Today's game
See what happens when I don’t post a lineup? The team wins two games in a row. Today they’ll go for a three-game sweep and their first three-game winning streak of the year. They haven’t lost more than two in a row either, which has kept them around .500 for most of the first month.
Great piece on J.D. Drew in today’s Daily News. Plus, that paper has asked their beat writer, Tony Jackson, to do a blog, too.
And, though it wasn’t about the Dodgers, I thought Tim Brown’s Sunday column today was a very interesting read.
But, the best news so far is that Eric Gagne is throwing again, which means he could be back in about three to four weeks. Add that to the seemingly unhittable Danys Baez, Takashi Saito and Tim Hamulack and the bullpen could be pretty impressive for the final four months of the season, if these guys can keep it up.
Inside the Dodgers 
Once again, Lance Carter comes in to create a save situation for Danys Baez.
Okay Brass… what kind of clue are you looking for??? Am I the only one who can see that Lance Carter struggles with the confidence issue??? How many more times do you need to see this guy give up key runs before you realize that he just doesn’t have it anymore??? Holy cow… give DJ Houlton a shot at his spot!!! Houlton was pitching at the Major League level all year long last year, and certainly he could do much better than Carter is right now! Is this really rocket science??? I mean… come on! Five runs in the ninth??? Yeah… and we as fans are supposed to sit here quietly and say nothing? I don’t think so! Catch a clue guys!
I think we should bring up Chad Billingsley and Johnathan Broxton–Sheesh, they cannot do any worse than Lance Carter…they nearly combined for a no-hitter for the 51s here in Vegas the other night!
Houlton, too! Clear off Carter, right away!
Houlton might be a good idea or Biemel. I expect that with Kuo and Osaria getting climatized at the major league level, they don’t really want to put pressure on two more rookies. I understand the desire to really want to see that Billingsley is ready for the “bigs” with a strong season at Triple A. Remember Edwin Jackson, Joe Thurston, etc.? Broxton too could use a full strong season at Las Vegas. Hard call for the GM and although patience is frustrating, impatience is often disastrous in the long run. It is disturbing that the SP is going well lately but the end of the game is an adventure. Glad to see Nomar hitting well.
Has Lance Carter gotten his tapes yet?
I see in the LA Times that Kuo has been sent to Las Vegas and Beimel has been called up. Hopefully will help.
Is Beimel a groundball pitcher? That seems to be the Dodgers’ biggest problem with inherited runners, that they don’t have a reliever that can force a double play by drawing a ground ball. The problem with putting in Baez in a situation with runners on is that he gets his outs by getting batters to fly out more often (and doesn’t use the strikeout enough). And while groundouts can lead to double plays, flyouts can lead to sacrifice flies.
Osoria, had he not been used earlier, would actually have been the go-to guy, because he has a GO-AO (groundout-flyout) of 23-9, which is the best groundout ratio in the bullpen. If Beimel is an effective long reliever, though, he might free up Osoria as a fireman.
That’s what the numbers are there for.