Inside the Dodgers

Rockies 5, Dodgers 3

2008-07-23T22:54:43Z

Well, six games into the second half, the offense has officially returned to its first-half form. Proving once again that you can never hide a player when he is struggling, the game found Andruw Jones in the eighth inning, when the Dodgers had the tying runs on second and third and one out. If you didn't see it, I'll give you one guess as to what the result was. Put it this way, it was the same result that Andruw has now gotten 29 times in 51 at-bats this season with runners in scoring position -- and it wasn't a hit, because that has only happened four times in those 51 ABs. Meanwhile, the Dodgers are still waiting for one of their starting pitchers to give them a quality start, something that didn't happen once on this trip. Kuroda became the first one to go six, but he gave up five earned runs on nine hits. ... Dodgers fall to 49-52. Snakes play later, but does it really even matter anymore?

Pentland to stay a while

2008-07-23T18:17:18Z

Joe Torre said this morning that Jeff Pentland, who was hired as a ``roving minor-league hitting instructor,'' is going to stick around with the big club for a while, and Torre didn't rule out him staying for the rest of the year. A big part of his job is helping Don Mattingly get acclimated to the full-time hitting coach's role and providing an additional set of eyes and an additional perspective. There is a limit on how many coaches you can have in the dugout in uniform, so Pentland stays in the clubhouse during games.
``He is basically doing what Donnie was doing when Donnie would visit while Mike (Easler, former hitting coach) was on the bench,'' Torre said. ``He will be watching on TV. If a player goes up (to the clubhouse) to look at an at-bat, Jeff will be there for tha player to talk to about it.''
Torre said special instructor Manny Mota also will continue to travel with the team as an extra hitting coach, although Mota isn't on this trip for personal reasons.

Here's today's lineup
RF Kemp
LF Ethier
SS Garciaparra
2B Kent
1B Loney
CF Jones
3B LaRoche
C Ardoin
RH Kuroda

Rockies 10, Dodgers 1

2008-07-23T05:04:42Z

The fact Ubaldo Jimenez was so pitch-efficient -- he threw 114 in a complete game and got through the first seven innings on just 75 -- would seem to suggest that the Dodgers have fallen back into their old habits. And as you know, I am the first one to jump on the boys when they make it too easy on an opposing pitcher. But in this case, that doesn't appear to be what happened. Jimenez threw an inordinate (especially for him) number of strikes, and the Dodgers had little choice but to swing at them. When you're a beat writer, you try to write every story from the perspective of the team you cover, and when that team gets taken to school by a pitcher, you try to figure out why. This time, there wasn't a why -- other than the fact Jimenez was just GOOD. I mean, really, really good. If he had pitched like this last October, the Rockies might have won a game in that World Series. ... Dodgers fall to 49-51 and one game behind the Snakes. The boys are now 0-3 this month, having been outscored 24-8, in games in which they had a chance to reach .500 for the first time since May 30.

Pierre's impending return ... and what it means for Andruw

2008-07-22T23:48:38Z

Torre says if Pierre's rehab goes well, he will rejoin the big club either Saturday or Sunday. Joe was very non-committal on how the outfield will shake out at that point. What was interesting was that while Joe did say on the one hand that he isn't ready to sit Andruw Jones --

``It's still (too) early for me. Both Donnie (Mattingly) and (Jeff) Pentland are here working on specific things with him. It's one thing to practice, but it's a second thing to go out there and play games and try to put that into practice. I don't think he has had enough time for that yet.''

-- on the other hand, Torre didn't rule out the possibility that Andruw could find himself sitting if this keeps up much longer.

``I have seen Andre (Ethier) and Matty (Kemp) make great strides, Andre with the consistency of his at-bats and Matt seems to be getting a better feel for it right now. The thing that is great about this game is that you reserve the right to change your mind.''

Joe also was non-committal on who his fifth starter will be now that Stults has been sent out. Dodgers won't need one until Tuesday. Could be Jason Johnson. Could be a trade between now and then. But he said it won't be Park because he likes Chan Ho in the pen., and he also said Penny won't be ready by then.

Here's tonight's lineup

RF Kemp
LF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
1B Loney
SS Garciaparra
CF Jones
3B LaRoche
LH Kershaw

Eric Stults optioned to Vegas, Juan Pierre going with him to start rehab

2008-07-22T21:43:04Z

Headline should be self-explanatory. I gotta run downstairs to try to catch them before they leave.

Dodgers 16, Rockies 10

2008-07-22T06:16:38Z

You hate to go negative after the boys scored a season-high 16 runs and banged out a season-high 18 hits. But when you stake a starting pitcher to an 11-run lead, he HAS to throw strikes and give you innings, and Eric Stults did neither. Torre lifted him with one out in the fourth, leaving him four outs shy of qualifying for the win.
``He wasn't aggressive,'' Torre said. ``Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone to get him. It looked like he was trying to protect the lead as opposed to going out and pitching.''
Stults agreed for the most part,
``I was trying to be aggressive, but I wasn't as sharp throughout as I would have liked to have been,'' he said. ``It was just one of those days. Not pitching for a while (since July 11) could have something to do with it, but that's not really an excuse. You just have to go out there and execute pitches.''
But Stults was far from the only one who didn't do that. He combined with relievers Brian Falkenborg (who got the win by scorer's decision), Cory Wade, Joe Beimel and Hong-Chih Kuo to give up 10 runs on 20 hits (how do you get out-hit when you win by six runs?) They also combined to walk six batters, four of them after the Dodgers built a 12-1 lead.
Anyway, the Dodgers improved to 49-50 and stayed tied with the Snakes, pushing the Rockies seven back. There were more offensive heroes to mention, but the biggest was James Loney, who went 3 for 6 with a triple and drove in five runs. He has now driven in 24 runs in 14 career games at Coors, including nine, six and five in three games.

LaRoche possibly being showcased in advance of trading deadline

2008-07-22T02:21:06Z

Torre said before the game that Andy LaRoche is going to start all three games. Here is the quote:
``I had planned on giving him a couple of games. It has really been unfair to him. Knowing that the end of July is looming, you have to find out as much as you can about your players. If you're looking to help your ballclub, you want to make sure you have an idea of the people you have. He'll probably play this series, especially (facing) the left-hander (Glendon Rusch) Wednesday.''
Sounds pretty cut and dried to me. A lot of us -- and a lot of YOU, judging by some of the comments you have been posting -- have long suspected the Dodgers are looking to move this guy. But that shouldn't obscure the fact that he has had three really good plate appearances tonight, and we're only in the fourth inning. He walked each of his first two times, the first time after falling behind 1-2, and he just blooped a 3-2 pitch into right field for a single to score Andruw Jones -- who actually got a hit to lead off the inning -- and give the Dodgers a 12-1 lead.

Kershaw pitches tomorrow

2008-07-21T22:32:37Z

Clayton Kershaw is on his way to Denver. He will be officially recalled from Double-A Jacksonville tomorrow, with a corresponding move to come at that time. Jason Johnson was supposed to pitch tomorrow night, and the fact he wasn't even on the 40-man roster until his contract was purchased from Vegas on Friday would at least SEEM to suggest he might be the odd man out. But let me stress that I am NOT hearing that from any little birdies or anything like that. I'm just guessing. And don't forget that Johnson basically saved the Dodgers' bacon with his three innings out of the pen on Friday night.

Here's tonight's lineup. Nomar is sitting, despite the fact he has 14 hits in his past 42 at-bats since coming off the DL on July 4. Dylan Hernandez and I tried to talk to him about sitting tonight and the fact he seems so comfortable back at SS, but he wasn't in much of a mood to talk. Probably has something to do with sitting in the middle of a hot streak, but we asked him that point blank and he didn't bite, so again, I'm just speculating.

RF Kemp
LF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
1B Loney
CF Jones
3B LaRoche
SS Berroa
LH Stults

Mile High temperatures

2008-07-21T22:00:21Z

It is smokin' hot here, and unusually humid, with some afternoon clouds rolling in. I remember from when I lived here (1995-2000) that during the hottest part of the summer, it seems to cloud up and rain at least a little bit almost every afternoon. We should be fine by 7:05, though, when Eric Stults takes the hill against Kip Wells, who is making his first start after a stint on the DL with a blood clot in his right hand. Very important for the boys to carry the emotion of yesterday's ninth-inning rally into this series, because these Rockies are good enough to get back into this race if you let them -- and assuming the Cubs handle the D-backs this week, a three-game sweep of the Dodgers would put the Rox in the thick of everything.

Dodgers 6, Diamondbacks 5

2008-07-20T23:48:58Z

In the bottom of the eighth inning, I hastily pounded out a blog entry saying the Dodgers were going to have a very, very hard time winning this division because the Diamondbacks have Dan Haren and Brandon Webb and the Dodgers, well, don't. Having completed it, I set it up a mouseclick away from posting and settled back to watch the ninth inning. Approx. half an hour later, the Dodgers' universe looked very different from up here in the Chase Field press box, and, one would imagine, from the clubhouse, as well. If this team DOES win this division, these players and their fans will look back for a long time on what transpired in that ninth inning -- particularly when Matt Kemp stepped to the plate with two outs and saw eight pitches from a struggling Brandon Lyon, five of them with two strikes, before he ultimately shot a game-tying, RBI double up the gap in left-center, the ball rolling to the deepest part of the park while Pablo Ozuna raced all the way home from first and dived stylishly into home plate. Andre Ethier and Russell Martin followed with RBI hits of their own and Jonathan Broxton proved he can overcome his own shakiness to record a save, as well, and the Dodgers pulled even with the Snakes once again at 48-50. The boys take two of three. Snakes coming to Chavez Ravine a week from Thursday for a four-game rematch. In the interim, it's on to Colorado for three, then back home for three each with the Nats and the Giants.

Today's lineup: all hands on deck

2008-07-20T19:07:12Z

No one getting the day off, including Martin. Dodgers will need every ounce of offense they can muster against Brandon Webb.

RF Kemp
LF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
SS Garciaparra
1B Loney
CF Jones
3B DeWitt
RH Lowe

Dodgers sign Pablo Ozuna, DFA Luis Maza

2008-07-20T17:28:50Z

Ozuna, a utility IF like Maza, was DFA'd by the White Sox on July 8 to clear room for Paul Konerko, who came off the DL that day. Ozuna hit .281 (18 for 64) in 32 games for the Sox, with three doubles and six RBI. He can play all four infield spots and in the outfield, although he hasn't play the outfield much since breaking his leg last season.

Joe Jareck of the Dodgers' PR staff sent along this link to an interesting story about Ozuna, if you're interested. I mean, I guess it's interesting. I haven't read it yet.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/1046288,CST-SPT-sox09.article

Diamondbacks 3, Dodgers 2

2008-07-20T03:35:47Z

Dan Haren turned in seven shutout innings against the Dodgers, but this game was all about defense. The Snakes played too much of it -- Conor Jackson robbed Matt Kemp of extra bases with an out-of-this-world catch at the wall in left-center with his back to the field, Mark Reynolds snared two smoking line drives off the bat of Jeff Kent at third and three-time Gold Glove 2B Orlando Hudson made a diving stop to rob Blake DeWitt for the final out of the seventh with a runner on -- and the Dodgers didn't play enough of it. Delwyn Young misjudged a routine fly ball off the bat of Hudson in the first inning, turning it into a double that led to an Arizona run. Ironically, that play didn't become nearly as glaring until the ninth, when Young delivered an RBI double to pull the Dodgers within 3-2. DY wound up stranded on third when the game ended, a one-run loss in a game when his miscue cost the Dodgers a run. Had the Dodgers lost 3-0, which was the score when they came to bat in the ninth, his miscue wouldn't have made much of a difference. ... Dodgers fall to 47-50 and back into second place, a game behind the Snakes. Brandon Webb going for Arizona tomorrow.

Brad Penny update

2008-07-20T02:07:47Z

He threw a 40-pitch side session at Dodger Stadium today and felt fine. He is scheduled to throw another one on Tuesday.

Sweeney not activated

2008-07-19T22:58:35Z

Mark Sweeney becme eligible to come off the DL today, but doing so would have meant cutting back to 11 pitchers the day after Joe Torre needed eight of them to get through an 11-inning game, so the decision was made to wait. Meanwhile, Juan Pierre continues to improve. He did some running on the field early today, and Torre said he could be ready either to begin a rehab assignment or possibly even to rejoin the Dodgers as early as the next couple of weeks. ... One thing I forgot to mention in today's paper about last night's game was the play Blake DeWitt made to save the game and send it to extras. D-backs on first and third and two outs in the ninth, Augie Ojeda shoots a smash up the 3B line. DeWitt snared it on a vicious hop, planted and threw Ojeda out at first by no more than two steps. ... Here's tonight's lineup, with Andruw sitting one more day with flulike symptoms because Torre didn't want to risk having to replace him in-game like he did last night. Jones is available off the bench.

CF Kemp
RF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
SS Garciaparra
1B Loney
LF Young
3B DeWitt
RH Billingsley