Dodgers Diaries

According to a report on Yahoo!, the family of Roy Disney is now interested in buying the Dodgers. They join a group that includes potential bidders such as Magic Johnson and Guggenheim, Joe Torre and Rick Caruso, Larry King, and Peter O’Malley.

Where were you in 2004, when the Dodgers were being sold for a tiny fraction of the $1 billion Frank McCourt is likely to hold out for ... and still not give you the parking lots? Why couldn't you have bought the Dodgers seven years ago with some actual money and saved us from this carpetbagging thief? Why wasn't local ownership a point of pride in 2004?

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

It’s time to add another entry to the best games of Vicente Padilla’s career .

Wednesday night’s shutout of the Padres may be the best of all. Like the others, he gave up two hits. Unlike the others, Joe Torre actually left him in the game to finish the job. When the Dodgers tallied five times in the bottom of the 8th to put the game out of reach, you could smell Torre wondering whether he should bring in Travis Schlichting or Elmer Dessens to close out the ninth. Instead, he let Nicaragua’s second-greatest pitcher finish his 105-pitch outing and saved the bullpen for Thursday’s finale.

It may all be too little too late for the Dodgers. But there are still 54 games to go. The Dodgers will have to win at least 35 of those games, and probably 40. But if the starting pitchers continue to put on performances like they’ve been doing since the All-Star Break, they have a chance.

Nice to see Andre Ethier wake up with a big game: Two doubles and a homer. With Matt Kemp taking a step back in his development, Furcal hurt, Martin possibly out for the season, Blake struggling, and Manny Ramirez returning who knows when, Ethier will have to carry the team offensively. James Loney will have to help.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

When the 2005 White Sox won the ALCS over the Los Angeles Angels, they did it with complete games by all four of their stud starting pitchers. That left their bullpen rested and ready for the World Series, which they won in a sweep. Immediately thereafter, baseball fans came to realize that letting your starters go deep into games makes your bullpen that much better. For one, the pen is rested. For another, you only have to use the best relievers. Guys like Brandon McCarthy, Shingo Takatsu and Kevin Walker did not enter a game in those playoffs or the World Series.

Joe Torre must have been sleeping during that series, perhaps because his Yankees were eliminated a week earlier by the Angels in a tight five-game series. Because Torre seems never to have learned the lesson that a slightly tired starting pitcher is still better than a fresh middle reliever.

Friday night’s game against the Mets was exhibit X, Y and Z in the case of whether Torre or a monkey could manage the bullpen better. Torre even came out and admitted to ESPN’s Tony Jackson that he erred in removing Vicente Padilla for a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning. Padilla had held the Mets to two runs over 77 pitches, and was in a groove. His replacements were not. A parade that began with the Jeff Weaver Marching and Chowder Society and ended after anybody who doesn’t work for the Dodgers stopped watching allowed four runs, and cost the Dodgers the game. The sight of Torre ambling out to the mound three times in a single inning was enough to cause me to turn off the game.

Afterward, Dodger pitching coach Rick Honeycutt told Jackson "right now, we have a lot of different bodies down there, and we need to figure out what their roles are." He even admitted later in the interview: “Really, what your role should be is to make pitches and get people out, no matter when you're brought in to pitch. But we need to figure out when each guy can pitch."

Why pitchers, managers and pitching coaches can’t understand the second half of this quote is beyond me. Your job as a pitcher, whether you’re the ace starter, the closer, the eighth-inning guy, or the mop-up man, is to get outs. Your job as a manager is to use the guys who get the most outs most often.

Would the Dodgers have won the game if Padilla had stayed in, still trailing 2-1? Impossible to say. They didn’t get a sniff off relievers Bobby Parnell or Francisco Rodriguez. But by that time, the game was a 6-1 mountain to climb, not a one-run molehill.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

When players execute and produce proficiently, they make managers look like geniuses. Don Mattingly gets my props for leaving Chad Billingsley in to finish Wednesday night’s 2-0 shutout of the Giants. But there would be equal numbers of people jumping all over him had Billingsley not gotten the last three outs. Maybe not as many as there might have been three weeks ago, when Broxton was a little more reliable. But enough for there to be an argument.

Mattingly was also aided by the fact that it became a 2-0 game, rather than 1-0. In that situation, the textbook move is to call on your closer. From the sight of Hong-Chih Kuo warming up in the pen rather than Broxton, I have to assume that Big Jon was unavailable, which is odd, since he only threw 1/3 of an inning Tuesday, whereas Kuo threw 1.2 innings. Luckily, Billz got three easy outs and the entire pen got a night off in preparation for the series against the Mets.

We can only hope Joe Torre learned something from watching his protégé: Leave the guys in when they’re going great. With the way the bullpen looks right now, the best option is probably a slightly tired Kuroda, Kershaw, Padilla or Billingsley.

Big win for the Dodgers at a time when they really needed one. It was also good to see Casey Blake using a bat for something other than grounding out weakly. If the Dodgers are going to do anything this fall, they’ll need contributions from him and everyone else on the roster.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

In case you missed it, check the excellent LA Times story on the author of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” . Jack Norworth, who penned the song back in 1908, is buried in a cemetery not far from Anaheim. That’s reason enough for the Angels to claim his as their own. After all, they claim Los Angeles as their home town, even though they play in another county. So why not give the man his props and celebrate his contribution to the game?

Better yet, why don’t the Dodgers claim him as their own. They honored Norworth at the Coliseum in 1958 to celebrate the song’s 50th anniversary. The 100th passed barely noticed. These days, the Dodgers do Norworth a disservice by preceding his ballpark favorite with the dreadful God Bless America. It would be a fitting tribute to make Norworth’s song the only one played during the seventh-inning stretch.

The Dodgers head into the break on a high note, taking three out of four from the Cubs. Sunday’s 7-0 shutout was arguably the best game of Vicente Padilla’s entire career (save maybe the Game 3 win over St. Louis in the 2009 NLDS. “He knows how to pitch,” said Joe Torre after the game. “Everything he throws, he throws for strikes.”

Hong-Chih Kuo becomes the first Taiwanese player to be named to an All-Star game. We’ll see if he becomes the first to appear in a game as well. I’m not saying Kuo didn’t deserve to go, but I don’t really see All-Star managers turning to setup men when they’ve got multiple closers and multiple aces in their bullpens. If you’ve got a one-run lead in the seventh, are you going to turn to Kuo or to Heath Bell/Brian Wilson/Jonathan Broxton/or even Josh Johnson? Arthur Rhodes and Kuo will probably compete to appear as situational lefties some time in the sixth or seventh inning.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

On Monday, Dodgers’ starter John Ely was terrible, yielding six runs in 2.1 innings before giving way to the bullpen, which was stellar. Jeff Weaver threw 3.2 innings of hitless relief, permitting just one baserunner to reach, via a walk. Ronald Belisario was equally good, throwing three innings for the first time ever, and yielding just one hit.

It was all for naught, as the Dodgers couldn’t climb out of Ely’s hole, falling a run short to the Marlins, 6-5.

On Friday, Dodgers’ starter Chad Billingsley was good, pitching into the eighth inning after a shaky second and third inning where he loaded the bases each time, but only surrendered a single run. But the middle relief by George Sherrill and Justin Miller was dreadful. They allowed the Chicago Cubs to climb back from a laugher to necessitate the unleashing of the Broxton. The Ox was pedestrian, allowing a run of his own, and bringing the tying run to the plate before settling down and retiring the final out.

Given a choice between good bullpen and a loss or bad bullpen and a win, I'll take the latter.

Bills showed real resilience Friday night. Earlier in the year, he might have crumbled after being unable to command his pitches. He walked three the bases full in both the second and third innings, and looked like he just couldn’t throw a strike. But both times, he rebounded with strikeouts to end the inning. I’m not sure why Joe Torre allowed him to pitch the 8th inning after he had thrown 115 pitches, but the Dodgers got away with it.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Joe Torre was saying before the game that they're not very familiar with the teams they play in interleague. Um, excuse me, Joe, but didn’t you manage in the American League for 12 years before coming to the Dodgers? Aren’t you even a little bit familiar with a team called the Red Sox? Didn’t you get tired of losing to the Angels year in and year out, regardless of the players you put on the field? Don’t you know a little something about the team you managed for those 12 years, a team I think is called the Yankees?

Moreover, the Dodgers play the Angels six times every year, or almost as often as they play the Reds, Pirates, Brewers, Cardinals, Braves, Mets and every other team not in the NL West. The Angels play in the same media market as the Dodgers; their ups and downs appear in the same newspaper and television accounts of the games; and their games are covered by the same sports cable network. If the Dodgers are unfamiliar with the Angels, it’s because they’ve been making googly eyes at some mail-order bride while ignoring the girl next door.

Unfamiliarity is not why the Dodgers lost Wednesday night’s game. Poor baserunning all around is -- by Matt Kemp getting picked off, by Russell Martin straying too far from the base and by Reed Johnson not hustling home at top speed. But I’m a little tired of Torre acting like interleague play is some kind of exhibition that doesn’t count. The games count as much as any game against the Marlins, and they’re a pretty good barometer of how the Dodgers might fare if they should manage to get to the World Series (looking like a longer and longer longshot right now). Will Joe consider that merely an exhibition?

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The only positive spin I can find to put on this slide is that Colorado was even worse through the first 21 games (8-13) last year, and still rebounded to make the playoffs.

Do I think the Dodgers have the potential to rebound, win 18 of 19, the way the Rockies did? Yes. Will it require firing Joe Torre? I hope not. Will it require better pitching performances? Absolutely.

As currently constituted, these Dodgers aren't good enough to be a playoff team. Not only are they missing Eric Stults, Randy Wolf and the first half of 2009 Chad Billingsley, but it looks like last year's bullpen miracle workers are regressing to the mean of what they were: Journeymen pitchers who had never had such a great season before.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Joe Torre’s over-managing in Saturday’s 13-inning, 4-3 win over the Nationals almost cost the Dodgers the game. Only Jim Riggleman’s failure to run for the lame and slow-footed Ivan Rodriguez prevented Washington from scoring the tying run in the bottom of the 13th.

But out of bad decisions on both sides came a shining light for the Dodgers: The performance of Rule 5 draftee Carlos Monasterios, who threw scoreless ball over the last 2.2 innings for his first big league win. Monasterios looked like the pitcher the Dodgers liked so much in spring training.

The game never should have gone this far, however. With the Dodgers clinging to a 3-2 lead in the 8th, Ramon Troncoso put a runner on base, and got a grounder that was a little too tough to get a double play on. But instead of letting Troncoso get the last out of the 8th, Torre went straight to Jonathan Broxton for a four-out save. Broxton and Russell Martin then compounded the situation. They held a conference on the mound during which the radio announcer speculated that Martin was telling Broxton not to worry about the runner on first, Adam Kennedy.

Here’s how Martin’s end of the conversation must have gone: “Don’t worry about the runner. I’ll make sure he steals second, and I’ll throw the ball into the outfield so he can take third.” Well, that’s what happened, even if they didn’t plan it that way. Nyjer Morgan’s single brought home the tie, and Torre was left with three relievers going into the 9th inning. One of whom was Ramon Ortiz, basically unavailable because of his lengthy outing the night before.

Here’s how Torre again overplayed his hand in the 11th, after Matt Kemp made the last out trying to steal second base. He brought in Reed Johnson as part of a double switch, removing Kemp from the game. What? WTF? The pitcher wasn’t dues to bat until the fifth man up in the 12th, yet he removed his best player from the game? Makes no sense.

Now here’s how Riggleman made the even bigger mistake, as Eric Collins outlined on the broadcast: With the pitcher batting in Kemp’s spot, and no real pitchers left in Torre’s bullpen, Riggleman should have walked Martin and Andre Ethier in the top of the 13th to bring Monasterios to the plate. Instead, he pitched to Martin, who drove home Rafael Furcal with the go-ahead run. Riggleman compounded his mistake by not having a pitcher of his own (say, last night’s starter) run for Rodriguez. A healthy runner, even a pitcher, would have scored easily on Morgan’s double. Instead, the tying run never came in, despite Pudge’s best attempt to score on a ground ball to third.

The Dodgers will count this one as a win, since any win has to feel good right now. And I’ll give them a pass because it’s still April. But I still don’t like what I see.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

No amount of Andre Ethier offense was going to make up for the Dodger pitching staff’s woes on Saturday. If Ethier had come to the plate 8 times, he probably couldn’t have hit enough homers to mask this ugly loss.

Charlie Haeger couldn’t throw his knuckleball for a strike, and the Giants waited on him to make a mistake, which he did plenty of. He was gone after three innings, trailing 7-0.

The Giants trailed 7-0 after two innings Friday, but managed to rally to come within 10-8 by the time it was all said and done. The Dodgers on Saturday mailed in the rest of the game.

Of course, Tim Lincecum was pitching, and he makes it easy to look like you’re not trying. But lazy and poor defense also came before, during and after the Giants’ offensive outburst. Even Joe Torre seemed to concede this one before it had even started. He rested not only Russell Martin for a day game after a night game, but also Casey Blake, Manny Ramirez and Rafael Furcal. I can’t blame him. Their replacements didn’t do much: Rafael Belliard missed an easy grounder in the first inning and Jamey Carroll, despite getting two hits, made an error in the fourth that opened the door to a big inning. Garret Anderson was involved in one of the weirder fielder’s choice plays I’ve ever seen (as a left fielder, no less), but whiffed twice in an 0-4 night.

Troubling signs the Dodgers have not held an opponent under 4 runs in over a week (Friday’s 7-3 win over Florida). They’ve gone 3-4 in that skein, thanks largely to timely hitting. I don’t hear any more talk about the Dodgers’ average with RISP. For them to win consistently, they’re going to have to pitch better, not hit better.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Now playing the role of Scott Proctor: Jeff Weaver. The guy has pitched in nine of the last eight games. Yet when the Dodgers clawed their way back into a 3-3 game, who does Joe Torre bring in to pitch the 8th? George Sherrill, the man who is supposed to be the 8th-inning guy? Ramon Troncoso, the guy who was the 8th inning guy until Sherill took over that role in late 2009?

No, instead he brings in Jeff Weaver. I understand that there isn’t really an arm out there that Torre trusts right now. But why not go straight to Troncoso in that situation? Ramon had pitched all of 1/3 of an inning the night before, tossing just five pitches. That’s hardly an appearance. Play last night’s game as though you expect to win and maybe you don’t have to go into extra innings. Instead, Torre mapped out the game as if he planned to use at least one Ortiz and that’s exactly what he got. He also had to use Broxton for the third straight night, effectively eliminating his chances to pitch Friday night.

Weaver’s failure -- he immediately gave up a tie-breaking homer to Justin Upton -- was compounded an inning later by another tomato can outing by Sherrill. Had the Dodgers not rallied in the ninth, aided by Stephen Drew’s Mat Hollidayesque error on what should have been the last out of the game, that’s all we’d be talking about today.

Luckily for Torre, Andre Ethier was up to his old tricks again, delivering his first game-winning hit of 2010, much like his first of 2009: with a simple single.

The rest of the game was a dishonor to Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier 63 years ago last night. The Dodgers played a distracted game throughout. Matt Kemp failed to find a lazy fly to center (before he atoned with his fourth homer in five games). Starter Hiroki Kuroda went seven strong, but brain farted in the second inning when he went into a full windup, allowing Chris Young to steal third without a throw. Rafael Furcal followed a terrific stop with a throwing error that allowed Arizona’s second run to score.

Still, it’s a W, something the Dodgers aren’t likely to see tonight unless Vicente Padilla rights his ship against the streaking Giants. Charlie Haeger takes on Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum on Saturday afternoon, and Barry Zito takes on a Dodger starter TBA (no word yet on why it’s not Clayton Kershaw).

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

What does Blake DeWitt have to do to win a roster spot with the Dodgers? Fill in admirably at third base when both Nomar and LaRoche go down with injuries in 2008? Check.

Fill in admirably at second base when Jeff Kent goes down with an injury? Check.

Shuttle back and forth between Albuquerque and L.A. without a word of dissent throughout 2009? Check.

Hit the tar out of the ball in spring training 2010? Check.

So when Joe Torre says the fact that the team is only going to carry 11 pitchers at the beginning of the year is what allows them to keep DeWitt on the big league roster, it’s quite a backhanded compliment. The unspoken assumption, therefore, is that as soon as Hong-Chih Kuo or Ronald Belisario is ready to return to the team, Dewitt could be optioned back to AAA.

I’m not sure I see how this helps a young player’s development, something the Dodgers are going to be doing a lot of as the team scrimps and saves in the wake of the McCourts’ divorce.

DeWitt is the victim of a numbers game. Unlike pitchers Charlie Haeger or Carlos Monasterios, he can be returned to the minors without penalty. Unlike Ronnie Belliard or Jamey Carroll, he does not have a guaranteed major league contract. He may be better than either of these two utility infielders, but he has the least amount of leverage to contest a roster move. Why the Dodgers signed two utility infielders, neither of whom can play shortstop, is beyond me.

If it were up to me, I’d throw DeWitt into the starting job at 2B and let the other chips fall where they may. If that means cutting Ronnie Belliard and eating his $800,000 salary, so be it. With his weight issues, I wouldn’t be surprised if Belly ate some of it himself. If it means keeping 11 pitchers instead of 12 or 13, that’s fine too. I’ve always thought Torre overuses his bullpen. If you can’t win a pennant with a six-man bullpen, you’re doing it wrong.

If it means the team has to cut Nick Green and go without a true backup shortstop, then Rafael Furcal will have to man up a bit more and play all nine innings. He’s only 32. If he gets injured to the point where he has to go on the DL, Chin-Lung Hu is a phone call away. The harder call will be if Furcal has to miss 5-7 games -- too short a time to open up a roster spot.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL