Dodgers Diaries

Included on the list of players who will accompany the Dodgers on their March 10 trip to Taiwan is Ronnie Belliard. Yes, the same Ronnie Belliard who showed up to camp a couple of pounds over the 209 his contract requires. It’s a pretty lenient contract, however. All he has to do is be 209 or under at any point during spring training. A long flight across the Pacific might be enough to dehydrate the last two pounds out of him.

Others on the Taiwan excursion include James Loney, Manny Ramirez (the optimist says it’s so the Dodgers can keep an eye on him; the pessimist says it’s so he can restock his supply of performance-enhancing herbs), Eric Stults, Xavier Paul, Lucas May, and of course Taiwan natives Chin Lung Hu and Hong Chih Kuo.

On a separate note, Dodger Stadium looked a little bedraggled on Sunday for the college tournament. The signs on the outfield wall looked like they hadn’t been changed since October; there was still a “Postseason on TBS” banner in centerfield.

-- 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

At the All-Star break, the Dodgers are 56-32, the best team in baseball. It’s safe to say nobody expected them to be here, especially after the guy who was supposed to carry them to the promised land got his ass suspended for 50 games for taking a female fertility drug that can mask steroid use.

But here they are anyway, despite a pitching staff that lost its Opening Day starter on Day 2, and has gotten wins out of pitchers like Eric Milton and Jeff Weaver, and the team’s only shutout from Eric Stults. Milton looks to be out for the rest of the s eason, and the saga of Stults seems never to end, leaving only Weaver and James McDonald to compete for the fifth starter position the rest of the way.

Or does it. There have been Jason Schmidt sightings in Albuquerque, and the Dodgers might bring him up just to see if they can squeeze a nickel out of that obscene contract they tendered him in 2007. Roy Halladay is also on the horizon. Toronto has said it will listen to offers for arguably the best pitcher in baseball. Speculation says Toronto might take Canada’s favorite son Russell Martin plus a few prospects in exchange.

A year ago, I never would have parted with Martin, who appeared to be the leader of the team. His struggles in the first half have changed my opinion. I don’t think he’s as bad as he has been so far (.258/.373 2HR 27 RBI) but I think we may have seen his ceiling. Plus any time you have the opportunity to get one of the top 5 players in baseball without giving up a cornerstone of your franchise, you need to pull the plug.

The other reason to get Halladay: to make sure the Phillies don’t get him. Even without Halladay, the Dodgers have the talent to beat Philadelphia. But if the world champs add Halladay to Hamels, they’d quickly become the favorites.

Closer Jonathan Broxton’s toe is a concern, but there aren’t exactly a lot of All-Star closers available on the open market. If he can’t go the rest of the way, the Dodgers will have to fill that role from within.

I don’t see a lot of holes in the lineup. The starting infield has been consistently good, with Rafael Furcal showing renewed energy in the last two weeks, and Orlando Hudson regaining his power stroke, if only for a game. All three starting outfielders could have been All-Stars, though Andre Ethier has forgotten how to take a walk.

Holding the top spot at midseason is no guarantee of anything. A year ago, the Cubs and Angels were running away with their respective leagues and looked destined for a World Series date. Neither got out of the first round of the playoffs. That’s not to say t hat will happen to the Dodgers. But there’s a lot of baseball between now and October. With summer nights finally here in Los Angeles, that’s a happy thought.
--- John Rosenthal.

It’s one game past the midpoint of the 2009 season, so the travel day offers an opportunity to reflect on the team thus far.

I was sure that pitching was going to be the Achilles’ heel of this team after they failed to sign a big name free agent and let go of Takashi Saito, Derek Lowe, Chan Ho Park and Joe Beimel, guys who were responsible for a significant portion of the team’s innings in 2008.

Well, color me contrite. Not Robert McNamara contrite, but certainly pleasantly surprised at the performances the Dodgers have gotten out of unlikely candidates.

Surprise #1: Ronald Belisario. Who had ever heard of this guy until the final week of spring training? Not even the most dedicated fan. Yet he’s been so good that Joe Torre has felt compelled to use him 43 times in the first 82 games. That earns him the nickname “El Diario.” At what point will the 26-year-old Venezuelan hit the innings wall that seems to plague so many pitchers making the jump to the big leagues? For Jonathan Broxton, it came around 70 innings. Belisario is at 48 already.

Surprise #2: Ramon Troncoso. He’s clearly learned how to manipulate that sinker ball of his. His WHIP and BAA are little different from 2008, but his ERA is down by more than two runs from the 4.26 he logged last year. He’s finally getting guys to hit into groundouts and double plays.

Surprise #3: Brent Leach. The 26-year-old rookie looked destined for mop-up duty when he was recalled on May 6. But after getting battered around a few times, he settled into the role of lefty specialist after Will Ohman went down. Leach has given up just one run since June 2, usually pitching to just one or two batters at a time.

Surprise #4 Jeff Weaver. What made the Dodgers think that Spicoli was ready for a comeback at age 31? Was it that brilliant performance in the World Series for St. Louis in 2006? Was it the year away from baseball entirely? Not once in his career did Weaver put up the kind of numbers he’s spun for the Dodgers in 2009. Shuttling between the rotation and the bullpen, he’s posted a 3.32 ERA and been the guy Joe Torre turns to when extra innings threaten to go long and ugly.

Surprise #5: Randy Wolf. Haven’t we seen this act before? I thought so, in 2007, when Wolf went 9-6 with a 4.73 ERA in 18 starts before getting injured. He was a serviceable guy who kept you in games long enough to lose them half the time. But in 2009, Wolf has had arguably his best year. His 12 no-decisions don’t reflect how good he has been, but his 3.49 ERA and 1.15 WHIP do. He’s given up one earned run or less in nine of his 18 starts this year.

Surprise #6: Eric Milton. See Jeff Weaver.

Surprise #7: Jonathan Broxton. I never doubted the Ox’s stuff, which is filthy. Opponents are batting just .132 against him. But I wasn’t sure he had the temperament to be a closer, as he tended to melt down in some situations. I’m still not convinced he isn’t Armando Benitez in waiting, but we won’t know that until playoff time.

Not every performance has been surprising. Here are some that were thoroughly anticipated:

No Surprise #1. Remember how Hong-Chih Kuo was going to be the Dodgers’ setup man, barring injury? After seven games, Kuo was back on the 60-day DL.

No Surprise #2. Chad Billingsley’s off-season broken leg did little to sideline the development of the Dodgers’ 24-year-old ace. His ERA is exactly the same as it was last year (3.14). His BAA and WHIP are both down slightly. And he’s on pace to increase his innings total from the 200 he logged in 2008. The only thing left for him to prove is whether he can win in the playoffs. It looks like he’ll get another chance this year.

No Surprise #3: Guillermo Mota. Mota has been both better and worse than expected. On average, though, he’s exactly what the Dodgers thought they were getting: an aging reliever who can be called on to get tough outs. His ERA, WHIP and BAA are almost identical to his career numbers.

Incomplete: Hiroki Kuroda, Eric Stults and Will Ohman have been on the DL too often for anybody to know what their first-half contributions mean, or what they herald for the second half.

Disappointments: James McDonald and Cory Wade haven’t lived up to the lofty expectations each set in 2008. Wade quietly ensconced himself as the seventh-inning guy in Joe Torre’s 2008 bullpen, but faltered in that role in 2009. McDonald was slotted for the fifth starter’s job, but bridled. Both may still play big roles in the second half of 2009. They certainly did in 2008. --- John Rosenthal.

I’ve made few secrets about my low expectations for this Dodger club. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that Hiroki Kuroda wouldn’t pitch after Opening Day, I’d have had even lower hopes.

But when a team starts getting victories out of Eric Milton, a guy who hasn’t won a big league game in three years, you have to start wondering just what is going on. This was no eked-out victory in pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium either. It was a smothering performance in Coors Field, the hitter-friendliest park in baseball.

Chad Billingsley has been the ace everyone has waited to see. Clayton Kershaw is about where we all assumed he would be, around .500 with an ERA in the 4s. Randy Wolf has been better than advertised, with 50 Ks in 62 innings. But the Dodgers have gotten 10 victories, 119 innings and 86 strikeouts from Milton, Eric Stults, Ronald Belisario, Will Ohman, Brent Leach and Jeff Weaver. None of these guys was expected to make the opening day roster, save maybe Ohman, who was acquired late in spring training. Nobody had ever heard of Belisario. But he’s made everyone forget the trials of Hong-Chih Kuo in a hurry.

The Dodgers are also getting .394 hitting out of Juan Pierre, even better than what they expected from Manny Ramirez, and Juan Castro is hitting 160 points higher than Rafael Furcal. Brad Ausmus and Mark Loretta are both hitting over .333, bringing the team average to a gaudy .291.

What does it all mean? Can we expect wins from Jason Schmidt at this point? An Eric Gagne signing?

Do the Dodgers just have unbelievably great scouting, or does this herald an impending return to the norm for guys playing above their heads right now? Perhaps a little of both. Whatever it is, it’s almost embarrassingly good right now. --- John Rosenthal.

I’m still trying to figure out why Will Ohman gets the win in yesterday’s 16-6 laugher over the hapless Colorado Rockies. The lefty vulture walked two batters and struck out one in his one-third of an inning of work. Sure, Eric Stults didn’t go the full five to merit victory, but I thought the W was supposed to go to the pitcher who throws most effectively in relief. For my money, that was Ronald Belisario, who allowed just one baserunner in two scoreless innings and has been the Dodgers’ pleasant surprise all year long.

I’m also still trying to figure out how the Dodgers have been this good with a rotation that includes Stults, Eric Milton and Jeff Weaver. All three have been serviceable and good enough to win behind an offense that continues to deliver runs. The Dodgers are actually scoring more runs per game (5.88) without Manny Ramirez in the lineup than they did when he hadn’t yet been suspended for using steroids (5.55). And before you go blaming that oddity on Coors Field, recall, that the Dodgers played three games with Manny at the hitter-friendly park in April; they’ve played only one there since.

Better yet, they’re doing it without home runs, piecing together singles and doubles. Every Dodger starter had at least two hits yesterday, save for Jamie Hoffman, who had just one after carrying the offense the day before in the loss to Anaheim. Another reason for cheer: Guillermo Mota wasn’t awful for the second day in a row.

Yesterday’s victory brings the Dodgers’ record to 31-15. If they play .500 baseball the rest of the season, they’ll finish with 89 wins and 73 losses. That’s more than good enough to win in the weak NL West. The Diamondbacks and Rockies, who faced off for the 2007 NL pennant, have both returned to doormat status with a thud. They’ve fallen 7 and 8 games below .500 respectively. The Padres have had to win 10 in a row to climb a game over .500. And the Giants have been no better than .500 all year long. --- John Rosenthal.

With Eric Stults giving the bullpen a day off on Saturday and a travel day resting everyone on Monday, Joe Torre managed Sunday’s game like it was the 2002 All-Star Game, rushing to get every player some action. The Manny-less offense managed to squeak out four runs against Cy Young laureate Tim Lincecum, or one more than they tallied two weeks earlier when Manny was in the lineup. For five innings, Dude Weaver actually outdueled Dude Lincecum, giving the Dodgers a 4-2 lead in the sixth.

But then came the parade of relievers. Ramon Troncoso relieved Weaver after the starter gave up a double, and got Aaron Rowand to strike out. He then gave up a ground ball, something he’s intending to do, to Emmanuel Burris. It wasn’t a hard hit grounder, but it found enough of a hole to score Randy Winn. With the light-hitting Travis Ishikawa and Lincecum to follow, Troncoso had an easy road ahead. But instead, Torre brought in Will Ohman. Ohman did a decent job, despite walking the pitcher. But Troncoso was burned for the day, as was Ohman.

Ronald Belisario pitched a perfect seventh, but gave up a hit to lead off the eighth. Instead of bringing in his closer, Torre went to Cory Wade, who allowed the tying run to score before retiring the side. Not content to use four relievers in a tie game, Torre went straight to Jonathan Broxton for the ninth, and had to use him again in the 10th. When the 11th rolled around, he had nobody left but James McDonald, Guillermo Mota and Brent Leach.

McDonald got three outs in the 11th. But Mota faltered in the 12th, allowing a run on yet another bases-loaded sac fly. Casey Blake’s homer in the bottom half got him off the hook, but he gave the lead back for good with two more runs in the 13th.

The media will point to this game as the Dodgers’ third loss against one win in the post Ramirez era. I prefer to focus on a 7-3 homestand that gives the Dodgers the best record in baseball. Still, steroids played a role in Sunday’s dismaying loss, though not in the way you think.

The Dodgers lost this game because they had to trust the very bottom of their bullpen. As recently as 2004, Mota was an eighth-inning standout, pitching to a 2.14 ERA while setting up for Eric Gagne. After the Dodgers traded him in 2004, he was never the same, posting ERAs over 4.11 every year except 2006, when he gave up all of two runs in 18 innings. That was the same year he was suspended for 50 games for using performance-enhancing drugs, the very same punishment Manny recently received.

The Dodgers entrusted Sunday’s game to a guy they have no business trusting or trusting in. How good a pitcher is Guillermo Mota? We have no idea, because we don’t know which Mota we’re getting: the guy on steroids, or the guy off.

How is this any different than Manny? Which Manny will return to the Dodgers in July? The Manny who hit an astronomical .396 for Los Angeles in 2008, or the guy who hit a mere mortal .296 for the Red Sox in 2007? The guy coming off steroids, or the guy going back on them to prove that he had not lost a little off the top in Boston?

We don’t know when Manny started using performance enhancing drugs, when he stopped, or for that matter, whether he truly used them at all. Maybe he really is a woman who needs help conceiving, but I think I’ll choose more likely explanations first.

What we do know is you can’t trust guys who cheat. The Dodgers don’t seem to mind employing known steroid users (see Bennett, Gary). Why they continue to put their trust (and their millions) in men who admit that they are frauds is beyond me. --- John Rosenthal.

How to interpret the Dodgers’ perfect 11-0 home start. Are they the team to beat in the National League? Are the kids finally coming together the way so many of us thought they were, now that underperforming veterans like Luis Gonzalez, Jeff Kent and Juan Pierre have been pushed to the periphery?

Or are they beating up on the soft underbelly of the National League, feasting on San Diegos and Colorados, with sides of Arizona and San Francisco for dessert? Will they get a rude awakening once they start playing games out of the weak NL West?

In my opinion, it’s still too early to tell. The Dodgers have been getting good pitching performances from unlikely candidates like Eric Stults, Ramon Troncoso, and Ronald Belisario. They’ve yet to have a horrendous outing from Randy Wolf, a guy they assumed would be a serviceable No. 3 or No. 4 starter, but not the reliable pitcher he has been so far. They’ve compiled a record 11 games over .500 without their slotted No. 2 starter, Hiroki Kuroda, who has been on the DL since opening day.

It’s tempting to slot the Dodgers into the playoffs already given their fast start. But let’s hold the champagne for a moment. The last team to start the season 11-0 at home were the 2003 Kansas City Royals. I don’t need to do any research to recall whether the Royals made the playoffs that year.

This Dodger team has little in common with that Kansas City team other than and the color of their uniforms (I admit it that sometimes I see highlights from a Kansas City game and think they’re the Dodgers before doing a double-take). These Dodgers feature six regulars in their prime production years: Martin, Loney, Hudson, Furcal, Kemp, and Ethier, and a bonafide Hall of Famer in Manny Ramirez.

Still, they will go as far as their pitching takes them. Even if the Dodgers complete this current homestand 17-0, we won’t know what they’re made of until a swing through Philadelphia and Florida in mid-May. Then again, we won’t know what Philadelphia and Florida are made of until then either.

It’s not too early to enjoy the heady atmosphere at the Ravine, however. On Cinco de Mayo, the party will have started long before game time. --- John Rosenthal.