Bruce Bochy, the manager of this year’s National League All-Star team, would have a hard time picking Yasiel Puig on the merits of a six-week major-league career.
The San Francisco Giants manager explained why this afternoon on the MLB Network Radio channel on SiriusXM with hosts Jim Bowden and Casey Stern:
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Clayton Kershaw is looking for a lot of money in his contract extension. But we knew that already, right? (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers are talking about a contract extension. One side or both might be getting antsy.
At least, that’s often the case when the terms of a deal are leaked to the media: To achieve something that negotiation cannot.
Kershaw said the leak came from the Dodgers’ camp, not his. Regardless, there’s not a whole lot we can read into the reports on CBSsports.com and FoxSports.com, mainly because the two stories differ on the dollar amounts being discussed and the likelihood of a deal happening in the near future.
If — and this is a fairly big if — Kershaw is seeking “about $225 million,” as CBSsports.com reports, he probably wouldn’t prefer the 10-year or 12-year contract structures mentioned on FoxSports.com, which would almost certainly lock in Kershaw to a longer term than he’s seeking. Those terms were more likely to have been proposed by the Dodgers. Again, this assumes the two reports are both drawing their separate information from reliable sources.
Is it wise to invest 12 years in a 25-year-old pitcher who has already thrown more than 1,000 major-league innings? In any player?
These are legitimate questions here. The Dodgers have probably asked them internally. At some point, we might discover what conclusion they reach. Does Kershaw think he’s worth 12 years and $300 million? Ask him yourself in about an hour.
Some bullet points for an Autistic Pride Day:
Chris Withrow went from a minor-league starter to a major-league reliever, a jittery ball of nerves to a statistic, booed briefly when he gave up the game-tying run in the seventh inning Wednesday then golf-clapped off the Dodger Stadium mound following his major-league debut.
A whirlwind, to be sure.
“It was still a lot of fun,” the 24-year-old pitcher said after the game. “Definitely to get out there and get my feet wet was an awesome experience. I wish my results were a little better. When you come into a game, it’s 4-3, you want to hold the lead. I wasn’t able to do that so i didn’t get my job done.”
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Mark McGwire and Kirk Gibson aren’t talking about the 1988 World Series in this photo, but isn’t it fun to imagine they are? (Associated Press photo)
Like Yasiel Puig’s arrival last week, The Brawl has been a gift to the media that keeps on giving.
Accuse us of glorifying violence, I don’t care. It was a rare occasion and one that’s been examined from a lot of angles. Searching for the words in the moment, some of us in the media not typically prone to hyperbole rose to the level of hyperbole (before remembering that, no, the 1984 Braves-Padres brawl was much worse, even when it’s set to the “Benny Hill” theme song).
Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com hopes The Brawl inspires baseball’s rulemakers to forbid players from leaving the benches and bullpens during a fracas. Still others couldn’t get over the number of coaches involved who filled out our baseball card collections in the 1980s. One piece exploring this topic concludes with God admonishing Ryne Sandberg. The gift that keeps on giving.
And oh, the photos.
Take a moment to appreciate it all before the MLB-induced discipline squashes the moment today.
Some bullet points for a Thursday morning:
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The Dodgers lost a game they could have won for the second time in three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks, 8-6 in 12 innings on Wednesday night.
They entered the series 7 ½ games behind the first-place Diamondbacks and finished 8 ½ back. They might have lost their manager, a coach, and some players to MLB-issued suspensions, depending on how the league metes out discipline Thursday for the massive brawl on Tuesday night.
If the Dodgers want to reach .500 by the All-Star break, they will need to win at least 19 of their next 29 games.
But hey, at least they’re getting healthier.
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Chris Anderson (foreground) and Tom Windle (background, right) visited Dodger Stadium on Wednesday.
The Dodgers signed pitchers Chris Anderson and Tom Windle, their top two picks in the First-Year Player Draft last Thursday. Both signed for the assigned slot value — Anderson for $2,109,900 and Windle for $986,500 — and will report to the Dodgers’ facility in Glendale, Ariz for a week of training. They will then be assigned to Single-A Great Lakes.
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Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGwire, right, confronted Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson, left, in yesterday’s brawl. (Getty Images)
Any fines and suspensions that Major League Baseball plans to levy on the participants in Tuesday’s brawl between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks will have to wait until tomorrow.
That doesn’t mean that players and coaches on both sides weren’t anticipating it Wednesday.
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The Sydney Morning Herald published this image of what the 40,000-plus seat Sydney Cricket Ground might look like if converted for baseball.
The Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks confirmed Wednesday that they will begin the 2014 season with a pair of games in Sydney, Australia. The news was first reported last October by the Sydney Morning Herald.
The games will be played Saturday, March 22 and 23, 2014 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Dodgers president Stan Kasten said that his team will play a spring training game in Arizona on Sunday, March 16 and fly from Phoenix to Sydney that night. After a day off Tuesday, the Dodgers will work out Wednesday, then play an exhibition game against an Australian team on Thursday. There may be a second exhibition game Friday — Kasten said “I don’t think we need it” — and leave for Los Angeles at the conclusion of Sunday’s game.
“It’ll be a long trip but we hope well worth it,” Kasten said.
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Yasiel Puig was hit in the nose by an Ian Kennedy pitch on Tuesday night. He remained in the game. (Associated Press photo)
As Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told reporters that young phenom Yasiel Puig might be feeling some effects from Tuesday night’s brawl with the Arizona Diamondbacks, out on the field Mattingly’s worst fears might have come to fruition.
Puig took only a handful of batting-practice swings before angrily gathering his bats and walking to the dugout, tossing them into the bat rack, then retreating to the Dodgers clubhouse with team trainers following behind.
The Dodgers sent out a revised lineup about an hour and a half before their game against the Arizona Diamondbacks without Puig, who has a strained right shoulder and is described as day-to-day.
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Yasiel Puig is restrained during the benches-clearing brawl in the seventh inning of Tuesday’s game between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks. (Getty Images)
The Dodgers and Diamondbacks will decide if any further action is needed tonight, 24 hours after Tuesday’s massive brawl.
So will Major League Baseball.
A spokesperson for the league said that Joe Garagiola Jr., MLB’s senior vice president of standards and on-field operations, will review video of the incident to determine if fines or suspensions are warranted. Even though six participants — Kirk Gibson, Ian Kennedy, Turner Ward, Mark McGwire, Yasiel Puig and Ronald Belisario — were ejected, others could face supplemental discipline.
The crew chief, first-base umpire Brian Gorman, told pool reporter Ken Rosenthal that Puig and McGwire were ejected for being instigators, while Belisario was “out of control.”
Gibson and Kennedy were automatically ejected and precedent holds that both could be suspended. Then-Dodgers manager Joe Torre and pitcher Clayton Kershaw were suspended in July 2010 for throwing at Aaron Rowand of the San Francisco Giants. Torre was suspended one game, Kershaw five.
Some of the 15 Dodgers players on the disabled list went on the field, including Chris Capuano and Josh Beckett. That hasn’t historically resulted in suspensions, though Garagiola may choose to fine the two pitchers.
Coincidentally, Garagiola was the Diamondbacks’ first general manager, from 1997-2005.
Some more bullet points that didn’t make my game story last night:
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