From the bus…
This post comes to you from the bus on the way back from Jacksonville, where the Dodgers took on the Jacksonville Suns in an intrasquad game today. The players representing the club’s Double-A affiliate were victorious, 8-3. Dodger third baseman Bill Mueller led off the second inning with a solo homer over the right field wall on his first swing in a Los Angeles uniform, while prospects Delwyn Young, Andre Ethier and Joel Guzman each hit two-run homers for Jacksonville. Ethier’s bomb actually cleared the pavilion in right field, landing in the parking lot outside the stadium — and he drew two walks.
On the mound, Justin Orenduff pitched two scoreless innings to earn the victory while Jonathan Broxton closed out the win with a scoreless ninth inning, striking out two. Center fielder Matt Kemp went 3-for-4 and catcher Dioner Navarro threw out two of the three runners attempting to steal off him. It was an impressive showing for the Dodger prospects, who you’ve all heard so much about.
Other guys you might be interested in were Nomar Garciaparra (0-for-3), Oscar Robles (2-for-3 with an RBI) and Chad Billingsley (2.0 IP, 3 hits, 1 ER).
Now, February has come to an end and the Dodgers will play their first game of the Grapefruit League season on Thursday against the Braves at Holman Stadium. If you’re reading this from Vero Beach, tickets are still available. Brad Penny will start the opener for the Dodgers, followed by Aaron Sele, Lance Carter, Kelly Wunsch, Tim Hamulack and Danys Baez. Friday’s rematch between the two teams in Orlando will feature Brett Tomko in his first start for the Dodgers.
Plus, there was a little more news today: Tommy Lasorda will be enshrined in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Tommy spent nine years in the International League, where he became the Montreal Royals’ all-time winningest pitcher, earning him a spot in the country’s Hall of Fame. That marks the fifth Hall of Fame into which Lasorda will be inducted, joining the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1997), the National Italian American Hall of Fame (1989), the Montgomery County Coaches Hall of Fame (2002) and the South Atlantic League Hall of Fame (2001). In the meantime, Tommy is heading to Japan tomorrow as part of the World Baseball Classic.
Impressive!! Atleast the youngsters are going to be Dodgers in the future. How far do you think Andre’s homer went? If you could rank the top 2 prospects in every position, who would they be? Thanks and GO BLUE!!
Sounds good to me 🙂
I don’t remember a thread with just one comment!
Had a thought about how hard it must be for Vinny to do the games each night. With all the crap on the field, he has to try and make us interested. Thank goodness for his stories! At least we have ITD to vent our frustrations…poor Vinny has nothing.
…….because it was back in 2006 before the 1000 comment days of ITD – LOL!!!!
That’s probably true, Nellyjune 😉 I don’t think we will ever see the days of 1000 posts on a single thread….it would take a half hour to load a comment…lol
Harmon Killebrew passed away this morning. A true gentleman and legend will be missed. RIP Mr. Killebrew.
Rest in Peace, Harmon Killebrew.
.
Rest in Peace, Dodgers offense.
Two heart-tugging stories in the Times:
.
Harmon Killebrew – check out that swing!
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-harmon-killebrew-20110518,0,6642234.story
Bryan Stow
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-giants-fan-20110517,0,5608384.story
.
Jeez, had to split that in two. Moderation issues….blah
On this cloudy and dreary day, it’s almost fitting that we hear two sad stories. And, to think, I’m complaining about the weather.
Speaking of weather, 30% chance of showers at game time. The only way we don’t lose tonight is by rain-out.
30% isn’t good enough, they’d just delay the outcome. Shall we push for 100% 😉
The weather report pushes up to 50% by 10 pm, but with our anemic offense, there’s little chance of the game lasting that long. We could:
(a) seed the clouds, or
(b) use helicopters to continually douse DS with water
🙂 🙂 ) )
The latest in “Are You Kidding Me?” quotes:
.
“General Manager Ned Colletti said the problem has become magnified because of other injuries, particularly those to shortstop Rafael Furcal and third baseman Casey Blake.
.
“I don’t ever like to use injuries as an excuse, but if you have Furcal and Casey Blake back in, left field becomes less obvious,” Colletti said.”
.
Let me translate: The shortstop and part-time third baseman are injured, so we’re playing both of our backup infielders every day. I’ll conveniently leave out the part that they’re actually out-performing the starters. But let me draw attention away from the fact that I created the problem in left by signing 3 guys who have a combined career line of .220/.250/.300 by crying about injuries to the infield.
.
That settles it. If Ned ever had a mind at all, he’s lost control of it now.
.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0517-dodgers-fyi-20110517,0,5729071.story
You gotta be freaking kidding me!!! I wonder why they are not addressing the 1st base situation. The production there is just as bad as LF. What a mess!!!
It just proves how stupid they think we, the fans, are. Well, I’ve got news for F & N…..WE ARE NOT BUYING ANY OF YOUR CRAP!!!!! And, by the lack of attendance, neither are the other 99.9% of the fans!
The Giants have batting averages as poor as ours….Rockies too….Krud & Krap says this is the year of no offense. I find it all very offensive, indeed!
Tonight’s Lineup That Will Lose to Randy Wolf
.
Carroll SS
Miles 2B
Ethier RF
Kemp CF
Uribe 3B
Barajas C
Loney 1B
Sands LF
Kuroda P
.
I’m predicting 0 runs for our offense, which will frustrate Kuroda to no end.
At least, Donny finally moved James down in the lineup.
That’s not good enough Donny I want Sands in that 2nd spot and Barajas in front on Uribe something have to give.
*of
Tonights attendance might be up a little. Afterall, it’s Kershaw bobblehead night.
Speaking of bobbleheads, I saw a picture of Andre’s new one….he is wearing the ugly blue throw-uo uniform and, except for his hair, doesn’t look a bit like him. So sad 😦
No worries Tru. Most everyone that plays for the Dodgers is just a shadow of their former selves.
:-)….I messed up…it was supposed to be throw-up uniform. I can’t believe I used to type for a salary…lol…now, I hunt & peck. Completely forgot how to do it.
http://insidethedodgers.mlblogs.com/2006/03/
lol I found a thread that had 0 comment.
Cool Shad!! Keep it on tap and we’ll use it tomorrow!!!
Well, here we go. Maybe we’ll score 2 runs tonight!!! Rest In Peace Mr Harmon Killebrew!!!
🙂 🙂
Always the optimist Wally!!
LOL!!! I’m not holding my breath!!!
Same old, same old…..the opposition always has runners on base….getting tired of this shit!
Whew!! Nice play Kemp!!!
It sure was!
I see Wolf still doesn’t throw hard enough to break a window.
Yep…but, can we hit him is the question? 😉
Randy Wolf is no winner, there I said it!
So glad to see you back 🙂
Thanks D4!! Now I won’t have to!!
🙂
Wow…way to go Matty!
Alright Matt!!!
Good evening all.
WTG MATT!!!
Nice start to roughing up Opie Wolf!
Hi vl ~ good to see you.
Hi’Ya VL!! Hopefully we can fatten up on Wolf!!
I sure hope they break out of this offensive funk in a big way against Opie. We all remember from his time in Dodger blue that you have to get to him early.
On another note, I noticed The Cavs got the 1st pick in the NBA draft. Makes me wonder who they’ll grab with this so called weak draft.
I trade the first pick for a few quality players. The Cavs need all the help they can get.
Well, that’s good to hear about the Cavs!! Hope they don’t blow it!!
Do the Cavs also have the 4th picks?
What a second that was the Clippers pick oh boy the Clippers probably are mad now.
oops wait
How stupid do you have to be to not pitch around the only two guys in the line-up that could hurt you?
Yeah Kemp and to think Kemp was 0/5 with 5 k’s.
Time to go for a snack…Loney, Sands and Kuroda up 😕
Turkey on rye for me Tru…all the fixins please.
On the way 🙂
Why is it Sands they’ll stick with even though he’s batting under .200 and obviously isn’t ready for the show, but they cut Paul without ever giving him half the chance that Sands has already had?
It really doesn’t make any sense Beav. The only knock on Paul was that he didn’t have alot of power. So they bring in washed up guys who hit a few HRs 3-5 years ago. Stupid!!
I’d rather have him over Loney at 1st base and Paul is you’re typical lead off hitter.
Now, Vinny says, Sands will mostly play against lefties. So, do we get the thrill of Gwynn or the agony of Gibbons?
.
And, letting Paul go is another one of Ned’s brilliant moves!
We’ll just have to Gywnn and bear it.
HA-HA…..you’re too much!
They should send Sands down and he would still be qualify as a rookie next season because he hasn’t gotten to 150 AB’s.
If Sands doesn’t start hitting, I look for him to go back down when Thames comes off the DL.
Maybe we get lucky and Thames is out for the season.
Oh boy now it start to rain.
Send some of that rain this way!
We sure need it! With the constant high winds fueling the wild fires, and the severe drought here, it’s been bad. Air quality is terrible!
Sorry to hear that VL. I wish we could send some of this Ohio rain your way!!
Heck VL, it even snowed a little here this past Sunday.
Damn Vinny really Ethier one extra base hit in 15 games dang Loney look what you did?
Just an aside, speaking of Ned and bad trades/deals; I recently read that LaSorda was the interim GM and was responsible for trading away Konerko. And he was also instrumental in the trade of Pedro Martinez!!! Didn’t think he was big enough and would not hold up.
Didn’t know that about Konerko, but damn, that was pretty stupid with Pedro. Who’d we get – Delino DeShields? That one’s even beyond the Ned catagory of stupid.
Yep Beav!! They don’t talk about those two bonehead moves however!!! LOL!!
I don’t know if it was bad to trade Konerko but that trade probably work off for both team but we would never know if Konerko would’ve still be a Dodgers but that Martinez for DeShields was insane. Was that the time when Jody Reed didn’t want to resigned with us and we was desparate for a 2nd baseman?
We traded Konerko to the Reds for Jeff Shaw!! I’m not sure about why we traded for DeShields but the Jody Reed thing could have had something to do with it. I can’t remember.
I looked it up Shad. I think you are right about the DeShields trade. Jody Reed played for us in 1993. DeShields played for us from 1994-97!!! Never hit above .256 for us and Pedro went on to win 3 Cy Youngs!!!
It would appear our offensive breakout lasted two batters.
We’re mashing again!! LOL!!
They are pretty offensive lately 😕
Dang how the hell did Uribe miss that? That would’ve been an easy dp.
Boy listen to that crowd!!!
lol what crowd hahahaha
How does Barajas keep on missing these HR?
Yup! Alot of ‘almosts’ lately.
Too bad they only count on hand grenades & horseshoes. .
LMAO…..Monday says Loney is getting hot now!
Is he dreaming?!
Either he’s smoking some of the left handed stuff, or putting the wrong kind of mushrooms on his pizza!
Alright Trumom, I was thinking the same thing and just shaking my head when he said that!!
How – he got a fever?
I think Charlie & Monday have a fever! They have a man crush on Gibbbons this time around. Just like they loved Juanpy.
lol with the glove maybe.
lol can you really blame Monday?
I can’t believe Monday just said that Loweeney was starting to get hot!!! Those guys must have some funny Kool-Aid in the booth. Geez!!! The guy doesn’t have and rbi in May. And just one XBH!!!
Yep, he did say that. Apparently, he is hitting the ball harder when he gets out 🙂
Another golden opportunity just went bye bye. .
Surprise, surprise!
Rats!!!®
Carroll’s more useless than Loney with runners on base. He’s hitting the quietest .313 in the history of baseball.
.
2-3 days ago I read that the team was batting .100 with the bases loaded (3 for 30.) Absolutely pathetic.
lol what me to give you the actually numbers with the bases loaded?
Please do.
what=want
Hard to believe we’re not the worst bases loaded team in the league.
Wow it is truth. We are dead last in that I would’ve guess couple of teams are up there.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/94/sort/avg/order/true
The Indians are at .514 and the Blue Jays are ranked 29th with a .120.
Pretty pathetic!!!
Thanks Shad, that’s truely pathetic. Of course we can make that .097 now.
It already below .100 because espn normally updated there stats at night and not live. Time to look at the risp with no out and 2 outs
Holy crap Dirk 46 pts
48 with 23 for 23 from the FT line! He rained hard on the Thunder tonight!
lol Wow Dirk 24/24 holy chit.
Durant 19, Westbrook 18.
Holy Cow, another nice catch by Kemp!!! Nice job!!
Thanks again Matt!
How in the hell can we NOT be crushing the ball against the lollipop throwing Wolf?!
Sorry. That was a dumb question!
lol come on the former ex dodgers deserve much better but if it Zito than it’s ok.
I hate when are batter swing at ball 4.
Well some positive numbers but to bad Lilly mess those numbers up.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/pitching/split/127/league/nl
lol it was just 2 days ago.
Loney swinging like he lost his cohones.
I can’t remember the last extra base hit from him it’s been so long.
He’s only got 4 XBHs in over 150 ABs!!!!
But, he’s hitting the ball hard according to Charlie 😕
You sure he didn’t say he’s hardly hitting the ball?
Well we all know Charlie has Recto-Cranial-Inversion!!!!
I hope we can go on a big run with out bullpen giving up no runs in like the next 20 innings. I hate seeing teams like the Pirates and the Nationals in front of us in team overall ERA and I’m not trying to knock these 2 teams down.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/pitching/league/nl
out=our
Juanpy hit the ball hard according to Charlie.
.
Waiting on the number, tru………..
So am I…lol
I think it’s going to be quite a bit more than last night. Can’t miss out on Kersh’s bobblehead.
Kuroda’s sure dialed in!
Hesitant to see this go to the pen, even though they’ve done better that last couple of games.
WTF MILES??!!
Just kinda bouncing around baseball-reference while watching the game.
.
We’re just above average in “Plate Appearances with runners on base”, 7th in the NL.
.
Not surprisingly, we’re tied for 14th (and dead last) in scoring those runners. Guess who we’re tied with? Hint ——— the bastards won the Series last year.
Crap…don’t blow it now!
Way to go Kuroda!!! Outstanding!!! Come on Kenley!!!
WTG Kuroda time to get that last out Jansen.
Come on jansen! Get ‘er done!
Good grief!
They didn’t want no part of Fielders can’t really blame Jansen on this but I think they should’ve pitch to him.
Whew!!!!!
Double whew! 🙂
Breathing again!!!
Gameday say’s he threw 10 pitches, 3 for strikes???
He was pitching around him.
We’re a hair above the NL median (8th place) in Batting Average @ .252 (NL median is .250)
.
We sink to 11th in OBP @ .314, 12th in Slugging @ .357.
.
Milwaukee is 5th in Ave (.259), 5th in OBP @ .323, 3rd in SLG @ .413.
lol 2/23 risp for the Brewers I guess they took some notes on us.
Sweet Sands!!!!!
WTG Jer-rey!!!
JER-RY!!!!! WOO-HOO!!!!
Wah-Hoo!!!
Sands just a double machine ala Roberts.
Way to go, Jerry. With our bullpen, we need all the insurance runs we can get.
Thanks Jerry!
Got a feeling that insurance run might help. .
Are we trying out closers again?
42,138 Paid attendance.
Thanks Trumom™!!!
It took forever to get it tonight 😉
.
WAY TO GO GUYS! LET’S DO IT TO THE GIANTS TOMORROW!!!
Kersh bobble-head really paid off tonight. The fans would be better off getting one on e-bay for 10-15 bucks.
GrrrrrReeeear!
Woo-Hoo, win streak!!! Outstanding job by Kuroda!!!
Wow a 1 2 3 innings in the 9th when was the last time we had one of those.
What the hell does Guerrier say?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Like Tony the Tiger…It’s Grrrrrrrrrrrreat!!!!
Guerrier says: Grab some pine, meat!!!!!
Krud & Krap say that! lol
LMAO!!!!!
Hi’Ya Nelly!!!
How’ve you been?
I am doing good…… just busy. Baseball playoffs for Michael (plus graduation stuff, prom, etc.) a hurt hubby (foot surgery again), Open House and First Grade program, plus all the usual stuff that happens at the end of a school year.
.
How are you doing sir?
Sounds exciting and fun except for the foot surgery. Hope your hubby is doing well with that. Everything going well here, thanks. Good luck to Michael in the playoffs.
Glad things are going well with you too!!! Always fun this time of year, but I will also be glad when the school year is over. 12 more wake-ups, but who’s counting? – lol!!!
Here’s a fun one, and I think enchanted was talking about this earlier: At Bats per RBI
.
Kemp is 14 in the NL at 6.0 AB/RBI
Uribe (of all people) is 35th @ 7.1
Ethier is 41st @ 7.6
Barajas is 51st and exactly at the league average at 8.5
Loney is 78th @ 12.7
Kelly Johnson of the Dbacks is 91st at 21.0
Right behind him, last in the NL in 92nd place is Jamey Carroll @ 49.3. Yes, 49.3. Less than half the frequency of the next-to-last hitter. Man……..
Hi’Ya Dad, thanks. Interesting numbers!!!
Kersh bobblehead paid off for attendance tonight!!
Still down a little I guess!
lol 4/36 for Sands at DS all doubles.
We went over a million in attendance in this game last year. We’ll need a few more games for that mark in 2011.
.
Game 23’s attendance (2010): 46,053
Today’s attendance courtesy of trumom: 42,138
Greater than last year = 5 / Less than last year = 17
.
2010 attendance (23 games) – 1,005,377 (43,712 average)
2011 attendance (23 games) – 844,347 (36,711 average) #9 in MLB
.
Drop of 161,030 total
Average drop of 7001
Extrapolated for 81 games – 567,106
Projected 2011 final attendance – 2,973,570
2010’s final attendance – 3,562,318 (#3 in MLB)
.
Next game’s (24) attendance in 2010 – 45,325
Since we are playing the Giants tomorrow, it will probably be close….I’m assuming they will bring a lot of their fans 😕
Thanks Dad!!! Still under 3M projected.
Yep, and I think that’s significant. Those kinds of numbers are important to everyone in MLB because the Dodgers are counted on to kick in a lot of money in revenue sharing. Dropping a half-mil will cost the little guys a lot of money.
.
Boy, tonight was really the Matt Kemp show!
Latest rbi/lob/pct numbers(less HRs):
Sands 10/34/29.4%
Ethier 17/64/26.6%
Kemp 21/81/25.9%
Uribe 14/69/20.3%
Miles 9/51/17.6%
Loney 11/83/13.3%
Barajas 7/72/9.7%
Carroll 3/44/6.8%
Interesting that Sands has the highest ratio!
I gotta hit the rack J-man! Take it slow!
The right-hander gave up an infield single by Rickie Weeks leading off the eighth, then was charged with his first balk in 557 1-3 innings since joining the big leagues in 2008. But Corey Hart and Ryan Braun both flied out, and Kenley Jansen retired Casey McGehee on a foul pop after walking slugger Prince Fielder.
Matt Guerrier pitched a perfect ninth for his first National League save and second of his career.
Notes: Kuroda was charged with only two balks in 1,700 1-3 innings over 11 seasons with Hiroshima of the Japanese League. … A moment of silence was observed for Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, who died Tuesday at age 74. He played at Dodger Stadium in the 1965 World Series and homered against Don Drysdale in the Minnesota Twins’ Game 3 loss. … Brewers radio play-by-play man and ex-major leaguer Bob Uecker, who starred on the television sitcom “Mr. Belvedere” in the late 1980s, recalled the time Killebrew made a guest appearance. “The script of that particular show called for me to play a game against my son’s Little League team,” Uecker said. “So I went out and I got Harmon, Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Bench and Reggie Jackson. That was my team. And they all showed up. It’s one of the pictures I have that when I look at it, I say: ‘Geez, what a picture this is. They’re all Hall of Famers.”’ Uecker also is enshrined at Cooperstown—in the broadcasters’ wing.
Kuroda was called for his 1st balk in his major leaguer career after Garland just got called for his 1st balk this season in his career.
Good work Kuroda and crew…
.
My thought’s and prayers are with the Killebrew family. He was before my time as a player, my father did admire him much though. I have a really good friend here where I live, whose sister is married to one of the Killebrews, he has offered to get me something signed a few times, I would always respectfully decline. So I can’t help but imagine what they are feeling as I type this. From everything I know, he was an outstanding individual, an outstanding ballplayer, and is leaving an outsatnding legacy behind.
.
Harmon Killebrew’s life should be cherished in passing as he surley cherished ours while living.
.
God Bless his soul.
Ha-Ha McDildo!!! Not much of a crowd for Kersh bobblehead night.
http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg610/scaled.php?tn=0&server=610&filename=np0ua.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640
Love it!
Lineup
.
Carroll SS
Miles 2B
Ethier RF
Kemp CF
Uribe 3B
Loney 1B
Gibbons LF
Barajas C
Kershaw P
Thanks for the lineup, STT.
Let’s Sands played bench Loney.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Dodgers-fans-ask-Mark-Cuban-to-please-buy-their-?urn=mlb-wp6888&rated_comment=11153764#mwpphu-comment-11153764
Tonights suggested location from March 2006:
.
http://insidethedodgers.mlblogs.com/2006/03/31/back-at-dodger-stadium-2/#comments
May 19 RHP Matt Guerrier, a native of Birmingham, Ala., donated $25,000 to the Salvation Army’s tornado relief efforts, along with $10,000 to the Dodgers Dream Foundation. Guerrier earned his first save for the Dodgers on Tuesday night, working a clean ninth in a 3-0 win. It was Guerrier’s sixth career save and first one since June 8, 2010.