure, I’d rather see him get five at-bats a week over Hernandez, because an on-base percentage over .500 in Albuquerque and above-average defense suggest a better skill set than Hernandez currently offers. Scott Van Slyke’s callup was overdue, not because he was guaranteed to hit two homers in a game, but because he was on a hot streak in the minors that made it clear there was no better time to try him out.

But just as there is with the bullpen, there’s a level of knee-jerk fan reaction with the bench that is out of proportion. When a player is a single game away from having better stats than his competition, as Hernandez is compared with Federowicz (3 for 17 with one walk and no extra-base hits as a major-leaguer in 2013), and neither is projected to be a starter, and the alternatives to Hernandez as backup if A.J. Ellis gets hurt are Jesus Flores, Matt Wallach and Gorman Erickson, the uproar should not be Defcon Anything.

Yeah, Cruz stinks right now, and no one in their right mind would keep him over Juan Uribe – just like no one in their right mind would have argued to keep Uribe over Cruz last summer.

See what I’m getting at?

If you’re not frustrated with the Dodgers right now, you’re either not a Dodger fan or very zen. You’re not wrong if you’re unhappy with Federowicz’s demotion. But if you’re angry over Federowicz being sent down, you’re overreacting. It’s not symptomatic of the Dodgers’ larger problems. You’re not going to plug in Federowicz, Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson and Alex Castellanos into the Dodger bench and as a result see things turn around.

And May 19 is too soon to give up, if only because of one person.

Matt Kemp.

Until Kemp starts hitting, nothing is going to happen with this team. Nothing. The Dodgers cannot win without his bat. And again, it’s not something anger will solve. The effort is there – if anything, he’s trying too hard to get things going. But it is up to Kemp.

It would help if Andre Ethier hit more, but the difference between what Ethier is doing compared to what is expected of him is not what it is with Kemp.

I’m sure Kemp has had all the advice in the world, from Mattingly, Mark McGwire and any number of coaches or people he meets on the street. But no one else can synthesize the good from the bad and put it into action.

You can start firing managers or coaches or trainers. Kemp still needs to hit.

The bullpen can start putting out fires. Kemp still needs to hit.

The defense can stop making two errors a game. Kemp still needs to hit.

But what if he does?

Let me tell you one more thing.  I would love to give up on the 2013 Dodgers. It will be a relief if and when I can. I spent part of my Sunday writing this 1,500-word piece that probably isn’t worth a damn, especially for a team barely winning 40 percent of its games.

And the season might be over, except for this. For all their problems, Los Angeles is still somehow only seven games out of first place. The Giants, in case you haven’t noticed, have their own cauldron of concerns. And Arizona and Colorado … I just don’t know. I can’t see them not hitting their own skid. I can’t see it.

The National League West looks like an 85-win division. That’s still within the Dodgers’ abilities.

The team gets healthier. The bullpen stops being a disaster. Matt Kemp starts to hit. And then …

Honestly, that’s as far as I can go. The team does look awful right now. It looks nothing like a winning team. It’s creaky and crumbly. Race to the bottom or race to the top – I truly can’t decide.

Dodgers survive a League of his moan, 4-3

So Chad Billingsley was the pregame worry, but in the end it was pins and needles with Brandon League.

It’s Jackie Robinson week, but instead we got the ghost of Mickey Owen.

Despite 17 baserunners tonight, the Dodgers’ final pitch of the game came with the tying and winning runs in motion on the bases for the Padres during a full-count pitch from League. But the last swing by Yonder Alonso sent a pop fly to the glove of backup left fielder Skip Schumaker, and Los Angeles hung on to a 4-3 victory.

The game offered little you could rely upon except Carl Crawford pounding the ball and the Dodgers leaving runners on base.

After the Dodgers stranded their 10th, 11th and 12th runners on base in the top of the ninth, League entered with a 4-1 lead and gave up a one-out double and two two-out singles for a run. He then struck out Chris Denorfia for what would have been the final out of the game, had the ball not eluded A.J. Ellis for a passed ball and another run.

League got two strikes on Alonso before the Padre worked the count full. With their stomachs lurching, Dodger fans instead got a dose of Pepto from the final out.

That preserved Billingsley’s first victory of the year and seventh in a row dating back to last season. After a leadoff walk, Billingsley sailed through the first three innings on barely 30 pitches, before falling out of sync in the fourth and fifth innings. But he kept the damage to a single run, and pushed through a sixth inning before calling it a night after 94 pitches. He allowed eight baserunners in all while striking out three.

Crawford homered on the second pitch of the game and tripled before scoring his second run in the fifth inning. Ellis hit a two-run homer in the second. Every Dodger position player who started had at least a hit, including the previously hitless Luis Cruz, who had two.

Dodgers lose game but win League

Aaron Harang had a 2.60 ERA in 11 starts since May 28, but he went down hard tonight, surrendering a three-run first-inning home run to Paul Goldschmidt and a fifth-inning grand slam to Chris Johnson in the Dodgers’ 7-2 loss to Arizona.

The result allowed the Diamondbacks to creep within 3 1/2 games of Los Angeles and within four of San Francisco, which was in extra innings against the New York Mets as of this writing.

However, while dropping a game in the National League sweepstakes, the Dodgers picked up a win for those who cared about the Brandon League sweepstakes. Announced officially shortly after 10:30 p.m., Los Angeles acquired the Seattle Mariners righty reliever for minor-leaguers Leon Landry and Logan Bawcom.

League, 29, has a 3.69 career ERA and 3.63 ERA in 2012. After striking out as many as 9.2 batters per nine innings in 2009, League is down to 5.4 this season, while allowing 67 baserunners in 44 2/3 innings. He made a name for himself by saving 37 games in 2011, but that’s already a bit of ancient history. So while the Dodgers might have a little anxiety about how reliable Ronald Belisario, Javy Guerra, Josh Lindblom, Shawn Tolleson or even a recovering Matt Guerrier might be down the stretch (or about replacing any of them if they are traded), League offers another option – but not exactly offer a guaranteed solution.

The price was 2010 third-round pick Landry, a 22-year-old outfielder with a .358 on-base percentage and .559 slugging (including 26 doubles and 15 triples) in the happy-hitting California League, and Bawcom, a 23-year-old righty picked in the 17th round the same year, who has a 2.60 ERA and 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings for Double-A Chattanooga.

I’m not sure either prospect wasn’t expendable in a pennant drive or expected to be a significant contributor to the Dodgers in the future, and you never know when a guy is going to have a two-month hot streak like George Sherrill in 2009, so the question I would have is less about who won tonight’s deal and more about whether Landry or Bawcom might have had a role in a potentially bigger deal for the Dodgers Tuesday or down the road.

Page 2 of 2

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén