Derby, Dodgers, De La Hoya
Lots going on in the sports world over the next eight hours or so…
Meanwhile, I’d hate to read the messages on these posts if the team wasn’t in first place by a game and a half! I’m glad to see everyone so fired up, but try to remember that their record is 17-12 and that they were facing John Smoltz last night…
But I know that’s just my positive outlook on things. Nonetheless, they’ll go at it again tonight trying to figure out how to jump start the offense. Here’s the lineup for the game against Tim Hudson:
Furcal, SS
Pierre, CF
Nomar, 1B
Kent, 2B
Gonzo, LF
Martin, C
Ethier, RF
Martinez, 3B
Lowe, P
One other thing to remember – it was only a year ago today when we had lost five in a row when Nomar donned the serape for Cinco de Mayo, Russell Martin made his big league debut and the Dodgers went on to win 16 of the next 19 games they played. The season has its ups and downs and this is just a quick downswing, right?
Here’s the post from a year ago today, where six people left comments and that was a lot back then. Glad to see you all are still coming back to talk about the Dodgers here every day.
Inside the Dodgers 
Not exactly a radical change.
I remember last year I was posting release Odalis and we finally traded him. Now I will not sop until we finally RELEASE BETEMIT!!!!! hittin a buck twenty over a month cut him!!!!
Wow.
Same old, same old! This management isn’t going to do anything until we’re out of first place. Maybe patience is the right thing unless and until that happens. With this management I’m not surprised.
Good Ole Grady shook up things didn’t he??
Same old **** – just a different day..
Shaking up the lineup is not going to solve offensive problems, the players have to solve the offensive problems. Don’t look for a huge shakeup because we don’t need it. All that needs to be done is a few personnel changes to get Abreu/Loney up to the big leagues. But a major shakeup does not happen on a team in first place in the month of May, I’m not sure what you people were looking for but it’s not needed right now if at all.
Alex…12 runs in 49 innings deserves more changes besides one guy hitting in the 8th spot.
And who cares if it’s May. The games we lose now still count in september.
If Grady wasn’t going to make any specific changes other than the obvious one – Martinez for Betemit – Then why all the B.S. in the media saying that he felt the need to shake up things???
maybe betemit is on his way out…he’s not in the lineup against a right hander…..and grady knows martinez aint that great either. he could however juggle the lineup around a little bit, like by batting martin 2nd and pierre 8th.
I had no idea that was true… AT ALL! Point noted, but this is also the same group of guys from April 13th-April 21st scored 58 runs in 82 innings. My point is don’t get too high when the bats are scorching and don’t blow things up when they’re slumping. We all want this team to succeed but it’s not Grady’s fault the players aren’t hitting in clutch situations lately.
But it is Grady’s fault for continuing to play Betemit.
Alex:
Nobody is suggesting that Grady BLOWS up the lineup..
But, I’m sure everyone would agree that Pierre needs to be moved – try reversing roles with Furcal – try batting Pierre 8th & moving Martin into the #2 slot – try benching him & give Brady a serious look..
Also, you could try giving Valdez a few more games at 3rd..
Also, try giving some of our young players in triple an oppertunity..
Anything but the same old B.S. – 2 hits with bases loaded in How many trys – and only 1 run or less in the last How many games..
Pleas Lord, Give Grady a Sign..
Alex, if im not mistaken April 13th-April 21st was the stretch where we didn’t run into a single number 1 or 2 pitcher. We had stretch this season where we lucked out and faced the 3-4-5 guys always every series. Not using it as an excuse to why we were hot them but good pitching beats good hitting and Honestly this team isn’t that great of offense. Im sure it will pick up a little when Furcal gets hot but Pierre and 3rd base are killing us right now. Gonzo is starting to go cold too and Kent and Nomar have showed absolutely NO POWER. This is going to be 2003 all over again the rate we are going.
list of Pitchers we faced from april 13th to the 21st.
David Wells
Jake Peavy
Edgar Gonzales
Micah Owings
Rodrigo Lopez
Aaron Cook
Tony Armas Jr
Ian Snell
both Snell and Peavy shut us down. The rest are no one to really write home about.
Max :
What you say is exactly right..
Plus, when you add in the fact that our starting pitching has been above average & relief pitching has been great, this all helps to cover up a very mediocre effort at the plate by most of our hitters..
GO DODGERS
GO DELAHOYA
HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!
🙂
-luxx80
I didn’t know Grittle could be so radical. :-). What about the changes he said he would make? The problem with management is that they favor the older (washed up) players. The Braves like a lot of teams have 1 or 2 vets surrounded by kids. The Dodgers do the reverse. It’s true they scored more runs early on, but didn’t we have an extra bat in the line up in Kemp?
Josh, you are so right. if we weren’t in 1st place they probably would lynch Ned Grady and maybe even you for being the messenger. the season is so young and sooo many things can happen before Sept. GO BLUE
sorry the numbers i gave earlier were wrong. They have scored 5 runs in the last 49 innings. Not twelve as i said earlier.
Please don’t start the “its early in the season” stuff. Every game counts.
i have to admit i did’t even know what a blog was a year ago.
1) If I’m correct, Betemit has made some significant adjustments to his swing this season. Based on secondhand reports and what I would guess from his numbers, he’s developed a shorter swing but he’s not getting the power behind that. If he’s not playing everyday, he needs to work the heck outta that swing with Eddie Murray, or just scrap it and do what he did last year.
2) But let’s say Betemit is just in a long slump. That would make sense with a .171 batting average on balls put into play (although that’s an extremely long slump). But still, what if later on in the year he tends towards his career averages, kind of like what Julio Lugo did except in the opposite direction?
3) Tomko vs Smoltz wasn’t a duel which particularly favored LA, but perhaps the blue team will have more luck against Hudson. As good as the Dodgers’ infield defense has been, Lowe should be able to cut his ERA down pretty soon. And I think Hudson’s gonna at least see his ERA break 2 at some point.
4) Anyway, I’m glad they haven’t made roster moves yet; at this point, it would be rather hasty to drop Betemit, although I do think it’s rather telling that the start today goes to Martinez rather than Valdez.
5) Finally, happy Cinco de Mayo. Also a happy birthday to my grandfather (not that he’ll read this, but figured I’d write that anyway).
Ya know… one can even have fun at the Dodgers expense while watching commercials.
You know the new AFLAC commercial with the goat? “Nah-h-h-h-h” If you time it just right with the mute button, you can do what I just did, which cracked me and my wife up:
Do you think Wilson Betemit will ever get a hit again?
“Nah-h-h-h-h”
Will the Dodgers score any runs in this game?
“Nah-h-h-h-h”
Will we ever win the World Series again?
“Nah-h-h-h-h”
Yep… too much time on my hands…
hey! look what happens when the Dodgers get Furcal and Pierre on base at the same time. Too bad is NEVER HAPPENS!!!!!
did that just happen?
Wow! If Betemit had this fire every game, we’d be a lot better for it.
yes. Quite a time for Betemit to get his first homer on the year.
Way to go Wilson.
he doesnt want to go to vegas.
go betemit. lets see that david ortiz like power grady says hes got.
maybe he should stay in the pinch hitters role.
maybe Betemit should only hit sinkerball pitchers.
Good gosh… I’m on a slight TiVo delay here…
Wilson Freaking Betemit!! There was a lot of frustration taken out on that baseball! Talk about tape-measure shot…
Let’s hope this is the beginning…
we’ll know everything we need to know about Betemit in the next coming days. This will either be his turning point or his downfall.
I just hope this doesn’t lead to grady putting him in the lineup batting 6th everyday.
Hi Kevin. I think Grady gets some credit for the Betemit HR by showing confidence in him and using him as a pinch hitter, especially after last night. Trouble brewing.
WOW What a great win tonight. D.Lowe was superb..
How bout that Wilson WonderMan Betemit.. Wonder what he’s going to do next.
Good hitting nite – bats finally came alive – hope it continues. I’m sure alot of frustration was released.
Then of course there was everybodys favorite – J.Pierre. 1st inning he gets picked off 1st base. Some great base stealer HUH. In the 5th he turns a routine single into a double for Braves batter. In 6th inning his poor bunt forces Fural at second. In the 8th he grounds into double play to end the rally. Also in the 8th he allows Braves runner to advance from 1st to 3rd base on a routine single by the batter. At least he didn’t cost us the game – this time.
All & All it was a great win – one that we needed badly. Hope it continues..
If Juan Pierre bunts one more time, we should find out if Ethier can play center.
specifically, if Juan pierre bunts on the first pitch with nobody out and a man on first
im glad Pierre bunted. At least it lead to only 1 out. If he would have swung it would have been a double play to the second baseman
messagebear,
regarding abreu for kent: you’re right, if kent hits anywhere north of .280, slugs 10HR, and plays 100 games, you know they’ll pick up his option. but what i’m saying is that we need to be proactive in giving our farm kids a look to see if they will be The One to replace any of the fogies. loney did it last year and he’s stuck in AAA. same will likely be true for abreu. not right, but likely.
just wish we’d give loney, our most ready farmhand, a chance to play early in the year when the lights aren’t as bright.
doesn’t matter really. we’ll all see our kids abreu, kemp, and loney in the bigs this year. and you know they will ALL get significant ABs. not so sure of the young pitchers that others are clamoring for. so i’m trying to be patient…
Harold (euhlman)! Where have you been? Welcome back my friend.
Great pitching and great hitting tonight boys. Welcome back to you, as well.
Glad to see Betemit hit one out, but he has a tall hill to climb. I agree with you 100% Harold, Grady gets credit for that home run. I was screaming at the TV when I saw him on deck. Boy, if I am ever in a jam, I want Grady on my side. He has stayed with Betemit through these extremely tough times.
Great win tonight boys. Now, let’s take the series!
GO DODGERS!
Hey Harold! Yeah, where HAVE you been? I think it was good to have Wilson in his old stomping grounds. Hopefully he’s been contemplating the long look over the ledge that comes with a demotion to the minor leagues… it’s a long drop. Perhaps this might be the push he’s needed to get himself going. The next few games will tell the tale.
Awesome win! Go Dodgers!!
(Has it already been a year since Russell Martin came up?? Time flies…)
I think alot of the frustration with the Dodgers comes from the fact that while they’re playing well, we know they could be better because a few things are just very obviously poor. Pierre’s a frustrating player to watch, and this downswing coincided with dropping the best emerging hitter on the team (Martin) from 2nd to 6th, where he’s wasted, letting Pierre make lots of outs with his ABs.
Then you have two top-30 prospects in baseball in AAA when our CF and 3b are underperforming massively – people criticize because they think this team could be fantastic instead of simply good, and I don’t entirely disagree. They’ve been lucky, they’ve been good, but they’ve given away a few wins in glaring ways they really shouldn’t. Most of us would like to develop into a team like the Mets or Braves or Red Sox who are consistantly in the mix, and not have to worry down to the last day like last year to make sure we squeeze in at the end.
I hear you mike, but the mets have been no more stable than the Dodgers over the past 10-15 years. Also, i dont care about what andy laroche is ranked because he hasnt really shown me anything, atleast Wilson has shown A LOT more, in the majors nonetheless.
I wonder if Colletti regrets the Pierre signing. Ive always defended him, dont mind his offense at all, but the defense really bothers me. I understand Colletti doing it at the time because we only had two outfielders in Kemp and Ethier (so really only one outfielder), but when you add in Gonzo, Clark, Marlon we wouldve been fine without Pierre (hindsight is always 20/20 though, right?). I really dont even think its that bad of a contract– he will always demand 6 mil a year for his services and a lot of teams would be willing to trade for him. Someone said he’d be a great 9 hitter in the AL is dead on.
Great win today. Go Dodgers. Take the series. Randy has got to have a good game tomorrow. And im happy for Betemit, anyone notice how pumped Kent looked for him?
i think betemit should be kept—but not as a starting 3b. He was successful in a bench role last year…find someone else to man 3b fulltime. He’s shown his usefulness, but NOT as a starter.
except from Peter Gammons blog…
Dodgers GM Ned Colletti is spending the weekend in Las Vegas evaluating which young players may be able to step in soon and help in L.A. Matt Kemp (1.015 OPS) and Tony Abreu (.351 BA) seem to be the closest, with James Loney and Andy LaRoche behind, and soon decisions have to be made on Hong-Chih Kuo and Yhency Brazoban. Intriguing is Greg Miller, whose stuff is unquestioned, but the left-hander is searching for consistency — he’s allowed seven hits in 20 2/3 innings with 22 walks and 22 strikeouts.
From the Daily News, Colletti looking to promote from within or outside the organization?
http://www.dailynews.com/dodgers/ci_5829562
a Kemp/Gonzo platoon would be nice.
ok you are all sooo full of **** ….The Dodgers did what they are fully able to most games of the season Betemit needs to pack his bags…. no I hit a hr I can save the team BS I swear although was drinking in a bar today watching the game I saw Kepm on that jersey and was totally flipped that I missed the call up but if I just drunread it then I;m really screwed uo cause I swear I only saw 4 letters and they read KEMP…..Guess I’m just freakin crazy… just write me off….
But then again.. is there anyone on this site who actually watches games?
You are not Posting this **** next year Josh….Bueno Cinco de Mayo!!!
Great win Team…
Go Blue 2007…!!!
ok Read the story Tony jackson calls both Laroche and Abreu defensive down grades to betemit…First off how would he know and secondly Abreu is gonna be Gold Glove anywhere his mit lands….He is slated to Take Kents job but in the meantime could take 3rd also.Have I said often enough How much I hate sportsbeat writers? They have no insight…..
Nice Job Blue Keep on Keepin on 2007!!!