What will the blister gods have to say about that?
By this point it was 12 down in a row, and folks were starting to notice something special developing.
Dodgers
Three straight singles brought home a run to crack the seal on the scoring. Credit Adrian Gonzalez with the first RBI. 1-0
Then Yasmani Grandal came up and smashed a 3-run home run. 4-0
5th inning 4-0
Another hitless, scoreless inning for Hill.
6th inning 4-0
After 86 pitches and 8 strikeouts, Hill gave up a two-out single. That was the Padres’ first hit of the night, and all they got from Hill.
Dodgers
Will wonders never end? A near no-hitter now joined by Josh Reddick‘s first home run as a Dodger. 5-0
7th inning 5-0
The Dodgers got two gift walks, but left the runners there.
8th inning 5-0
Casey Fien in. With a runner on second, he gave up a booming fly ball that Howie Kendrick made a magnificent, running, over the shoulder catch on.
No matter, the next batter singled in the run. 5-1
9th inning 5-1
Kenley Jansen vs the Padres
Norris: K swinging
Schimpf: K swinging
Who cares: K Got him swinging!
Dodgers win! 5-1
Tops: Yasmani Grandal now has a career-high 22 HRs.
A traded flop no more: Josh Reddick finally came of age with the Dodgers and went 3 for 4 with two singles and a solo home run.
Should I worry?: Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that Josh Reddick hit his first Dodgers home run.
Trouble is, that probably reassured the Dodgers about the Reddick experiment. He may find a nice hitting groove. He may never hit again. Either way, I fear Reddick will now be cemented into the starting lineup, and Andrew Toles will slip down the depth charts.
The Giants won, so the Dodgers keep 2 game lead.
Team with RISP: 2 for 3
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.
Follow Me:
Has Puig lit the fire underneath Reddick’s package?
The second quality game in a row for Rich Hill.
That just doesn’t sound right.
Roberts made a comment about base running being very good in the fourth inning. I think he probably had a talk about the prior game with 13 hits and so many base runners but so little to show for it. I like the fact he’s dealing with the issue right away and in the right way. We can’t play the way we did in the first game in the postseason.
https://twitter.com/RCQuakes/status/772268559548329986/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Article by former player about Ellis trade:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/08/ryan-spilborghs-aj-ellis-trade-glue.html
We beat the hapless Padres. Leave us not make too much of this.
So it’s been 5 weeks and Hill has thrown 12 innings? Can we expect 12 more in the next month? Reddick with 17 hits in last 28 days. 1 double and 1 home run. The makes trade look good? They have another month to actually do something to justify this trade. I still play Puig and Toles.
We are 5-5 with a 1 game win streak. SF is 5-5 with a 1 game win streak. As I posted on the last thread 15 minutes ago, every metric site we fans use to support whatever it is we are trying to prove, along with the gambling houses in Vegas says the Dodgers are supposed to win the West. 74.4% favorites as of today. Apparently it’s because of Dave Roberts. I beg to differ, but, whatever. I don’t know why this club would be favored, maybe it’s because since the break the gints are playing like the ’62 Mets. I said in the first week of the season we would hit but I didn’t like the look of our crystal arm rotation. I still don’t like our rotation, even Kershaw went down, and still believe we can hit. I picked the under on 92 and said it would come down to the last week of the season. I still believe that.
Sunlight.Exercise. Rest. I have a 74.4% chance I get all three sometime today.
Badger: “We beat the hapless Padres. Leave us not make too much of this”.
C’mon can’t we enjoy this FAZtastic victory without you raining on our parade?
OK, “Debbie Downer”, consider this: “The Dodgers waited until 23 days after they acquired Hill to see his first start, in which he pitched six scoreless frames against the Giants. Then they played it carefully in Colorado, and ultimately waited another nine days before start No. 2, his six scoreless innings on Saturday.
Hill is just the fourth pitcher since 1913 to begin his Dodgers career with two straight games of six or more scoreless innings, with teammate Kenta Maeda one of the others to do so.
Hill has a slugging percentage allowed this season of just .250, first among the 148 MLB pitchers with at least 25 at-bats against them, per Inside Edge. Second on that list, by the way, is Clayton Kershaw (.269), who is due back soon after his three scoreless innings”.
And why all the angst about trading three “prospects”? I remember so many who wanted to trade Seager and Urias for Hamels, saying that “Prospects are just Prospects”. What is different now?
Sure this trade doesn’t have a 100% chance of success, but, consider that you only have a 74.4% chance of, Sunlight, Exercise and Rest today!!!
You lost all credibility at the end there buddy.
And it’s my opinion we should build our organization from within, using prospects. I thought you saber guys were all in on that. Apparently only when it suits you. I wanted Montas closing, Holmes starting, Seager at third and Peraza at short. Now all those guys will be doing those very things somewhere else. Some are already doing it.
You must know that if FAZ said sh-t tastes good there’s some here who would make it part of their daily diet and criticize us for not doing the same.
And there are some of us who find the endlessly repetitive and nonsensical criticisms of FAZ and unfounded accusations to be just tedious and annoying. Yours would be a good example.
It’s been articulated more times to belabor yet again, but the goals are to build the organization to win long term while being competitive now, and to be competitive now without compromising the goal of being competitive long term. Do you see the inherent conflict?…the trade off? …..the dilemma?…the challenge in balancing the two opposing objectives?
Forfeiting one of those objectives for the sake of philosophical purity is just a foolish consistency. Advocating the same to make some point on the internet is just kind of silly.
Yes, it is just one game, but does Reddick hitting perhaps signal that he might be heating up? Yes, Hill has pitched 14 innings, but does what he’s done with those 14 innings give a glimpse of what he could provide come playoff time. It is one game, but make the equally erroneous conclusion that an underperforming or injured short sample is a prediction of the future.
Badger
We probably have better odds now, because it looks like Kershaw will be back in the rotation again.
Badger
Doesn’t seem that everytime a Dodger team has a player really going on an offensive tear, they don’t take advantage of that players good offensive streak, instead they just leave them on the bench, to get cold?
Yeah, They better leave Reddick in the lineup today. Correct?
Most of you will have already read this, but it is the best report on Puig that I have read in years, and kudos to the Dodger team and manager for this proactive event: http://dodgerblue.com/dodgers-news-yasiel-puig-informed-expectations-meeting-teammates-dave-roberts/2016/09/03/?utm_source=Dodgers+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5a5eff998b-The+DB+Report+04-2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5603c26edc-5a5eff998b-204569421
Hill’s performance and news of Kershaw’s recovery give real hope for the post season. I am looking for a way to update with rhyme the refrain from the Fifties:
Spahn and Sain, then a day of rain.
How about: Kershaw and Hill will make your day. Then Maeda will make them pay.
We had one last year for the playoffs – “Kershaw and Greinke then prepare to get spankied.”
What, if anything, did you make go Puig’s body language in that interview?
Yeah, but you would have to add:
“Kershaw and Greinke then prepare to get spanked”
After that, Watch your Aces dominate, two of two!
That’s the best I could do with your poetic abortion!!
“That don’t make no sense” – Pete Hogwallop
I knew I was possibly opening the floodgates to some really atrocious poetry even though this group seems saturated with muses.
Badger: “That don’t make no sense” – Pete Hogwallop
Well what do you expect from a guy who is, “as happy as pigs in muck”?
I don’t know, but it is a little difficult for anyone to receive an intervention from peers and boss without being a little at loss on how to re-integrate with the group and in one’s own life. I think that he has handled it very well and he seems to have insight. I think that the interview was hard to do, and if it was an act, it was brilliant. I think he is sincere, but whether he can incorporate it into a new life–that is really hard. One has to put an * after “knucklehead” to acknowledge that he has some real intelligence and insight. But as to the body language, I think it suggests discomfort which I would be normal for anybody. On the other hand, I think that if he were clever enough to fake the interviews, he probably could manage the body language a little better.
I agree with your assessment. Puig looked uncomfortable. Can’t say I blame him. The spotlight is on him and it’s on him for the wrong reasons.
He is by all the early accounts I read about him, an intelligent guy. By definition, he is no knucklehead, he’s just young, excitable and immature. Hopefully he’s figured this thing out. If not, he will be gone this winter.
Clayton, Kenta, and Hill, stir and refill
We need to find a nickname for Maeda.
Clark Kenta?
I just hope they tackle this lefthanded today, because that will be who we will be facing from now on.
And because of that, we won’t be seeing much of this same line up, anymore that did well last night.
And Utley brings more energy to our line up, most of the time, and he doesn’t play much against lefties.
I don’t want to have to see Culberson, Kike, and the other part time players, in our post season line up, but since that is all Roberts seems to play against lefties, that will probably happen.
I much rather see Chase then Charlie, and I think Chase is better equipped to play in the post season then Charlie.
I like the way Hill pitches, and the confidence he has on the hill.
I just hope there is an answer to his blister problem, because that would make a big difference with Hill, and how much he can contribute to the team.
Because he is a good pitcher from what I have seen, and it is nice to have a decent pitcher out there, after all of the pitchers we have went through this year.
And if they can solve this blister issure, it looks like Hill throws very freely and easy, and that he isn’t putting a lot a stress on his arm or wrist.
Ryan Spilborgh’s article about the problem with the AJ Ellis trade is a microcosm of what is wrong with the Braintrust’s vision for building a baseball team.
Here are some thoughts from David Brooks’ “The Social Animal”:
“The rationalist mode of thougt is omnipresent and seems natural and inevitable. The rationalist tradition proved seductive. It promised certainty, to relieve people of the anxiety caused by fuzziness and doubt. …In the mechanical and then the industrial age, it was easy to see people as mechanisms and the science of human understanding as something akin to engineering or physics.
“…(Rationalism) values the sort of knowledge that can be put into words and numbers over the sort of knowledge than cannot. It seeks rules and principles that can be applied across contexts, and undervalues the important of specific contexts.
“Moreover, the rationalist method was founded upon a series of assumptions. It assumes that…scientists can look at society objectively from the outside, purged of passions and unconscious biases.
“It assumes that reasoning can be fully or at least mostly under conscious control.
“It assumes that reason is more powerful and separable from emotion and appetite.
“It assumes that perception is a clear lens, giving the viewer a straightforward and reliable view of the world.
“It assumes that human action conforms to laws that are akin to the laws of physics, if we can only understand what they are. A company, a society, a nation, a universe, (a ballclub) – these are all great machines, operated through immutable patterns of cause and effect….”
People and baseball teams aren’t machines. Their performance and motivations are not something that can be quantified all of the time. They aren’t computers that can be programmed.
It is the French Enlightenment vs. the English Enlightenment. (see Gertrude Himmelfarb’s book, The Roads to Modernity.)
Enlightenment is not found outside. You want enlightenment I recommend looking to those who have achieved it – the eastern Mystics. “Know thyself.”
“It’s all an illusion” – Hafiz
Or if you prefer – Einstein “reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”
Nothing in the physical world is as it seems. That goes for all of us as well. And this speaks to your point about performance and motivation. Who knows what is really going on in the Dodgers organization. A lot of egos and corporate thinking going on there. Illusions everywhere you look.
I think that the point here is that rational data are important. You have to apply your conscious mind to resolve any problem, including the problem of constructing a baseball team. I am certainly not suggesting a mystical solution to the Dodgers’ rotation.
What I am suggesting is that running the roster through some sort of algorithm will not create a perfect ballclub. There are many other considerations. Character is one – heart is another. Clutchness, which SABRgeeks don’t believe in is another. Desire. Teamwork. What the scouts see.
I seriously doubt that these things are taken into account before, for example, an AJ Ellis is traded away.
rick said: “You have to apply your conscious mind to resolve any problem”
While true, the conscious mind is more effective in resolving problems when the subconscious mind has had time to play with the problem.
Make an effort, pull back and let the subconscious mind process it, then return and let the conscious mind work again. BTW, that works with golf as well. Pounding 500 balls non-stop at the driving range can do more harm that not hitting any balls.
That could be true, but they did demote Puig…and subsequently promoted him. I don’t think they used an algorithm the predict his level of non-compliance in watching film or doing his hamstring exercises. They subjectively looked at his work ethic and got a sense of how his teammates viewed him and made the decision, really in spite of the fact that his hitting was ticking up and they needed a right handed bat.
People who want absolutes, don’t understand things that can’t be defined.
And they don’t want to deal with things, that can’t be defined.
Badger, ‘Know Thyself’ is Greek, not Eastern or Asian. Socrates, via Plato is said to have uttered it and so established the Western philosophical tradition.
Your last paragraph seems right on.
Good point Jeff. But, I think you will find the Masters, including Pythagorus, all teach the same thing – transmigration of the soul. The physical plane is not our true home, go within to find your origin. That is how you know your true self.
“To know the self is to forget the self”- Dogen Zenji
My favorite of his:
“One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world”
It’s all an illusion.
Thus my biggest criticism of Hawking and this need to manufacture or create a “theory of everything.”
It’s my issue with the current trend among progressives to science worship.
Maybe Buddhist monk who has achieved enlightenment by meditating in a room without speaking for forty years is not really enlightened, but just thinks he is from incessant navel gazing.
In meditation, the eyes are up not down.
From the other manager, Hill’s curveball is almost unhittable. I guess he throws it in any count and in any location he wants. I can’t think of another pitcher who does that. The curveball as the dominant pitch. It kind of reminds me of Don Sutton and his big curve, but Hill’s must be better than that. Probably no HOF for Hill, though. giants get Lackey today. They miss Hendrick. Too bad. Cuevo for the giants. The game will be just about over when ours starts. I hate to see this experimenting with pitchers this late in the season. I guess De Leon was the best option? My guess is this will be a bullpen game with De Leon going 4. Go Cubs.
Predicting a bullpen day for the current Dodgers is kind of like predicting rain for Seattle, isn’t it?
Its nice to have players that play with our imaginations.
The Dodgers will probably have Toles, Kendrick, Pederson, Reddick, and Puig as the outfielders that are on the playoff team.
I think the infield will be Turner, Agon, Utley, Seager with Kendricks used to back up third and second.
Add two catchers and that leaves 13 pitchers to make up the 25. If the 25 has 12 pitchers, I would guess Kike’ makes the 25 and if its 11 pitchers, then Sedegen makes the 25.
How well players do for the rest of the regular season could change the above especially for Toles, Reddick, Kike’, Sedegen.
Playoff rotation will be Kershaw, Hill, Maeda backed up by Urias, Stripling, De Leon, Stewart, Jansen, Dayton, with the rest of the spots based on how well they pitch the remainder the regular season.
I think the Dodgers will re-sign Turner and , Jansen; trade or drop Ethier; let Anderson, Noris, Reddick, and Utley walk.
Next year the outfield will be Pederson, Thompson, Toles, Puig unless Toles is successfully transitioned to second base over the winter in which case Kendricks will be part of the outfield.
The future rotation will soon be: Urias, De Leon, Buehler, Alvarez, Stewart. Sadly, I would trade Kershaw for Trout this winter.
You certainly think outside the box. Why would you get rid of Ethier without considering how he plays in the rest of this season? Why would you change a second baseman (Kendrick) to an outfielder and an outfielder (Toles) to a second baseman? During playoffs only 3 starters are needed so maybe 8 in the bullpen and 14 position players.
I agree with Kendrick as a 2B, but he is a lot older and has good trade value. Bum is just thinking outside the box – something I admire.
Andre is getting up in age. The Dodgers could re-sign Reddick to 4-year deal and he wouldn’t be as old as Ethier is now. Neither can hit lefties. Both could stay or be gone.
As a fan; Ethier is a long time popular Dodger player. Reddick is part time help we signed for 2 months to help push the wagon. He sat down on the wagon and we had to carry him too. (I know he tried as hard as he could to help, all players do) I will never accept him as a Dodger, I don’t want him back. He is league average at best. there are many equal outfielders available out there. If not Ethier, then sign one of them with whom we will not have associated memories of failure.
Wondering
I totally agree with you, and last night’s game didn’t prove anything.
I only wish that they would give there own players that are actually contributing, the starts and chances they have given Reddick!
Reddick really isn’t a late bloomer, if you look at the two times in his career, that he was able to have a good batting average.
The two times that he hit well, was because he only had about 250 at bats, instead of twice that, like most everyday major leaguers have each season.
That is a bold move trading Kershaw for Trout. This doesn’t feel like a move that FAZ would make. Interesting to consider, though.
Agree with resigning Turner and Jansen. Ethier, Anderson, Norris, and Reddick , are really not in the picture at the moment and I doubt that they should be in the future picture. Utley is still a useful and reasonably priced player for an old man. Better than Kike.
We’ll just have to see what Hill gives us the rest of the year. If he continues like this, gotta sign him as he looks more reliable than anyone else not named Kershaw.
Bum
Last 15 games four walks, 18 strike outs, one HR, and four RBIs, and hitting about 150.
And the previous 15 games was better than that was bad. What’s your point? Seager was 0 for 19 before last night’s game. Agon always has a stretch every year where he hits about .100 for 20 games.
Bum
Making Toles a second baseman, is not taking advantage of a position where is speed makes a difference.
MJ, why are middle infielders usually the fastest players on teams?
Who will be the Dodgers second baseman of the future? Calhoun, Kike’? Don’t you find it intriguing for the Dodgers to repeat what they did in the 70’s when they converted two outfielders and they became half of the Garvey, Lopes, Russel, Cey long term infield everybody seems to yearn for?
Did you realize Anderson has “earned” $4,225,000 per inning this year.
Wondering
Don’t remind about McCarthy and Anderson, who are very familar with sitting on the bench, and tweeting.
Wondering: “Did you realize Anderson has “earned” $4,225,000 per inning this year”.
Ethier: $20,000,000 / 0 = What per inning? Please somebody help with the math!!!
So does Anderson and McCarthy, but with a lot less quality.
If we win today, we win the series. Good enough for me. But yes, let’s hope our stupid all rightie lineup isn’t in there today.
I’ll be at the stadium again today (thank you cheapo tic!!). Anyone else going? First round on me
Bobby
I hope it is a good game for you, you deserve it!
So Puig is not a “Knucklehead?”
OK, we will go with that. What do you call a guy who:
1. Is repeatedly late for meetings and pre-games;
2. Refuses to study film and disrupts the players who do;
3. Constantly cuts up during inappropriate times (Kike used to do that too);
4. Blows off the admonition of his veteran teammates; and
5. Doesn’t play the game the way it’s supposed to be played (throwing to wrong bases, silly baserunning mistakes, etc.).
If he’s not a knucklehead, what is he? By my way of thinking, that is a total knucklehead.
By all accounts, he says he is chastened. We shall see. I certainly hope so, because a focused Puig can destroy an opponent. An unfocused Puig can destroy his own team.
He was a knucklehead. Knuckleheadedness is hard to eradicate. I remain hopeful, but not oblivious.
On the article about AJ Ellis, I do not agree that he was the “heart and soul of the Dodgers.” I have been around AJ quite a bit – he is respected, but not revered! He was just another good guy on a team of good guys. Tell me he’s a better guy than Utley, Kendrick, A-Gon, Clayton, Corey, Justin, Joe B., Rich, Josh, even Kenley (who is a really good good quiet guy, pitching transgression excluded).
I am going to present what I believe will an unpopular point-of-view (as always): I think FAZ wanted AJ gone for a few reasons:
1. He is no longer a viable hitter;
2. Being best friends with Clayton means that he might allow Clayton to stay in the game when in fact, Clayton should come out; and
3. I believe that the Cards… maybe other teams has figured out certain proclivities that AJ had in calling a game. I have watched video over an over of Clayton getting beat by the Cards in the playoffs with the idea that he was “tipping” pitches. It turns out AJ may have been the culprit… maybe tipping or maybe just his pattern. At any rate, FAZ wants Yasmani to catch Clayton. This is about winning baseball games. This is not about Mamby Pamby Land, you Jackwagons!
Don’t forget that Ryan Spilborghs is employed by the Rockies, spent his whole career with the Rockies and obviously from his culture of “WINNING” understands how important AJ Ellis chemistry was – NOT! Yes, I admire the good guys, but when they can’t play anymore it is time for them to move on. It’s sad, but it’s life.
Zack Greinke thinks that Yasmani is the best catcher he has ever pitched to… of course Zack doesn’t throw a lot of pitches into the dirt.
Some fans just like to bitch more than they like to win. Even when the Dodgers win, they can’t enjoy it. That’s sad!
The Kershaw issue just got harder with his back issues. Hopefully, they can be resolved this offseason. If they are, I think FAZ will make Clayton a Lifetime Dodger.
Here’s the good and bad news:
Good – Clayton is coming back
Bad – His legs can’t be very strong as with back problems you generally cannot run, so I would not expect him to pitch past 5 or 6 innings.
Ellis shouldn’t have been able to influence the manager on pitching changes.
Getting rid of Ellis could be a FAZ move to encourage Clayton to opt out.
Yes, everyone must move on eventually and I have been saying that Ellis is finished a couple of years now, but there is a good way to do it. They could have traded other players to Philadelphia, especially since they were doing Ruiz a favor by trading him. They could have asked Ellis to go on the DL for the rest of the year or made him a coach. He would have gotten the thrill of the Playoffs and World Series (maybe!!!) and been available in case of injury to Ruiz or Grandal. Everyone wins!
1. Clayton is going to opt out unless his back is an issue. That is a given.
2. I have no inside knowledge – just common sense – but I think the Dodgers would want someone who is in the conversation as the GOAT to retire as a Dodger. I think the check will be signed – he just has to fill in the blanks.
3. Here’s the complication factor – He is a Texan. Does he want to finish his career in Texas. That’s what it boils down to. All the rest of this is just conjecture.
On AJ – the Phillies wanted him. Specifically asked and FAZ wanted to trade him. I don’t think he sees himself as a coach as yet!
Here’s what we don’t know – what happens to AJ when Philly’s season is over in early October?
Mark
They have that no gravity thing, so maybe Kershaw has been running on that, while he has been out.
Wondering
You made really good points, and gave very good options, on the way they could have handled the AJ thing.
They have given Hatcher these options more then once, and many still wonder why he is still a Dodger.
They could have at least given AJ the same chance.
It wasn’t like AJ was just sitting on the bench, tweeting like MCarthy and Anderson.
He was a big help to Grandal, and all the pitchers, doing the research and home work, on how the pitchers should pitch to different hitters.
Mark
I think that your are right about the Cardinals finding a way to steal our signs.
And I heard a former big league player, insinuate that about AJ and the Cardinals, after AJ was traded.
I always felt that AJ should have went out to Kershaw and slowed the game down, when things started to go the wrong way.
But AJ didn’t go out to Kershaw to much, because Kershaw doesn’t like when catchers do that.
So Kershaw and AJ might have been to close, and that allowed Kershaw to get his way.
What is weird when I had my back surgery, they said sitting down was the hardest thing on your back.
They said that sitting put three times the pressure on your back.
And I was only allowed to stand up or lay down, for the first three weeks after my surgery.
Honeycutt should have gone to the mound to slow things down, or isn’t that his job. Ditto Mattingly. Just my opinion. But it’s hard to get through a good lineup the third time with the same approach. Just ask most of our starters this year.
Snider
All of the above, but we don’t know if Honeycutt had to be told first from Mattingly
I can’t imagine any player being the heart and soul of a team. Maybe Willie Mays was for the Giants. Jackson liked to say he was the straw that stirred the drink for the Yankees. Pee Wee, Clemente, Drysdale? I don’t know.
AJ looked to me like he was beginning to think more like a coach than as a player. I base that on the few times I saw him in the dugout.
AJ was liked and respected and his teammates had to think that the timing was totally wrong. He was a free agent after this year and most probably thought this would be his last year, like Vin’s.
What ever reasons FAZ had for making the trade, it was ill advised, strange, and Piazza like.
Kershaw was almost perfect for 6 innings and then all of a sudden AJ started to hold his glove differently for curve balls. Yeah, that was it.
Bum
It happened the same way, in the seveth inning.
I told myself when the inning, started to be the same, that Kershaw is to good, to have this happen again.
And then it happened again.
One of Mark’s best. On Anderson: 2 innings last night after Kershaw. 9 hits. Will this year be the Year of the Blister? I don’t like hearing about the playoffs, when it’s not done yet. If we can win series, we’re in. 27 games left. The giants play a home series against the Cardinals soon. I thought that might be a good chance to gain some ground, except the Cardinals now suck too. Losing to the Reds. We might have to do this thing ourselves instead of backing in. Down the stretch, I think our key offensive player will be Seager. For a young guy, it seems the veterans really pay attention to what he is doing. Reminds me of Jeter, Ripken. Could be. On Puig: we have had these false promises before. Were the last 3 years just a phase or not? Until he does otherwise, I expect more of the same from him.
Bobbie17
Remember we lost the first two games against the Reds, the last time we played them.
From Nick Cafardo:
2. Rich Hill, LHP, Dodgers — It took a while for Hill to get back on the mound after his blister issues, but now that he’s back, the Dodgers are in love. They would like to re-sign Hill to a multiyear deal before he becomes a free agent this winter.
That flies in the face of FAZ’s not wanting 36 year old pitchers…
Maybe a two year deal with a vesting option?
Hill is 36 but has only 588 innings pitched in the majors.
Maybe his arm is like 27?
Yes, “maybe a two year deal with a vesting option”. Oh course, FAZ will wisely consider the cost. I can guarantee it won’t be at $34M/season like Greinke’s age 37 season.
Mark
At least Hill is good enough and special enough, to take a chance on, unlike Anderson and McCarthy.
Excellent point Mark. Hill’s curveball is such that even when the batters know it’s coming, they still can’t hit it.
Tons of minor league innings – still has the mileage on his arm
Front load a two year kcontract and trade him at the end of the first year. Can’t have too much payroll to start the 2018 season. That is when the payroll could drop to below a McCourt like $100,000,000.
Wondering
You are the one that said it is always about the price.
Kersh to start Friday at Miami
Bobby
Is it against Fernandez?
The Giant game is on TBS right now
Here’s what we hope to see today:
9 pitches – 3 strikeouts.
JDL is a strike-throwing machine.
Kershaw, HIll, and Maeda will.
Angels won’t trade Trout. Certainly not for a guy with back issues. Let’s see how Clayton finishes.
“If he’s not a knucklehead, what is he?”
Asked and answered
“he just causes my IQ to diminish”
Yeah, we’ve noticed.
I’m not all in on Hill yet. Don’t much care about Reddick.
A Kershaw for Trout trade assumes Kershaw is 100%.
Figured that. I still don’t believe they would do it. I wouldn’t if I were them.
They won’t either. As vulnerable as pitchers are, I doubt any team would do it. Now for the top 6 prospects, maybe, Trout is going to be super expensive. I would love to have him but that trade isn’t going to fly.
De Leon could have retired the side with 12 pitches but for Alphonse and Gaston. Basically that is what Vin said.
Bum
There has been way to many pop flys dropped between two players, and it almost always seems, that Turner is involved.
Vin was talking about a comic strip, where both guys involved in this strip are so overly polite, that they mess up everything, by being overly polite.
Alphonse and Gaston I think it was a comedy act a lifetime ago.
A Badger will chew his leg off to get out of a trap, just saying.
So would you if you had any sense of survival.
I am happy for Puig.
What kind of pitch did Puig hit out?
Looked like a lower thigh high inside corner off speed gopher ball to me MJ
It was meatball! He’s supposed to hit it out and he did and that is good!
I’d disassemble the trap… but I’m no badger!
Thanks Badger and Mark!
I was hoping it was a fastball, because that is the pitch Puig has trouble with.
You would disassemble the trap? With what, your teeth.
And it’s true, you are no badger. I’d say you are more a snuffleupagus.
I have hands. Remember, I am not a badger!
def: Snuffleupagus : A massive, lumbering creature who use his trunk to tend to his garden and kill small badgers.
Yeah, that would be me.
Think Blue Planning Committee asks if the Dodgers’ Andrew Toles is a better outfield option than Josh Reddick
And the Pope is Catholic!
I thought he was Polish.
No, that’s the last one. Maybe he is a Brazilian… how many is that?
What was Grandal doing running, with a runner on third?
I swear these players make mistakes that little leaguers know better, not to make.
On De Leon’s throw, that guy was running inside of he baseline.
Maybe. But the throw hit him on his last step to the bag. As I remember it, that call also depends on the angle from where the throw is being made. I think that might be what the ump was explaining to Roberts.
Yasmani is GRAND..
That is AL.
I like his chances of getting to 25+
Just for a minute, I am a Cubs fan:
https://youtu.be/A9XtDyDUjIU
The Giants lose!
And they used so many pitchers
Grandal redeems himself.
I like 3!
Next, let’s beat Greinke’s brains out!