Last night had a happy ending, but it looked bad for a while as Rich Hill gave up 4 runs in the first three innings. He threw 103 pitches. 75 of which were strikes, and his curveball was amazing. It really was a good outing and the two HR were (in my opinion) just one of those things. Hill pitched a strong 6 innings and kept the Dodgers in the…
Alex Wood didn’t have his best stuff last night, but he pitched well enough to win against anyone except maybe Jacob deGrom, but only two things went wrong: Certain players choking with RISP AGAIN; and Total game mismanagement by Doc Roberts. I like Meada in the pen… but only Doc thinks he’s a closer. I think Roberts used the bullpen backwards. Maeda should have pitched in the 6th and 7th. …
OK, you all likely know what happened last night: Joc Pederson drove in the first run against Zack Greinke. Hyun-Jin Ryu had pitched 7 strong innings when Roberts pinch-hit for him with Kike Hernandez. On a 2-2 pitch from Greinke, Kike jacked the ball out of the stadium to tie the game at 2-2. Next, Dylan Floro played the role of set-up man and shut down the D-Bags in the…
Right-hander Gerardo Carrillo was signed by the Dodgers as an international free agent on July 5, 2016. The native of Guadalajara, Mexico received a signing bonus of $75,000. He has already climbed into the Dodgers MLB Pipeline prospect list ranking No. 27. He played in the Dominican Summer League during the 2017 season recording a 2.79 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP in 14 appearances, 10 of them starts. He struck…
I want to address a few issues today. Yasmani Grandal The Front Office and Sabermetrics Calling players Choke Artists Yasmani Grandal When the Dodgers acquired Yasmani for Matt Kemp, I thought it was a great trade for the obvious reasons: (1) It was a salary dump that needed to be made; and (2) I thought Yasmani Grandal would be an All-Star Catcher who was capable of 30-35 HR a year. …
We all know the Dodgers are capable of scoring runs and scoring them in bunches… with or without the long ball. We also know that too frequently, they don’t. For a team that leads the National League in Home Runs and Runs Scored, it is very troubling that they sometimes forget how to score. To say that “This is the team FAZ built” is absurd.” They have repeatedly shown they…
I have not given up on this season, however, I do think that the problem is with the coaching staff – I think many of the hitters are trying for the long ball when they should be shortening up. Witness one Cody Bellinger’s success in August after adjusting. Joc Pederson has done the same thing but has revereted back to many of his old habits lately. Chris Taylor has 147…
Most of you probably don’t believe it, because the Dodger bullpen has been awful many times during this season, but it went from awful to deplorable when Daniel Hudson, Ross Stripling and Kenley Jansen went down. Of course, Kenley was the biggest loss and there’s no way to replace him. That will likely come to an end tonight as if Kenley is approved by his Doctors to play again. In…
From the Dodgers point of view, it turns out that Murphy may have been a optimist. In a week where if something could go wrong, it did go wrong, and then wronger and wrongest! I have always maintained a “glass half full attitude.” The storm generally passes and it’s never as bad as the “glass half empty” people say. Here’s a little more about Murphy’s Law: Fabian Ardaya of The…
A new pitcher… same result! Baez, Chargois, Floro, Alexander and now Maeda. All have failed as the stopper. A good argument could be made that the biggest mistake FAZ made was not spending $7.0 million to re-sign Tony Watson, but here’s the rub: when any pitcher is suddenly thrust into the “closer role,” the weight of the world is on their shoulders and failure is the norm. How Watson would…