Happy Fourth of July
I’m guessing it’ll be a slow day on the blog, with everyone enjoying time away from the office and out celebrating our Independence.
Randy Wolf’s left shoulder is causing him some trouble, so he’s going to go on the disabled list and Eric Stults has been recalled from Vegas to replace him on the roster.
Here’s today’s lineup followed by Fourth of July fun…
Furcal, SS
Pierre, CF
Martin, C
Kent, 2B
Loney, 1B
Nomar, 3B
Kemp, RF
Ethier, LF
Hendrickson, P
ENJOYING THEIR INDEPENDENCE – In their 117-year history, the Dodgers have played 167 games on July 4 and have posted an 85-80-2 record in those games, including a 24-25 mark since moving to Los Angeles in 1958. The tradition of playing a double header on Independence Day was a regular one until 1960, when L.A. started playing just once on the Fourth of July. During one particularly fruitful stretch, the Dodgers posted a 17-4 record on July 4 from 1945-1956. Last year, the Dodgers defeated the Diamondbacks, 11-3 on Independence Day. A fireworks show compliments of the Auto Club of Southern California will follow tonight’s game.
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY – It’s been very rare for any player born on Independence Day to play for the Dodgers. Among the few is Babe Birrer (1929) who pitched in 16 games for the 1958 Dodgers in their first season in LA.
TRADED ON THE FOURTH OF JULY – The only trade the L.A. Dodgers have made on Independence Day was in 1998 when the team acquired Jeff Shaw from the Reds in exchange for Paul Konerko and Dennis Reyes.
Inside the Dodgers 
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYBODY !!!!!!!!
A GREAT DAY FOR ANOTHER DODGER WIN…
STAY SAFE, HEALTHY, & HAPPY…
ouch, now 2/5 of our rotation is on the disabled list! Seems like we will need a starter at the deadline. Lowe, Penny, CBill, Lurch and who’s #5 now? Stults, Houlton, Kuo, Bombko?
wasn’t stults having kind of an awful year in LV? oh well, im sure he won’t see much action before the break. There’s got to be some starter out there that we can get without being fleeced, right?
ugggh the konerko trade makes me so mad. we better not be pulling something stupid like that this year.
Konerko wouldn’t have been as good in LA as he is in Chicago. I think the Cell helps him out a lot.
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THE RESULTS OF THE BIGEEST DODGER HATER ON THE PLANET ARE IN.
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AS YOU KNOW IT WAS BETWEEN d4p and JoeyP FOR THE BIGGEST DODGER HATER ON THE PLANET.
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IT TURNED OUT TO BE NOT MUCH OF A CONTEST.
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WE HAD 11,134 VOTES.
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THE RESULTS
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Joeyp aka oldbear190 – 10,996
d4p – 138
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CONGRATULATIONS JoeyP…and you will always have a home at DodgerThoughts.
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Ok a few notes on Stultz as his 5-5 7.11 era paints a lopsided Picture.at home he is getting hit @.429 avg where away it is .255avg he has 4 Road wins in 8 games with 6 being starts his away era is 3.35 vs a 10.80 home era. he could be ok here but I thought for sure Hull or meloan would get a shot first.
So Stults is the new Lurch in long relief. If its a blowout and we are losing big, Stults takes one for the team. If we are winning big and the 9th inning needs to be finished, then Stults is in.
You can expect to see Wolf on the DL for at least three weeks. Remember he has a vesting option of 9 million dollars for next season if he pitches 180 innings this year. You can bet the Dodgers don’t want to have to pay 9 million to a mediocre pitcher.
Between Houlton and Stultz we should have a chance to see if either can muster enough composure and stuff to help us at the major league level. They will basically have to show up better than Wolf’s performance while he was not at his best, and that would be a positive contribution. If they can do that reasonably well, we may be saved from having to go into the market and possibly making one of those Colletti “panic moves” a la Pierre.
The home page of Dodgers.com under the large picture of Hendrickson refers to him as a right-hander.
I agree with fisher, Stults numbers this year are not quite fair, though I certainly wouldn’t get too excited about him as a prospect. He pitches in the PCL, at Vegas, his numbers are inflated. He was solid in his one start for LA last year, if I recall correctly. I also wouldn’t expect him around much past the all-star break, assuming Wolf can come back healthy. Houlton deserves a shot to be #5 starter, at least for now. He’s got very solid control and a good curve, and as we saw last night did better than Wolf did. I still hope we get to see Meloan before long, though he’s a short reliever not a long one. At any rate, fingers crossed that Hendrickson isn’t too bad tonight.
Chuck James name sounds like an adult film name! ha
Lurch better be on tonight. 5 strong would please me. ****, 3 strong would please me.
once again baseball logic goes out the window. Shaw was one of the best closers the Dodgers had and sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. What inning does the pierre bashing start i need to sort my socks
I dont know but I get sick of the JP bashing too, but Im saying bottom of the 1st.
I cannot disagree with you boosurfer but what confuses me on this particular trade is whether the Dodgers were good enough to trade for a closer. At the time I thought so but now I don’t think so.However,Konerko was blocked by Karros and Beltre.But generally, Lasorda didn’t give young players a descent chance.
Let’s beat CHUCK JAMES!!!
It’s funny how hungry you get after swimming for an hour or two, anyways hopefully Hendy can give us a good start/gives us a chance to win.
thats true. it took a couple years to realize how positively stupid the konerko trade was.
hopefully lurch can hold his own and kemp chucks james right out of the ballpark.
That was a good lookin Double there.
make that triple….
Wow what a story Vin just told about James! Maybe he should go back to that roof after we rock him this game! HA!
lol Vin! Get a room with Chuck James for crying out loud! Nice copperhead story too!
watching Lurch pitch always makes my stomach hurt.
Wow! Nice play Furcie!
“James a look over at Loney” hahaha
What the **** were Kemp and Furcal looking for? I know James loves to throw that change, but **** you gotta be sitting on that fastball!
protect the prospect. rujes for ned,
1) never trade a top 5 prospect.
2) we have soo much talent, we can list every position into 3 areas, A) our top prospect at that position B)
our number two prospect, who is blocked by number one. C) our replacement, up and comer who can replace number 1 or 2
in our dept charts.
in a trade for a pitcher, or power hitter we could still trade 3 or 4 prospects and still protect our future.
for buehrie, for example. we could include the likes of justin orenduff, a very good prospect, our number 14, ramon troncoso, our number 22 prospect, and a closer who is blocked by Meloan.
we could include d. young who I would only trade because the dodgers don’t have room for him.
for Teiexeira/ gagne we could include the players above and mix in prospects like m.alexander, maybe blake de witt, even hu, a great fielding , good hitting ss. blocked by furcal.
we are strong at several positions, counting loney, kemp, abreu, and our best prospects. we could trade from strenght and give up players from third base,(de Witt) first base,(dunlap) shortstop( HU or Dejesus) and relief pitching, not really hurting our major league team, or our farm clubs.
The big point is that our young players are doing very well, I love tonights lineup,
and we should not risk the future for a rent a player. if we can’t sign the player, why trade for him. Buehrle scares me because of his low innings pitched to K ratio.
if Wolfe will miss the rest of the year, I am afraid we will need another pitcher, and trying to include Tomko, or Hendrickson will not get us anything in return.
Ned, please be careful.
I bet the Braves score off that pathetic error!
Did all of our left handers get together for a left handed circle jerk? Because they all got hurt in what seems like one day.
Are you kidding me, Wolf, Kuo, Beimel all are hurt now. Beimel was taken the hospital for something to do with his heart Vin said. Hopefully he will be ok. Kuo all of a sudden has another elbow problem? wow! I thought he mentioned one more injury but I forget.
GO BLUE!
****** Lurch!
games over…happy 4th everyone. Don’t blow off any body parts.
Yeah im out too. Lurch did well, but Tomko stinks! Happy 4th
god i love brett tomko
bases loaded and nobody out and we score 1 lousy run. nice job kemp!
i’ll bet anybody 20 bucks Betemiss strikes out in 5 or less pitches his next AB
Posted by: max_power_05@yahoo.com | July 4, 2007 11:03 AM
You always insist on being Wrong Max….6 pitch BB
who pinch hits for a guy with three hits?
I’m tellin ya…. I don’t get it…
Tomko is killing us 1-8? why does he keep pitching?
Grady will just insist on pitching Tomko until Tomko gets it right. Unfortunately Tomko doesn’t know what right is. He’s been stinking pretty much his whole career, but nobody in management wants to accept that. DFA TOMKO!!!
for the money and he’s 1-6. Simple when you have 2 guys on why not PH for Pierre? We need a homerun and Pierre is not capable of it but don’t sent up Saenz when he can’t hit off of a rhp.
simple? you have a guy with three hits up and your best hitter on deck! where are your better chances pierre legs one out martin clutches up or Olmedo miracle three run bomb?
But we don’t need a HR that only ties it and clears the bases we needed to extend it and rally for 4 if we tie it who plays cf in the 10th and who pitches?That was a stupid move let JP try to extend the inning with Martin and Kent up next to go for the win….
I remember those holiday doubleheaders but I can’t remember the last time the Dodgers played a doubleheader. I can’t even remember the last rained out game. Macy’s had a wonderful fireworks display, even had some new stuff this year. I got back during that 6th inning when it loked like we were going to score more than that one run. Than I heard that TOMKO bomkoed again. WELL TOMORROW’S ANOTHER DAY. LET’S GO YA BUMS.
I’m watching the Macy Firework show right now on nbc.
unfortunate game…pierre is in scoring position twice and doesn’t get cashed in either time. kemp hits into a DP in a bases loaded, no outs situation. and, tomko has to pitch because our bullpen is wasted…..tough loss
hmmmmm Kemp goes to CF and Betamit probably to RF and Ethier goes to LF. That’s hasn’t stop us when Grady had Loney in RF.
Houlton probably.
Apparently Grady don’t care about your logic.
Maybe Stults got here on time to pitch tonight if he was called.
Yeah but the Tubby Tomato could hit his way out of a wet paper bag this year… it was a bad call and our offence relies on rallies….
couldn’t
Gosh I hope Beimel is ok.
It **** we can’t give that lost to Tomko. If this was hockey they would give a lost to the goalie that gave up the winning goal.
oops I forgot the * by the word *****.
I keep asking but I’ll ask again,
WHY IS TOMKO STILL ON THIS TEAM?!?!?!?!?!?
What’s the deal with Joe Mays? He has a decent spring.
“i’ll bet anybody 20 bucks Betemiss strikes out in 5 or less pitches his next AB”
Hey max – A ten and two fives will be fine.
GO DODGERS!
Frustrating Loss !!!!
It really hurts when you have to rely on Tomko to keep you in the game….
It also hurts when you rely on a fat slug like Tubby Tomatoe (he of the .200 avg) to get you back in the game batting against a RH pitcher & leaving your 3for4 LH hitter sitting on the bench….
We got what we deserve…
Sometime in the next 24 hours I want to read this transaction:
Los Angeles Dodgers designate RHP Brett Tomko for assingment.
And then I want to read one of the following transactions:
Los Angeles Dodgers recall RHP Eric Hull from AAA Las Vegas.
OR…..and this is a stretch…
Los Angeles Dodgers purchase the contract of RHP Jonathan Meloan from AA Jacksonville.
Realistically I think it will be Hull, or nobody. It was kinda unfair that Hull didn’t get into a game in his first stint in the majors so it’d be cool to see him at least one game. But Meloan would definitely be able to help the big league ball club right now.
Dodgers’ starter Mark Hendrickson has received the worst run support of any pitcher in baseball with a minimum of 163 innings since the start of 2006, getting just 3.24 runs.
what happened in his AB 53? i didn’t see it. I left as soon as Bombko got in the game.
ok i am the last one to defend grady, ever, but he basically had no choice but to use Tomko. Beimel was gone, Houlton pitched the night before and might be starting, Stults might be starting, and everyone else was used. Really, he had no choice. It just blows that Tomko is such a lost cause right now.
Meloan is definitely the best out of the pitchers we could call up but I guess they feel he is not ready yet or can’t do long relief. But I’m sure that time will come. Tomko has to be a few more outings away from a DFA or a dump trade ala ODP.
Not a bad idea kpy.
max, he walked, but bob wickman doesnt exactly impress anyone these days…oh wait, except for fatty tomato.
I’d rather see Carrera back up even though he didn’t have a good season last year.
ah he walked. eh. Pierre could draw a walk on wickman.
Buehrle news…
“if Buehrle is traded, the pitcher will decline any offer of a contract extension from the team that acquires him and exercise his right to become a free agent at the end of the season. The White Sox are offering Buehrle a no-trade clause for the rest of 2007 and 2008 only. If they want to keep him, they’ll have to go all the way, apparently.”
i know we aren’t allowed to cuss on herer but F Buehrle. He’s really not that great of a pitcher. Taht contract is nuts and he’s made it clear he’s only a 6 month rental. SO F him.
yeah i gotta agree with jspelk. That being said Bombko should no longer be an option. Thats more Ned’s fault. Ned just needs to swallow his pride and 4 million bucks and dump Bombko.
did you guys read this quote from grady about tomko?
“He’s got good stuff, he just mislocates on some pitches at the wrong time,” Little said. “He wasn’t really beat up out there. We feel like he’s going to get it going and it could be starting the next time out.”
WHY must they have so much trust in players who don’t deserve it? he should NOT be considered to start ever again, and he should NOT even be on this team anymore.. i was hoping for him to be designated long ago.. i would love to see either hull or meloan up here immediately
If management thinks Tomko can pitch effectively they must be tripping , drunk or whatever. If they keep this waste of a roster spot on this team , they’re not serious about winning.
It was an interesting game last night, that’s for sure. I was able to get a couple of high rent district seats (behind the Dodger dugout and behind Alyssa Milano and Larry King). Here are a few observations that I made:
Hendrickson actually pitched very well. He only needed three runs to have left the game as the potential winner, but our offense left him out in the cold.
Matt Kemp is still very much a rookie and, unfortunately, has a cocky attitude. Swinging at the first pitch with the bases loaded and no outs is, well, just plain stupid. It is a Little League mistake. And then for him to come out and say “It was a good pitch, I just missed it” is B.S. and the worst possible thing that he could have said. “I screwed up” would have been the right thing to say. His lack of Triple-A experience really showed in that at bat. Years ago, if a player did that, he would have been severely fined and would have been benched for a few games. In my opinion, that at bat cost us the game.
Brett Tomko has no business ever putting on a Dodger uniform ever again. Not only is he completely ineffective, he is now a total head case, from which he will not recover. In my many years as a Dodger fan, I have never heard a Dodger player booed as badly as he was last night when he entered the game; and no, they were NOT saying “Rauuuuul”. As expected, the booing was even worse when he left the game. For Grady Little to continue to “cover” for him and even go so far as to say that he may be making another start real soon is probably the worst thing that he could do for Tomko. He will be booed even worse and he will get shelled because of his lack of confidence. Brett Tomko is a nice guy and an exceptionally talented artist, but he is finished as a Major League pitcher (except perhaps in a Padre uniform – lol!).
Of course it was very dramatic to have Olmedo Saenz pinch hit for Pierre and represent the tying run, but in my heart, I knew it was a futile effort. Ironically, the very first thought that came to my mind when Saenz stepped into the on-deck circle was: “Who’s going to play in the outfield if he DOES hit it out?” I have to believe that Grady would have moved James Loney into RF, moved Nomar to 1B, and kept Betemit in the game at 3B. I was actually quite surprised that Grady used Gonzo as our very first pinch hitter, especially against the left handed Chuck James. I believe that Pierre should have taken his at bat in the 9th, having gone 3 for 4 with two doubles. I actually think that Pierre might have been able to work a walk off of Wickman, which would have brought our All Star catcher to the plate with the bases loaded – But, we will never know what might have been.
Sorry for the long post. It was just a very difficult game to watch (and lose), especially knowing that we could have won it.
Let’s take the series tonight boys, and send our potential Cy Young award winning pitcher into the All Star game with an 11-1 record.
GO DODGERS!
PS: Don’t worry max, it was only a gentleman’s bet for the sake of conversation.
Nice observations 53 the only thing i didn’t agree with you was leaving Pierre in there to bat with a golden opportunity to tie it up in the 9th.
Hey interpol1414 – Great to hear from you again! It’s been a while, but I certainly understand. The Ground Hog Day affect has kept a number of last year’s regulars from dropping in here this year.
I can see both sides of the Saenz/Pierre argument, especially since I am a big Killer-T fan. My heart was pumping during his at bat, especially with Russell Martin chomping at the bit in the on-deck circle!
Oh well – The Killer Tomato will get ’em next time.
Don’t be a stranger.
GO DODGERS!
PS: I tried sending you an e-mail, but it came back undeliverable. If you don’t mind, could you please e-mail your e-mail address? Thanks.
Nomar needs to go back to his start with the Dodgers… IN THE STANDS.
I know being a ball player is hard, but… Nomar strikes out more than he walks AND only R. Martinez, Lieberthal, and Valdez have lower a OBP and SLG% than Nomar!
Josh, any news on the results of Wolfs MRI?
seems as though Andy LaRoche’s shoulder is feeling better.
In his last 10 games he is batting .405 with 15 hits 4 doubles 1 triple and 2 home runs.
I’m actually Bluebleeder88 fansince53 i just stop using that e-mail address this year. but i really enjoyed your post & thought i’d let you know i enjoyed it.
I thought PHing Olmedo there was an odd move. Wickman, a right-handed, control and movement type, doesn’t stike me as anywhere near an ideal Saenz matchup. I’d rather have taken my chances with a possible hot Pierre and hope for Martin at the plate with the tying runs aboard.
Kemp’s AB was not good, clearly. A power-hitting vet should look for dead red down-the-middle from a young pitcher in that situation – following a four-pitch walk, he might overcompensate – and tattoo it, but a young Kemp needs to take there. Doesn’t Grady have a take sign? Or does “The Windmill” not know how to relay one?
Hendrickson was suprisingly effective enough. Good for him.
Tomko – what our mothers told us.
Hmmm, the “Ground Hog Day” effect wasn’t here last year? Neither was a certain everyday centerfielder…. Just sayin’.
Marlins beat Peavy and the Padres 3-2, lets go Penny!
GO DODGERS!
interpol1414 = Bluebleeder88. Got it.
old_fogey_la: “the “Ground Hog Day” effect wasn’t here last year? Neither was a certain everyday centerfielder…”
Very true – But to hear it everyday, over and over and over again – and for the next 4 1/2 years? Uggggh!
GO DODGERS!
alex41592: “Marlins beat Peavy and the Padres 3-2, lets go Penny!”
Whoa, that’s HUGE! If BP can get the win tonight, he will probably get the ASG start.
GO PENNY!
GO DODGERS!
PS: Thanks for the Breaking News alex.
pierre is the man!