Yes, Walker Buehler gave up five runs in the first inning, and it was a tall order to ask the Dodgers to come back and win. Almost impossible, one might say.
I say it was made absolutely impossible because of Dave Roberts‘ bad managing decisions (again).
Oscar Martinez
I was born in the shadow of Dodger Stadium and immediately drenched in Dodger Blue. Chavez Ravine is my baseball cathedral, Vin Scully was the golden voice of summer all my life, and Tommy Lasorda remains the greatest Dodgers manager ever. My favorite things are coffee, beer, and the Dodgers beating the Giants. I also blog about my baseball card hobby at All Trade Bait, All the Time.
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Tall order indeed, but they almost pulled it off, had it not been for the blown opportunities and costly error by Bellinger in the second, which started the bleeding, and it was not Dodger Blue.
Snitker threw DR a curve, changing his starter to a Lefty, and Roberts was unable to counter. DR chose to switch to his disasterous Lefty Line-up strategy, which failed again. “The Smirk” led the way, with wasted scoring opportunities.
Hey Roberts, I thought righties could not hit righties…. Taylor did!
Hey Roberts, I thought lefties could not hit lefties….. Muncy did!
…. I’m just sayin’
BELLINGER ..SHOULD BE SITTING…
Yep, ol Dave was out maneuvered tonight and in my book, he switched players way too soon. Kemp has hit righty’s better than lefty’s this year. Bad luck was Pederson hit the ball so hard he could not get to second, and then the next 3 guys swinging at pitches they could not hit with a long pole. It is hard to believe that a player with Machado’s credentials could be so bad so far, but he has been. Except for one swing in game two, the guy has been worthless. Now they face the game one starter again, and I am thinking Hill will get the call for the Dodgers and if they lose game 4, it will be all hands on deck in game 5. Hill has the stuff to confuse the young Braves hitters. No reason to run Ryu out there on short rest. Dodger bats still lousy with men in scoring position. One thing I really believe is that Dave’s decision to intentionally walk Culberson got Buehler out rhythm and that is why he walked the pitcher without a single strike being thrown even after Honeycutt and Grandal went out to talk to the kid.,
“It’s no wonder that site is a ghost town.”
“What a waste of bandwidth!”
Mark Timmons about this website.
I’ll just leave this here…
Nobody cares what Timmons thinks…or does,,,,,,,,he is persona non grata
Unfortunate error fo Bellinger. Wrong place at the wrong time. Buehler could have squeaked out of that inning unscathed, if Bells fielded that ball correctly.
I Noticed that Bellinger also seems to be standing more erect again, and that really causes him to reach badly, and swing off balance. However, I cannot blame this fiasco all on Bellinger though.
The entire lineup was out of sync, and when they got behind, they were all desperately swinging for the fences. When you are down five runs, a solo homerun will do little to help. You have to get creative, move runners and manufacture runs. Something we all know the Dodgers cannot do. Just look at their miserable RISP numbers ( 1-9 last night ).
Yes Bellinger screwed up and probably helped lose the game with his lack of defense and poor plate appearances, but so did many others fail at the plate. If there is anyone to blame, I say it was “The Smirk” for his continued inability to hit in the clutch, with runners in scoring position, in crucial situations. The Dodgers picked him up for exactly those situations ,and he has more often than not, failed to get it done. If there was a definition of “The Smirk” in Webster’s, his smirky face would be right there with the words, “Choke”, “Selfish”, “Bad example”, “Self Centered”. He even managed to repeat his admiration pose at the plate, thinking he had hit the ball out. Will “The Smirk” be benched for his poor play and antics? Probably not.
Cannot just blame Bells, this was a team loss.
Bellinger only allowed the runners to advance, it was Roberts decision to walk Culberson and that loaded the bases for the pitcher. I think walking Charlie got Buehler out of his rhythm. Had he been facing a real threat instead of a statue holding a bat, he would have pitched differently. As it was he got totally out of sync trying to throw fastballs past the pitcher and lost his control. Then after another couple of balls to Acuna, he had to throw a strike, unfortunately it was right in his wheelhouse and bye bye baseball.
Agree. Sometimes you lose. Isn’t the end of the world.
Hope they win today.
I just fucking love watching Rich Hill.
Pitching, hitting, screaming.
Love it all.
Walks come back to bite old buzzard on the ass.
Oh yeah. Pederson the better choice than Kemp today, 0-3 with 3 strikeouts…..really efficient. # Matt mashes righty’s. Joc successful 25.8 % of the time in all his at bats…..Kemp 29%. Tell me how Pederson is better than Kemp???? WAR is over rated. Simple mathematics. Kemp has a much higher success rate than Pederson, and so far Machado sucks rocks this playoff series. Braves win this game, Kershaw pitching game 5.
Bear
The thing I don’t understand is how can a player be an All Star and never play? Name one starting all star who doesn’t play EVERY DAY? Who ever is responsible for this travesty should be fired. You are so right about Kemp’s stats. I have been screaming the very same thing for weeks. He deserves to play every day, just like Manny, Turner, Grandal and Kike.
How many times can Michael make poor points in one post.
Your definition of a successful AB is not the same as everyone else’s.
From a WAR and OPS stand-point Pederson rates higher.
I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW that you don’t like WAR (or OPS, I imagine) but the people who pay the players, advise the manager or manage really value those stats.
Sadly, they are more important in deciding who should play than I am, and than you are. Thankfully also more important than Package and that other conspiracy guy.
Machado doesn’t suck rocks this series. He’s remarkably middling.
Maybe to you they are poor points, but to someone who has watched the game as long as I have they make more sense than all that saber crap. Yeah, I dislike saber metrics, I think it is ruining the game because it places importance on a bunch of phantom stats. I can see RBI’s wins and batting average. I cannot see pitch framing or war or any of that other crap. How old are you anyway? I do not need saber metrics to tell me that Matt Kemp has been way more important to this team than Pederson. Yep, he slumped after the all star game. A lot of players did, but before he went into his slump, Roberts was playing him less for no reason. Maybe it was because, as Badger put it, they were resting Matt and not trying to wear him out because he is not 25 anymore. I do not need saber metrics to tell me that Johnny Bench was a better catcher than Grandal will ever be, or that these guys get paid more for doing less than some great hall of famers got. All in the eyes of the beholder and your opinion of my posts does not bother me one bit because I look at baseball a lot differently than you do and the game has changed for the worse. Yep, those high paid so called genius’s get paid to make the decisions…..weird though. they still have not won a championship in those six trips to the playoffs. The last time the Dodgers won, it was the old fashioned way…….put that in your pipe and smoke it. Until Friedman and company actually get the big trophy, nothing they have done means spit, nor does their way of evaluating players. Until today, Machado had done little to help the team win. Today he actually ended up earning his salary.
Michael,
You conflate reality with opinion. There is much of the modern game I don’t like. I wish there were sprinkles of the Vince Coleman Cardinals, or even the Jeter Yanks.
sadly my opinion means as much as yours. I try to take the game as it is, not think I know better. It’s launch angle, spin rate and not making outs. Kemp sucks at that last one. He’s not playing. The team is winning. Who’s gonna complain?
Where is MJ?
She’s at the other site.
Scott
What other site? This is the only site with any credibility.
Timmons site….the biggest braggart and egomaniac on the planet. Thinks he knows everything…..
Machado hitting a robust .083. Gotta love him…….
If i were to guess , Machado won’t return next year on a new deal.
Probably not Paul. He’ll likely command too much money
Machado salted the game away. Wish I saw the HR.
But I concur, I don’t see how he fits in with Seager returning.
If I were to guess Machado will be elsewhere in 2019. As far as Sunday’s game # 3 Dodgers live by the sword (HR’s) and as often seen this year they die by the sword…pitching serving them up.
Machado won’t be back in 2019 anyway
No way Machado is re-signed by the Dodgers. Seager will be healthy and ready to go. With Kershaw having the option to opt out and Grandal and some others being free agents I do not see any scenario where the Dodgers fork out the kind of money it is going to take to sign the guy.
Somebody please remind me why Grandfail is batting 5th. Oh wait it makes zero sense. O FOR 5 in the meat of the lineup. But an NLDS title is what matters. But DR scares me the most.
He is there because the saber metric geeks think he is good. And he usually hits better LH, but they brought in a lefty early and turned Grandmal around and he is worthless from the right side. Worse than worthless. They also played Pederson who was ofer, and Kemp hits righty’s better than he does, but Blotto thinks Pederson is a better player because he has a higher WAR. None of their WARS come close to guys like Snider and Hodges, so who cares what Pederson’s WAR is. I think he got the start because he hit a homer off of alphabet soup the first game. Matters not, they won the game and it is on to Milwaukee.
Michael,
Often I get the feeling that you cannot see value in anything but what you’ve learned in the past as the ‘right’ way to do things. Undoubtedly, you are a real fan and a student of the game and have valuable insights, but as you know, things change and evolve. We may not agree and we may fight tooth and nail, but our opinions are only good for a short while and often have little to do with the way things are in the present.
Every team uses metrics to evaluate players, matchups, and situational circumstances. This doesn’t bypass the gut as you seem to suggest all too often. Plus, in spite of the inconsistent play and areas of weakness of the Dodger team, they continue to win! Combine all the Roberts mistakes, injuries, slumps, etc., the team still has its head above water heading towards a possible back to back WS appearance. All the doubts, complaints, grouchiness, and BBIQ that you throw around doesn’t seem to have all that much to do with the way the organization is built and what they’ve accomplished. You even go so far as to ‘dismiss’ Timmons’ site as being the work of a loudmouth bully who knows everything. I get the feeling that you are a little like him in the sense of knowing everything and having ‘iron-clad’ opinions. In case you haven’t noticed, Timmons site is not anything like you’ve described. There are many knowledgeable posters contributing there and often, he is not the main poster of the general threads. Personally, I don’t post there as I don’t want to spend so much time reading and listening to all of this. I am excited about the Dodgers in the playoffs, but I am not excited to read what passes for ranting, in general, on this site, or any other. I don’t live for baseball and find it tiring to read the repetitive nature of many posts, yours included. Wanting to be right is an insecurity that is difficult to see and come to terms with for many posters.
Whether Kemp plays or not is of little concern to me as long as the Dodgers keep winning, and they have. Can you belieive it?
Pederson, is a player that has a future here, Kemp doesn’t. Kike is in the same position. The Dodgers are committed to them. They will also definitely try to resign Machado, as they should, because of what he is capable of. Whether they can come to mutually acceptable terms is another story, but Machado has the potential and youth, to be here for a very long time if they can swing a deal. It is the future that the FO will look towards to make the decisions that will sustain the winning ways. These guys are much smarter than how most of us think of them. Bringing Manny and Freese onto the team helped us a lot and none of us expected it. Juggling talent, money, and the future makeup of a team is a nasty business that drives fans up the wall at times. I suffered through the Warriors ownership and management for decades before the right group took control. These guys may have the Midas touch. Let’s see what happens.