Well, at least it was quick. Two hours, five minutes, to be exact, in a game that perfectly illustrated everything that this Dodgers offense is struggling with right now. Good postgame quote from Jeff Kent about the team’s lack of patience:

“In reality, it’s a catch between patience and being aggressive. There is that fine line. There is a time to be patient and a time to be aggressive when you’re an offensive player. There is a time to be patient when you’re coaching, too. There are decisions to be made about your action plan. There is a time to be aggressive and take some action, because you can’t wait too long.
“As long as I have been playing, there has been that fine line. Coaches can say be patient, but in the same breath, they’re saying this (opposing pitcher) throws strikes early. How can you be patient when a guy throws strikes early? That’s the catch, and it’s hard.”

Kent was trying to be as diplomatic as he possibly could. Let me say what he couldn’t, or wouldn’t:

Your humble correspondent and blog host (that would be me) is a firm believer in the Joe Torre approach to hitting, the idea that you make an opposing pitcher work as much as possible, throw as many pitches as possible and that you go to the plate with an idea of exactly what you want to do. The proof is in the pudding — and in the four World Series and six A.L. pennants Torre’s Yankees teams won by taking that approach. But you have to remember, those were VETERAN teams. This is a young team. And it’s just possible that they aren’t ready to take on this cerebral approach to the game just yet. Not that they won’t ever be. But let’s put it this way: this approach has been preached to them since Day One of spring training, and it obviously still hasn’t caught on with any consistency — and because these guys are so young, it might not catch on anytime soon ,either (read: anytime in 2008). These guys are still at a stage of their careers where they would prefer to keep things as simple as possible, and Torre’s way is definitely not simple.

Dodgers fall to 35-41 and remain four behind the Snakes, who lost at Boston.

His name is Doug Eddings, and he has been around for a while. Anyway, he just did something that I thought was great in this era of confrontational umpires. He rang up Nick Swisher to end the third inning, and Swisher responded by dropping his bat in an exaggerated show of disbelief that a lot of umpires would have interpreted as an attempt to show them up. Eddings did it the old fashioned way. He immediately turned his back and walked about 15 feet away from home plate, toward the Dodgers dugout, as the Dodgers jogged off the field. At this point, if Swisher wants to continue the argument, he has to FOLLOW Eddings onto the grass in foul territory. Wisely, he chose not to do so.

Was off my game on that first post today, so we’ll just forget it ever happened. … Nomar appears close to going back out on his rehab. He would have 19 days left, but I doubt it will take that long before he comes back. Torre said it could happen as soon as next week, when the team goes on the road. … Still no timetable on Andruw Jones, either, but he seems to be progressing well.

Apparently, the fact he took ground balls means nothing more than the fact he took ground balls. He still hasn’t run, and that will be the big test he has to be pass before he is allowed to go out on a minor-league rehab assignment. If I had to guess, it still looks like he won’t be back before the All-Star break.

Several of them, in fact, and it appeared effortless. Blake DeWitt was taking them at 3B at the same time, and both players were throwing across to … Andruw Jones standing on 1B. All of this has to be a good sign, but I’m not sure exactly what it means in terms of the next step. I’ll try to find out when I get downstairs.

Here’s tonight’s lineup, with no Ethier or DeWitt. LaRoche starts against a RH
LF Pierre
CF Kemp
2B Kemp
C Martin
1B Loney
3B LaRoche
RF Young
SS Berroa
RH Lowe