What Do You Like?

Well that was a Coors field game if there ever was one! Wow! And Jeff Maeda was still better than Buehler!

Aren’t we happy that we don’t have to see Maeda start for the rest of the season? If there is a place for him, it is middle relief for no more than 2 innings in the BP. Let’s hope we don’t see him in the rotation next season. Enough is enough.

What took so long to bring up Lux, We’ve been averaging sixteen runs a game since he got here!

Nice to see Seager go deep, especially against a lefty. Doesn’t mean it’s the start of something good, but good things have start somewhere. I’m hopefull.

Didn’t get a hit, but he did hang in against the lefty, and fouled off a couple of pitches before grounding out. One at bat does not a season make, but I was encouraged, and have a feeling that lefties will not be a problem,

Good. Now we get to see Lux face a lefty.

Bobby,

I spent nearly my first sixty years in Brooklyn, and even went to games at Ebbets Field (from which I lived within walking distance as a child). Unlike some Brooklyn Dodger fans I couldn’t bring myself to root for any other team. I was born in 1946, and guess that had I been born several years later, that I would now be a Mets fan (ugh!).

I currently live about 20-25 miles east of Brooklyn in Long Island. However, I still have friends and acquaintances in Brooklyn, and get there pretty regularly.

We have some struggling or tired starters , location seems to be the major issue recently. Need this to flip, our title goes through them, come on big Three.

Joc seems ok, his streaks are fun, when he is bad hard to watch.

The kid just missed a hr and Brooklyn it was a slider. His swing is sweet.

Walker not pitching like the Walker we’ve come to enjoy. He’s in line for a W but I think his night is over after 5 innings pitched.

If Lux had gotten a little more of that pitch he would be a triple away from a cycle. Although like any player he still has a lot to prove, so far he looks like the player whose highlights had me among those who wanted him to be called up earlier.

Listening to Davis and Hershiser talking about the lively ball and the increase in HRs reminds me what I was thinking when May got hit. I know pitchers in the past have been hit by line drives, but by adding liveliness to the ball, baseball is increasing the odds of a pitcher being seriously injured or worse. Hitters are bigger and stronger than ever before. I see no sense in adding fuel to the fire.

It could still happen, but Joc is close to sitting on 4 HRs tonight.

Impressive AB for Lux. After taking two pitches for strikes (I think it was 2 of the first 3), he still managed to run the count to 3-2 before the double. The question that still remains is how he is going to handle himself when he starts to see more breaking and off-speed pitches.

Welcome to the club even more, Lux!

Welcome to the club, Lux!

Oops again, 4 games AHEAD of Atlanta.

Oops, I meant 4 games behind Atlanta.

Beaty and Smith must feel like veterans with Lux in the lineup.

Dodgers may have to pick it up to maintain their home field advantage against Atlanta which is hot and only ; games behind the Dodgers.

From Alden Gonzales, ESPN beat writer:

The Dodgers still have a lot of loose ends with four regular-season weeks remaining. Kenta Maeda will probably spend the rest of the month pitching out of the bullpen to prepare for a high-leverage role in October. Kenley Jansen is still the closer, but is an option to pitch in non-save situations as well. Cody Bellinger will spend a lot of time in CF moving forward, with AJ Pollock transitioning to LF. Rich Hill is still working his way back and will face hitters over the weekend. OF Alex Verdugo and 1B Max Muncy won’t return until next week’s road trip, and it sounds like Verdugo will have to earn his playing time back.

Sorry Mark but the beginning of the Lux career spells the end of Kike’s Dodger career. Won’t need both Kike and Taylor next year. I hope Rios gets a shot next year. I love his bat. Sure would help if could learn some left field

If only Belli could play rf, cf and first base at the same time we’d have an awesome defense!

Bellinger is taking over CF. Polllock moving to LF where he should be.

Roger,

Great point about May’s age by Roger. I remember being 21, and upon reflection, I can also remember all the mistakes I made at that age, and even when I was older, despite the benefits of experience. Was Clayton Kershaw an instant star? Sandy Koufax? Orel Hershiser? Justin Turner? Adrian Beltre? And countless others. Let’s not expect too much from our young players. Maybe we’ll see some instant successes, but don’f count on it. And if the May’s, Gonsolin’s, Smith’s, and Lux’s disappoint at times, just remember how many players before them took time to develop into the players we know today.

First of all, we don’t know if the Dodgers had a chance to acquire Verlander before the trade deadline or not. It was reference a couple of times in the LA Times that the Dodgers liked Verlander, but the contract was an issue. Could they have taken the whole contract and made a deal before the deadline? Maybe. Not something the Dodgers haven’t done before. But they were focused on getting under the cap. In terms of commitment Darvish may have made more sense. All I basically said was I’d rather had Verlander than Darvish. Yu did pitch well in the playoffs, just melted down in WS. I felt Verlander just needed something to play for a new team, plus his velocity had returned. I’m sorry if that offended the one gentleman, but everything written here is pretty much opinion, some speculation with some data tossed in … it’s sort of why I like this site.

Don’t really understand the pressure some of us bloggers put on May. the dude is only 21. 21!! Let the kid breath a little bit and get some adversity under his belt. We all know you don’t get better and learn until you get your assed kicked about 15 or 20 times over. Pretty soon you get tired of that 2×4 swatting you on the back of the head. He will learn and be a friggin force, if not this year, next year for sure. We have all seen his stuff, which has some nasty late movement on it. He has some maturity issues when he gets hit hard, but once again, he is trying to learn to be a big leaguer on one of the best teams in one of the biggest markets in baseball, about 50,000 fans every night, not on some podunk team like Baltimore or Pittsburgh where you can literally count how many people are there.

I fully understand that where a player lands can have something to do with their performance. But there is probably no way to measure that. In the case of LeMahieu, a player which I was also in favor of signing last year, there is no reason to believe that he would have not performed as well for the Dodgers, especially since he had already performed well while playing in the NL West. There are those that took the position that LeMahieu’s numbers were inflated in Colorado, while I have argued that playing half of each season in Colorado depressed his numbers on the road. And on top of everything else, LeMahieu was a gold 2nd baseman.

Yah, I don’t know about knee jerks or hindsighters, but I’ve always wanted the Dodgers to acquire Yelich, even when he wasn’t hitting homeruns. Just a really good player. And a SoCal kid. Plus, Yelich had a great contract. As to Stanton, love the power, but staying on the field has always been an issue and most weren’t freak injuries, like Pollock. Not sure why anyone would think Yu was a better pitcher than Verlander. He got lit up a few times before the trade deadline, who could forget the (who was it, Miami?) it was like the ball was on a Tee. Darvish was 6-9 with a 4 plus era before being traded. Verlander was 10-8 with a 3.8 era and had totally dominated the Dodgers in a start in Detroit.