We just spent the last two hours going all around Dodger Stadium with an FSN Prime Ticket crew and Andre Ethier, who is going to host a special show/feature about Dodger Stadium. It’s still very early in the production stages and there’s no air date set, but Andre went to all the places that the public doesn’t get to see and shows them off with pride: the clubhouse, the players’ lounge, video room, training room, batting cages, press box, Dodger offices, luxury suites, etc. Stay tuned for more info on that front.

Also, in regards to Alyssa’s blog, it’s still updated regularly and can be found here. And no, we didn’t take it down because of her open letter to Grady Little. She’s certainly welcome to her opinion and she is clearly a big Dodger fan who is as frustrated as we all are. However, her blog is not a Dodger-affiliated blog and was put up my MLB.com on the Dodger homepage to help generate interest in it. Once we started a Spanish-language blog with thoughts from Jaime Jarrin, Pepe Yniguez and Fernando Valenzuela, we figured that it made much more sense to give easy access to that blog than one that isn’t run by the team. Our hope is that there will soon be as many people posting to the Spanish one as the one we’ve got here in English.

And for those Spanish-speakers, don’t forget that Viva los Dodgers is this Saturday.

As for the post about technology on this site: I know that MLB.com is currently working on improving the technology for all of the blog sites and your suggestion is one of the many that they’re looking into. A lot of you guys gave great ideas over the winter, too, that I passed along, but obviously they have a lot of things on their plate over there and I’ll make sure they are aware of this request.

There was also one comment about whether Juan Pierre has a clause in his contract that doesn’t allow him to sit on the bench and while I’m sure it was tongue-in-cheek, I hope people realize that in this three-week slump, you can hardly blame Juan Pierre. The guy is batting .377 in August with a .421 on-base percentage and stealing bases left and right without really getting caught and playing very good center field. 

It just so happens that when everyone else went into a slump, Juan has played incredibly well. If it were a player who fans were more excited about, many people would probably talk about how that guy is trying to carry the team through a slump and instead, Juan continues to be questioned.  He’s the first to admit that he hasn’t had the type of season he’s capable of or that we expected when he was signed, but try to remember that if the rest of the team was playing well this month, we’d be better off and if he had played well when they weren’t slumping, we might still be in first place. The bottom line is, the Dodgers win as a team and they lose as a team, not from one guy in the lineup.

Hopefully, here’s the winning lineup for this evening:

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF

Kemp, RF

Kent, 2B

Loney, 1B

Martin, C

Ethier, LF

Hillenbrand, 3B

Lowe, P

It looks like you are all still staying in the conversation, as there are tons of comments from yesterday. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read all of them, but I’m sure they can’t be very happy ones with the way last night ended. Safe to say, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a player that upset or embarrassed after a game.

But there isn’t much you can really say at this point other than continued to hope that the team gets out of its collective slump before it’s too late. I will say, when I went over to get my morning coffee today, it happens to be at the same place in the offices where the team serves ice cream to the staff when we’re in first place. I had a very strange flashback to 17 days ago when a lot of so-called experts (and plenty of fans) had a great feeling about this team and the club led the NL in wins. It’s amazing how quickly things can change, even though the team is essentially the exact same as it was then.

I know that we dealt Wilson Betemit and that in hindsight, it would have been nice if he was still here with Nomar now hurt, but hindsight is not something that any GM gets when they make a deal. So, we move on…and we are doing so tonight with this lineup:

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF

Kemp, RF

Kent, 2B

Loney, 1B

Martin, C

Gonzo, LF

Hillenbrand, 3B

Penny, P

I know the Hillenbrand move confused some people yesterday, but there was certainly reasoning behind signing him and then bringing him up. Nomar Garciaparra, who has been dealing with a strained left calf for a while, has finally had to go on the disabled list and knowing that he was hurting, adding a third baseman made the most sense. Of course, no one knew that Nomar would get ejected last night for the first time in his 1,300-game career, but so it goes.

So coming up from Triple-A today will be Eric Hull, who will join the bullpen. And there should be another move coming on Friday when we add a starting pitcher for that night’s game.

There’s not much I can really add about the play on the field these last two weeks. We’re all disappointed that it hasn’t been better and there’s not a person in baseball operations who isn’t spending every waking minute trying to figure out how to fix it.

Here’s today lineup:

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF

Kemp, RF

Kent, 2B

Loney, 1B

Martin, C

Ethier, LF

Hillenbrand, 3B

Tomko, P

It’s hard to believe that two weeks ago, we began the day tied for first place in the NL West with the exact same team in place.  Since then, the only moves that were made were to acquire Scott Proctor and Mark Sweeney, option D.J. Houlton and Eric Hull, and recall Delwyn Young.

The likelihood of almost everyone going into a slump at the same time is hard to believe, though I know there were some who predicted it. But having watched last year’s turnaround, it obviously shows that anything can happen.

Here’s today’s lineup, back to the one from earlier in the week.

Furcal, SS

Martin, C

Loney, 1B

Kent, 2B

Gonzo, LF

Nomar, 3B

Pierre, CF

Ethier, RF

Billingsley, P

Could use a win today, to say the least (or state the obvious).

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF (day off for Martin)

Loney, 1B

Kent, 2B

Gonzo, LF

Lieberthal, C

Ethier, RF

Martinez, 3B

Hendrickson, P

My 93-year-old grandmother was going to make the trip over from Kansas City today until we realized that it probably wasn’t the best idea to have her sit in 100 degree weather with insane humidity while watching her beloved Dodgers. So, we’ll have to get a win without her in the park.

Here’s today’s lineup, which will be read on FOX’s regional game by Brett Tomko:

Furcal, SS

Martin, C

Loney, 1B

Gonzo, LF

Nomar, 3B

Ethier, RF

Pierre, CF

Martinez, 2B

Lowe, P

Looks like everyone is chatting away, with over 400 comments. Keep it up…

I have a feeling most ofyou will like this lineup, based on comments over the past few months:

Furcal, SS

Martin, C

Loney, 1B

Kent, 2B

Gonzo, LF

Nomar, 3B

Pierre, CF

Ethier, RF

Penny, P

Mark Sweeney is now here and D.J. Houlton has been optioned back to Triple-A Las Vegas.

Eventually, something will end this skid. It doesn’t make sense that a city could be so hot and a team could be so cold, but that’s baseball, I guess. Maybe the revamped lineup will get it done:

Furcal, SS

Martin, C

Saenz, 1B

Kent, 2B

Kemp, RF

Young, LF

Pierre, CF

Martinez, 3B

Tomko, P

As for the comment about old recorded games, we do have a very extensive archive of video that has games from over the years and I believe it’s currently in the process of being digitized, which takes an incredible amount of time. But that’s a great idea about being able to download them. I’ll look into it and see if that’s possible down the road.

Sitting in the dugout here at Great American Ball Park and expecting it to get even hotter tonight and tomorrow (and throughout the weekend). As we watch the Reds take their team photo out on the field, Matt Kemp, Juan Pierre and I are laughing about Ken Griffey Jr.’s walk-up music. It’s "Soul Glow," from the movie Coming to America. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it last night and I’d bet a huge part of the crowd has no clue what it’s from.

Anyway, the Reds did a really nice job on this ballpark when they built it. Somehow, I had never been here before this trip, so I’m fortunate enough to chalk up another stadium to the list. I think I’m somewhere around 25 now, including all the NL parks (and some defunct ones). I’m sure a bunch of you have done baseball trips. How many have you been to and what’s your favorite?

The team is still trying to snap out of the funk it’s in and obviously, it has to happen soon. No one here is too down on themselves, but everyone realizes what’s at stake. I don’t think we have to win 18 of 19 again, but a nice five- or six-game winning streak would help get us right back in the thick of things.

Here’s the lineup, with a little change:

Pierre, CF

Furcal, SS

Martin, C

Kent, 2B

Ethier, LF

Nomar, 3B

Loney, 1B

Kemp, RF

Billingsley, P

It looks like there was some good chatter yesterday among you all while we were flying here to Cincinnati. Read through most of it this morning and glad to see that a lot of people have not yet started waving the white flag. There were some good posts with some good thought put into them. No doubt, this team is in a funk and needs to turn things around quickly. Hopefully today is the start of that turnaround.

Speaking of chatter, if you’d like to ask questions directly of Ned, he’ll be hosting an online chat today at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. local time here in Cincinnati to try and answer some of your questions and concerns. We had originally scheduled this to come after the trade deadline so that he could talk about whatever trades were or weren’t made, but the timing is pretty good, anyway, given all that’s happening of late.

The lineup will follow later this afternoon. And yes, Clayton Kershaw was promoted to Double-A Jacksonville.

UPDATE: Lineup for today –

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF

Martin, C

Kent, 2B

Gonzo, LF

Nomar, 3B

Ethier, RF

Loney, 1B

Hendrickson, P