All quotes courtesy of the Associated Press …
Continue reading
What the Arizona Diamondbacks are saying after tonight’s brawl.
1
Category Archives: Postgame thoughts
Yasiel Puig caps a Dodgers’ victory in dramatic fashion.
Yasiel Puig became the first Dodger since 2006 to collect more than one hit in his major-league debut Monday. Then the 22-year-old right fielder provided a memorable ending to a 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres before an announced crowd of 37,055 at Dodger Stadium.
With Chris Denorfia on first base and one out in the ninth inning, Kyle Blanks launched a fly ball to the warning track in front of the right-field scoreboard. Puig made the catch and threw on the fly to first base, where Adrian Gonzalez stretched and caught the ball for a rare 9-3, game-ending double play.
Matt Kemp crashed into the same part of Dodger Stadium wall that injured Bryce Harper.
Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper is walked off the field by Nationals head athletic trainer Lee Kuntz during the fifth inning of Monday’s game against the Dodgers. Harper received 11 stitches in his neck after crashing into the right-field wall in pursuit of a triple by Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis. (Andy Holzman/Staff photographer)
Matt Kemp has been where Bryce Harper was on Monday.
On April 9, 2007, the Dodgers played their first home game of the season and debuted the color scoreboard that’s embedded in the right-field wall — the same one that Harper crashed into nearly at full speed Monday.
Kemp, who was playing right field that day, acquainted himself by crashing shoulder-first into the scoreboard in pursuit of a fly ball by the Colorado Rockies’ Jeff Baker in the fourth inning. Kemp missed the ball and Baker, like A.J. Ellis on Monday, wound up on third base with a triple.
The scoreboard wasn’t padded that day, and no padding has been added since.
“It’s tough,” Kemp said. “I separated my shoulder doing that.”
Kemp didn’t return for two months after his injury.
Harper was examined and received 11 stitches in his neck. He did not suffer a concussion, as was originally feared, but was reportedly taken to a hospital.
“It looked bad,” Kemp said of Harper’s crash. “I was just praying that he was OK. Hopefully he doesn’t miss any time.”
Brandon League’s job is in jeopardy after the Dodgers’ sixth straight loss.
Paul Goldschmidt’s home run off Brandon League in the ninth inning Tuesday makes him 9 for 20 with two homers against the Dodgers this season. (John McCoy/Staff Photographer)
You get the feeling that the Dodgers will have a new closer soon.
Tomorrow, perhaps.
Brandon League didn’t blow a save Tuesday, but he added another shaky performance to a long list of them in 2013. League allowed a pair of runs in the ninth inning, both on a Paul Goldschmidt home run that lifted the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 5-3 win at Dodger Stadium.
The Goldschmidt home run came on a belt-high sinker over the middle of the plate, the last of 11 pitches that included five foul balls after the count went full.
“My plan was to get Goldschmidt to ground into a double play,” League said. “That’s an example of what happens when you throw a good hitter a (feces-infused) pitch.”
Postgame thoughts: Colorado Rockies 7, Dodgers 3.
This conference on the mound in the fourth inning didn’t help Josh Beckett (third from right). It merely delayed the inevitable in the Dodgers’ 7-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies, a game that lasted 3 hours, 54 minutes. (John McCoy/Staff Photographer)
You got the sense that Josh Beckett could live with the smaller strike zone imposed by home plate umpire Larry Vanover tonight. Beckett could even live with the three runs he allowed in the first inning, maybe because he didn’t want to throw his shortstop, Hanley Ramirez, under the bus for committing an error that left him pitching out of the stretch one batter into the game.
No, there were other things happened tonight specifically, and this season in general, that Beckett has not made peace with.
Postgame thoughts: San Diego 7, Dodgers 2.
Matt Kemp was benched to start Wednesday’s game yet still came to bat with a total of six runners on base against the San Diego Padres. He drove in one. (Keith Birmingham/Pasadena Star-News)
“We had 10 hits today?” Adrian Gonzalez asked in an otherwise silent Dodgers clubhouse.
Yes.
“Same old story,” he said.
The Dodgers are no mystery after 15 games. They are putting runners on base (their .337 on-base percentage is fourth in the National League) but not driving them in (their 39 runs scored are second-fewest in the NL, ahead of only the Miami Marlins). They’ve won seven games because their pitching staff is generally excellent. When it’s not excellent, as was the case Wednesday with Clayton Kershaw, they’re in trouble.
Maybe one person at the ballpark knew the Dodgers were in trouble from the outset Wednesday, and that was Kershaw himself.
Postgame thoughts: Dodgers 8, Royals 1.
This won’t make it into tomorrow’s editions, so here’s what happened in the Dodgers’ late game against the Kansas City Royals:
Dodgers 3, Reds 1: Postgame thoughts.
To acknowledge the obvious: this game didn’t count. It was called after four innings due to heavy rain at Camelback Ranch. We’re just going to pretend these postgame thoughts do count. Try to keep up.
Chris Capuano threw four innings, which was significant because he took a long and winding road to get there. Capuano was scheduled to start the Dodgers’ night game at home against the Cincinnati Reds when the day began. When it appeared that the afternoon game in Scottsdale against the Giants might not be rained out, Capuano made the trip and was penciled in to relieve Ted Lilly.
That didn’t happen; the Dodgers-Giants game was rained out in the second inning with the Dodgers leading 4-0.
Dodgers 10, Angels 8: Postgame thoughts.
Don Mattingly dropped a revealing opinion, perhaps unexpectedly, in his postgame chat today.
It appeared that, an hour earlier, Ted Lilly had done an OK job in two innings out of the bullpen in his first appearance of spring training. Keep in mind that Lilly hadn’t pitched in a competitive game since Aug. 16 of last year. The veteran lefty got Erick Aybar to fly out, got rocked by Howie Kendrick (who finished 3-for-3 with a single, double and home run) for a longball, then retired the next four Angel batters he faced. Day over.
“Teddy, he seems a lot more like Aaron (Harang) to me, from my point of view,” Mattingly said. “Taking longer to get loose, taking longer to warm up, all that kind of stuff.”
In other words, not a good bullpen candidate.
That would seem to make Chris Capuano, by default, the Dodgers’ preferred choice to move from the rotation to the bullpen at this point in time. This is a point in time when eight starters are healthy, so take that with a grain of salt. Things can change in the next four weeks.
At the very least Mattingly’s opinion offers a framework for what the Dodgers might be thinking — stash Capuano in the bullpen as a sixth starter, and if Billingsley ends up needing Tommy John surgery (or another starter goes down in spring), insert either Lilly or Harang into the fifth starter’s slot. Otherwise, try to move one or both pitchers. That would agree with what I’ve heard from knowledgeable people outside the organization; people inside the organization have no reason to tip their hand pre-flop.
Lilly had to feel good about his performance regardless of how the manager reacted to it. It’s been a long time coming.
Some more notes:
Dodgers 7, Cubs 6: Postgame thoughts.
Monday’s game, the third of spring training for the Dodgers, began at 1:06 p.m. The Dodgers’ second batter stepped into the batter’s box 18 minutes later.
That’s because the Dodgers’ first batter, Dee Gordon, led off the bottom of the first inning with a 17-pitch at-bat against Chicago Cubs starter Carlos Villanueva. (Gordon struck out looking.) In the top of the first, Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley allowed hits to the first four batters he faced and surrendered two runs. It had the makings of a long game from the outset and it was: Three hours, 25 minutes total.
The afternoon was probably more memorable if Vin Scully was narrating it — which he was, if you had a radio Monday.
Some less colorful takeaways: