Dodgers Diaries

The season is now just three games long. Three games for the Dodgers to determine whether they are in the race or not. Three games for them to decide whether Manny Ramirez is worth holding onto for five more weeks.

Judging by the fact that Manny hasn’t started the past three days and is not in the starting lineup Sunday, that decision has already been made. Manny is as good as gone. They’re being extra cautious with him, assuring he won’t get injured before a trade can be consummated.

So why go on with the charade that they’re actually in a pennant race? Why not make it official and unload Hiroki Kuroda to the Yankees at the same time? Vicente Padilla’s on the DL, otherwise he’d be another fire sale candidate. Might as well showcase Ted Lilly one last time and include him in a deal. He’s been great as a Dodger, and I hope he signs here in the offseason, but unless he can also play left field and OPS .900, he’s not going to do it alone. Lilly is in fact a terrible hitter, even as pitchers go.

It pains me to see three outfielders wearing White Sox pinstripes while still collecting deferred money from Los Angeles (Manny, Fat Andruw Jones and Slappy Pierre). Only a three-game winning streak can stop that from happening.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

I'll make this argument only because it's the same one I made before the Dodgers were thinking about re-signing Manny Ramirez after the 2008 season. They could have had Adam Dunn for half the price and spent the difference ($12.5 million per year) on pitching. Dunn's offensive numbers since the beginning of the 2009 season have been better than Manny's (.941 OPS compared to .934) and he has played in 73 more games than Manny has, meaning that there were fewer starts by players with much lower OPS like Reed Johnson or Juan Pierre.

It’s fair to say that Dodger pitching was pretty good in 2009, notwithstanding the team’s failure to sign anyone other than Randy Wolf. Even with Dunn instead of Manny, they probably didn’t have the scratch to match the Yankees’ offer to CC Sabathia. But $12.5 million would have bought Ryan Dempster. Or paired with the $5 million the Dodgers spent on Wolf, they could have landed A.J. Burnett.

Would any of this have made a difference in 2009, when the Dodgers easily won their division and made the NLCS for the second straight year? Who can say. Neither Ryan Dempster nor Adam Dunn was going to make Jonathan Broxton any less afraid to pitch to Matt Stairs. In all likelihood, a Dunn-Dempster trade for Manny would have yielded the exact same results.

Speaking of Johnson, the L.A. Times reported that he refused to shave his unfortunate Fu Manchu because of baseball superstition: The team was winning. Thursday's loss should be occasion for him to doff it. While he’s got the razors out, Russell Martin needs to get rid of that horrendous pornstache he’s been sporting lately. It’s the ghost of Jeff Kent.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Manny Ramirez says this is his final season in LA.

Thanks for stating the obvious. Sure, you put up sick offensive numbers. Or you did before you were caught using female fertility drugs. We don’t really know what you’re good for in 2010. But even if you had a repeat of 2008, when you could do no wrong, it’s doubtful the Dodgers would sign you for 2011.

You’ll be 39 by that time, and even more in decline than you were in the second half of 2009. Your antics won’t seem that forgivable if you’re hitting like Juan Pierre, or even like Casey Blake. Your defense will become a bigger liability.

More to the point, you and your agent will be demanding the contract that you couldn’t get after the 2008 season. And the Dodgers just don’t spend that kind of money on old guys. They spend that kind of money on broken down pitchers instead.

Thanks for the memories, Manny, but come the end of 2010, we wish you well in your new career as the Yankees' DH.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Whenever you see a contract and say, “Thank God it wasn’t longer or for more money,” expectations are suitably lowered to the point where you can’t lose. The approximately $5 million that the Dodgers will be paying the Nicaraguan marksman is less than they’re on the hook for Juan Pierre.

With an ERA+ of 100 in 2009, Padilla was exactly average. His exceptional numbers in his short stint with the Dodgers balanced out a subpar performance for the Rangers in the first four months of the season. And he brings a reputation for headhunting: he led the league with 17 HBP in 2006. Maybe the Dodgers brought him in to toughen up Chad Billingsley. Mix Billz’s stuff with Padilla’s warrior mentality and you’ve got Bob Gibson. Or at least Althea Gibson.

I’m guessing that the Dodger roster you see today is the one that will start the season. The eight starters are set, and so are the first four in the rotation. Spring training will be a competition for the fifth starter job and the sixth and seventh inning roles. Cory Wade, James McDonald, Scott Elbert, Charlie Haeger and Eric Stults will all get a look-see.

I can’t say it’s terribly exciting, but it’s not surprising. The Dodgers policy of “hope these guys all improve” worked well enough last year that the team is happy to do the same this year. Another quick exit in the NLCS seems likely.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Au Revoir, Juan Pierre.

A year ago, I might have said good riddance (save for the fact that I don’t know how to say that in French). But after the 2009 that Pierre put up, I’m a bit more melancholy about his departure.

Sure, Pierre had no arm. Sure, he couldn’t hit for power. Sure, he failed to ignite the offense because he didn’t get on base enough. Sure, his blind devotion to his consecutive games streak stood in the way of the development of Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, the two cornerstones of the 2010 Dodger offense.

But in 2009, he stopped pouting about playing time, largely because he got some. It took Manny Ramirez’s 50-game suspension for using banned substances to get Pierre in the lineup on an everyday basis, but given the chance, he performed admirably. Pierre put up Dodger career highs in average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS. I criticized him for his poor .655 OPS in 2008; in

2009, he raised it by 100 points. A .757 OPS still isn’t terrific, but for a fourth outfielder, it’s not awful.

With the White Sox, Pierre will have an opportunity to start every day -- at least until Chicago realizes he’s not much better than the parade of losers they’ve thrown out there: Scott Podsednik, Brian Anderson and Dewayne Wise (although he gets a pass for saving Mark Buehrle’s perfecto).

The Dodgers will get two players to be named later, thus debunking the myth that the PTBNL is always the same person. But this deal wasn’t about equal value. It was addition by subtraction. The Dodgers will eat about half of the remaining $18 million on Pierre’s contract, giving them about $4.5 million per year to spend on another player.

With Xavier Paul, Jason Repko or any number of minor leaguers ready to step in as the fourth outfielder in 2010, I suspect the Dodgers will use this money to upgrade the pitching staff. No, they won’t be signing any John Lackeys or Roy Halladays. They’ll look for bargains like they did with Randy Wolf last year. Like last year, they’ll wait until the scraps are left behind the Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox. Then they’ll sign a parade of horribles like Jeff Weaver, Eric Milton, Claudio Vargas, et al.

Ned Colletti has maintained that despite Frank and Jamie McCourt’s marital difficulties, the team will be business as usual. Sadly, that’s true.

So long, Juan Pierre. If you hadn’t been so grossly overpaid, we might have loved you here in Los Angeles. At $4.5 million a year, you’re a decent option for Chicago. Maybe they’ll love you there.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Joe Torre made an unexpected move by naming Clayton Kershaw his Game 1 starter. But if you factor in a desire to have Vicente Padilla start at home, the choice isn’t that surprising after all. Given the choice of moving one of his lefties to the road, Torre opted for the more seasoned Wolf, who spent the first eight years of his career in the city of brotherly love and is almost assuredly itching to show the Philly faithful what he has left in the tank.

The rest of the roster filled out almost in lockstep, with the same 11 pitchers as in the NLDS except for Kuroda replacing Garland. The hitters include the usual starting eight, plus Belliard (or Hudson if you consider Belliard the new starting 2B), Castro, Ausmus, Pierre, Loretta and Thome. Sorry Jon, but you didn’t see any action in the NLDS, and you definitely won’t in this series. Then again, neither did Chad Billingsley, who started the season as the Dodgers’ ace. Baseball is a funny game.

With the Phillies’ abundance of left-handed pitching, it would have been nice to add a right-handed bat to the bench, especially one that could play the outfield as a defensive replacement for Manny Ramirez in the late innings. Problem is the Dodgers don’t have a player like that in their system. Xavier Paul is probably their best outfielder not in the starting lineup, but he too is a lefty. The only right-handed bat in the system is Jason Repko, known more for his glove. And after Mark Loretta’s heroics against St. Louis, there’s no way the Dodgers were going to bump him from the roster.

With Jim Thome taking up two roster spots (one for himself and one for somebody to run for him should he reach base), the Dodgers’ bench is going to be short again. After Thome and Pierre pinch-hit, there isn’t much pop on the pine. Unlike the pitching staff, where the strength is in the late innings, the Dodgers' offensive attack is going to have to come from the front lines.

--- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The way Clayton Kershaw was pitching over his past 10 starts, you started to think he had turned a corner. The wildness that plagued him throughout his first year and a half in the bigs seemed to be under control, and he went 5-0 in those 10 games. Never did he allow more than two earned runs, and never did he strike out fewer than four batters. His penultimate start, against the Cardinals, may have been his best ever. The Claw struck out seven, went eight innings deep and didn’t allow a run. (Let’s not talk about what happened after he was pulled).

The way the media were talking about Kershaw after those 10 starts, you’d think he was the second coming of Sandy Koufax. After 123 innings this season, everybody was saying he was suddenly the Dodgers’ ace.

What everyone forgot, at least for a moment, was that Kershaw is still a 21-year-old kid, still throws too many pitches, still walks too many batters, and is still learning how to pitch. That’s not to say that he isn’t going to be an ace very soon. But he’s not quite there yet.

Monday’s game was a quintessential example. Kershaw walked four batters in the fourth inning, plating two Milwaukee runs without the benefit of a base hit. Few of the pitches Claw threw were even close to the strike zone. Manny Parra, the Brewers pitcher, and Felipe Lopez, the second baseman, did him a favor by swinging, and both struck out to end the threat.

Trailing 6-1, the Dodgers mounted an unlikely comeback in the ninth, but that too was not quite what the 46,544 in attendance had hoped for. Blame Orlando Hudson for not taking second on a long single, or for not scoring on Rafael Furcal’s bizarre bunt single. Blame Furcal for bunting instead of trying to get the runner home. Blame Juan Pierre for bunting on a pitch when Hudson was trying to steal second base.

Or blame Manny Ramirez for making the last out with the winning runs on base instead of hitting a grand slam. That makes 13 straight days Manny has failed to hit a game-wining grand slam. The guy is really slipping. Maybe he, too, is not quite what the media has made him out to be. --- John Rosenthal.

The Dodgers played the first five innings of Sunday’s game like they were mailing it in. Orlando Hudson got himself doubled off first base on a long out by Andre Ethier. Rafael Furcal didn’t hustle after a relay throw, allowing Hanley Ramirez to advance to third. And Jason Schmidt, who worked so hard to get back to the big leagues, looked like he was throwing batting practice.

So it was comforting to see them refuse to roll over in the last four innings. Teams trailing often like to say “let’s cut it in half,” which is exactly what the blue did in the sixth. Down 8-0, James Loney doubled in two and Russell Martin did likewise with a home run.

The Dodgers threatened again in the seventh, and scored two more times in the ninth, ultimately bringing Matt Kemp to the plate as the tying run. But he popped up softly to end the game. In the end, the hole that Jason Schmidt created and Jeff Weaver dug deeper was just too big.

In a season as successful as this one, there have been few infuriating managerial decisions. But a couple continue to annoy me. The pitcher batting eighth cost the Dodgers a legitimate shot at a run in the second inning. After Kemp singled and stole second, Martin struck out for the second out. The Marlins then walked Mark Loretta to get to Schmidt, hitting eighth, who weakly grounded into a fielder’s choice. There’s no guarantee that Juan Pierre gets a hit in that situation, but it’s a lot more likely than Schmidt delivering a run.

The other is the treatment of Blake DeWitt. Did he spit in Joe Torre’s Bigelow green tea? The guy has been up and down more often than the stock market this year, and each time he gets called up to the big league club, he languishes on the bench in pinch-hitting duty. Yesterday was a perfect opportunity to give him four at-bats, as Casey Blake took the day off. Instead, Torre played Loretta, a veteran who’s accustomed to sitting for days on end. If DeWitt is to be used as trade bait, all the more reason to get him some face time. --- John Rosenthal.

Nobody doubted this team’s ability to hit. Casey Blake, a guy with 20 homers in 2008, was in the eight spot. Overall, the Dodgers are batting a robust .272, tops in the National League. The team’s 64 home runs rank them 13th in the NL, but that’s to be expected when your top slugger gets suspended for 50 games. Assuming Manny Ramirez had hit another 13 homers over those 50 games, the team would be eighth in the NL in jacks.

Other positive signs: The Dodgers are fifth in the NL in slugging, right in the middle of the pack in doubles, and third in runs scored, behind Colorado and Philadelphia, both of which play in bandboxes. In short, the team is scoring runs in every way you can imagine.

So who has been the hitting star of the team in the first half of 2009? I’d call it a six-way tie.

Andre Ethier leads the club in homers and RBIs, and he has made a habit of getting clutch walk-off hits and home runs. His batting average isn’t where he’d like it to be, but his power is definitely coming along.

Matt Kemp is about to become the All-Star he has been predicted to be, whether he makes this year’s game in St. Louis as a vote-in player or not. The offense was always there, despite a tendency to swing wildly at pitches low and away. And he still strikes out too much. Kemp’s biggest step forward has been his defense. Starting in center field every day, he gets better jumps on balls than he used to, takes more direct routes and still has that incredible athletic ability to make tough catches look easy.

Juan Pierre was a running joke for all of 2008. Get it, running? In 2009, he was serious business, filling in capably when Manny Ramirez got suspended for using whatever it is he used. He cooled off just as Manny returned, but is still hitting .328 with a .386 OBP, both career highs. He’s hitting the ball harder than his usual slap through the left side. I can’t see the Dodgers getting much for him in a trade, so he’ll have to contribute as a bench player in the second half. But between off days for Manny, Kemp and Ethier and pinch-hitting and pinch-running spots in tight games, he can still play a big role.

Casey Blake has played such flawless defense at the hot corner that it’s hard to believe he hasn’t been an everyday third baseman his whole career. In Cleveland, he bounced from first to third to right field and wasn’t sure what position he’d be playing when he arrived in L.A. last year. He’s plugged a hole that has existed ever since Adrian Beltre left town and hit a career high .289 with 12 HRs.

Orlando Hudson won Dodger fans over immediately by hitting for the cycle on Opening Day. O-Dog’s production has regressed from All-Star numbers to those more in line with his career (.282 AVG, .355 OBP) but his boundless enthusiasm for the game hasn’t. What a marked change from sourpuss Jeff Kent! It has clearly had an effect on the clubhouse, and on new BFF Juan Pierre in particular.

James Loney will never be an All-Star as long as he plays in the same league as Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Todd Helton, Adrian Gonzalez and that Pujols dude. But he remains a steady presence in the Dodger lineup. He has yet to go three straight days without a hit this season, and has taken two 0-fers in a row just three times. He’s slugging just .396, yet is tied for second on the team with 51 RBIs.

The other three regulars in the Dodger starting lineup have to be considered disappointments. Rafael Furcal’s .254 AVG and .324 OBP are making the three-year deal the Dodgers signed with him look very long indeed. He has picked it up since the return of his countryman Manny Ramirez. But he has a long way to go before he merits the $10 million the Dodgers are spending on him annually.

Russell Martin’s .248 average is not as appalling as it seems. Because Martin walks so often, he’s got a .364 OBP. But his power has evaporated. One homer in 74 games. It’s as if additional rest has sapped him of his strength. His doubles are down as well, and he’s stealing fewer bases. Luckily, the Dodgers haven’t needed production from their catcher so far.

Manny Ramirez has been the biggest disappointment, however. I’m not interested in rehashing everything that has been said to death. His numbers are still basically April numbers. His next at-bat will be his 100th of the season. Manny was a second-half acquisition for the Dodgers in 2008, and will effectively be the same thing in 2009. If he produces, he’ll declare himself a free-agent again at the end of the year. If he doesn’t, the Dodgers are stuck with him through 2010. I don’t know which scenario to root for. But as long as the Dodgers keep playing the way they have in the first half, it may not matter. --- John Rosenthal.

Manny Ramirez’s two press conferences yesterday said all you need to know about the situation. The pre-game, which he announced as “Showtime,” featured the disgraced slugger behind sunglasses, cracking gum and putting on a performance for the assembled media. It was about the Manny Show, not about baseball.

The post-game appearance was much more sporting. Ramirez removed the shades, spoke about the game and his performance, and chewed no gum. Ramirez wants to put his 50-game suspension for using a “banned substance” behind him as quickly as possible. That’s not going to happen with three games against the Mets in the media spotlight of New York beginning Tuesday. Nor will it die down completely until the after first home game in Dodger Stadium on July 16.

But I, for one, am ready to stop talking about him. He did what he did -- we all know what it is, even if he won’t admit it -- and he got caught. He didn’t do anything that hundreds of players didn’t do throughout the 1990s, and what dozens of players are probably still doing without getting caught.

Ramirez served his time, which is more than you can say about some of the other profile names of the steroid era like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Eric Gagne, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds or Larry Bigbie. Unless he gets caught a second time, I’m willing to put this one in the past. Nothing that has happened over the past 51 games has changed my opinion of the man. He’s still a guy who quit on his team, pushed an old man to the ground, and cheated. I won’t boo him when the Dodgers return to Los Angeles, but I didn’t cheer Ramirez before, and I won’t going forward.

What may have changed is my opinion of Ramirez the player. There was no doubting his Hall of Fame talent before the suspension. Post-suspension, we’ll have to see how much of his gaudy numbers were Manny being Manny and how much of it was due to Manny buying something in a syringe. I’m not saying we should assume anything from his 0-for-3 with a walk performance in Friday’s game. But by the end of this season, we should have some pretty good evidence.

As for the game, I don’t want to hear about how Manny’s return pumped up the offense. Eight men contributed to the 6-3 win over the Padres. The Dodgers won not because the guy who dominates the headlines dominated the opposing pitcher. On the contrary, every batter in the lineup got on base at least once except for Orlando Hudson. The Dodgers pieced together a five-run first inning on a single, a walk, a fielder’s choice, another walk, two more singles, and a double. Juan Pierre, who replaced Ramirez after six innings, ran down a ball in left field that Manny never would have gotten. Hiroki Kuroda threw a good-enough 5.1 innings, and the bullpen was again spotless.

The Dodgers won as a team. They did it with Manny for 29 games. They did it without Manny for 50 games. And they’re doing it with him in the lineup again, even when he doesn’t produce. --- John Rosenthal.

Did Sunday’s game feel almost exactly like Saturday’s? Certainly the appearance of Russell Martin in a day game after a night game (why, oh why must he play so often, Joe?) contributed.  So did the anemic Dodger offense, which put up just two runs on five hits. 

  Hiroki Kuroda looked little different than Eric Milton, allowing runs one at a time on singles, before giving up a big extra-base hit to put the Dodgers in a 4-0 hole.  Like Milton, Kuroda then rebounded to retire the next eight batters in a row.  But the offense couldn’t do anything against Garret Olson (who?) and his career 6.40 ERA.

  It’s as if the whole Manny Ramirez thing has reminded the Dodgers to stop hitting.  Remember the whole “you can’t bench Juan Pierre and his .395 average” controversy?  Since June 1, Pierre is hitting .257, and his OBP is .285. 

  Andre Ethier, the guy who some thought should sit instead of Pierre upon Manny’s return, hasn’t been much better.  He’s hitting all of .272 in June, though his OBP of .340 is somewhat more respectable. Orlando Hudson’s numbers have fallen, though they were so much higher than anyone expected; right now, (.303/.371/.438) they’re still higher than his career averages.

  The Dodgers still own baseball’s best record, but they don’t look like the best team in the league right now.  They may be the best in the NL, but after losing two of three to both the Mariners and the White Sox, they would appear to be whipping boys for whichever American League team makes it all the way.

  Then again, the Dodgers have always been lousy at interleague play. Since it began, the Dodgers have compiled a 99-110 record against the junior circuit.  That’s a slightly worse winning percentage than the NL overall.  In 2009, the Dodgers split their 18 interleague games right down the middle, 9-9, for a .500 average.  The NL overall went 114-137 (.454).  So in a glass half-full sense, perhaps they’ve made progress.

  The Dodgers won’t play another American League foe again this year unless they make the World Series.  That’s both a comfort and a motivator. --- John Rosenthal.    

Did I already nominate Juan Pierre for Dodger MVP? Is it too late to add Casey Blake’s name to the mix? The Iowan has been simply everything the Dodgers could have asked for and more this season. With a sacrifice fly, a double and a three-run homer that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead the Dodgers never relinquished, Blake is now second on the team in homers and third in RBIs, and is batting a cool .299.

He has been especially good since Manny Ramirez was suspended. Blake has raised his batting average by 74 points, his OBP by 42 points and his OPS by 140 points. He has had 13 multi-hit games since May 6.

Or maybe we should save some of the love for Matt Kemp. Hitting mostly in the seventh or eighth spot in the lineup (or even the ninth, on Saturday), Kemp has raised his average by 35 points since Manny’s suspension. He’s learned to play a quality center field, and only occasionally, like yesterday, makes base-running gaffes that cause you to scratch your head.

Then again, it would be hard to overlook the accomplishments of Chad Billingsley, whose transition into an ace has almost gone unremarked upon. Billz leads the NL in victories with yesterday’s win, is fifth in ERA, and fifth in strikeouts.

How can I forget the O-Dog? His .310 average has made everyone forget Jeff Kent, thankfully. And James Loney, despite his lack of power, leads the team with 42 RBIs.

It all adds up to what is missing from baseball so often: a team. A different hero every night. I won’t repeat the endless stream of cliches about how a team is better than a group of individuals. I’m just enjoying watching them play together. --- John Rosenthal.