But, the Bullpen Has Been Awesome
Anyone who suggests that the bullpen is somehow the problem hasn t been paying attention. Even after the past two games, the Dodgers starting pitching and bullpen remain the very best in baseball. I am not a meteorologist but I do know that sometimes it is more humid than others. Barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature and other such things can create a good or poor environment for a pitcher. No excuses .
Anyone who suggests that the bullpen is somehow the problem hasn’t been paying attention. Even after the past two games, the Dodgers starting pitching and bullpen remain the very best in baseball. I am not a meteorologist but I do know that sometimes it is more humid than others. Barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature and other such things can create a good or poor environment for a pitcher. No excuses. It is what it is; Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu were horrible the past two games.
Maybe it’s weather related… actually, it is most certainly weather related, but you still have to play the game. It didn’t seem to bother Robbie Ray as much, but he is s true fastball pitcher. Hill and Ryu are very effective only when they have their curveballs working and they were not even close to working the past two days. This is baseball. Stuff happens. Teams get hot, players get hot, players get cold, teams get cold. It happens all the time. Just when you think a team will never win again, they go on a tear and sometimes when you think they can’t lose, they run a double-digit string of losses.
This is not suddenly a flawed team. It a very good, balanced team that is slumping. Seager is hurt and sitting (and maybe should for a couple more weeks). Cody Bellinger is back after missing 9 games. Kershaw, Wood, Stewart and Ethier are due back Friday and A-Gon is trying to get his sea legs. Oh, and Justin Turner, Kike Hernandez and Logan Forsythe are mired in slumps. It happens all the time. Baseball is a crazy game. It will drive you mad some times.
But, this is the team that won 51 of 60 games. This is the team that has incredible depth. This is a team built for the long haul and I believe this is the team that will win it all. So, take a deep breath – it will be September 1st soon and the final push to the playoffs begins. There is no such thing as a good losing streak, but if you are going to have one, now is a good time. There’s plenty of time to get straightened out get back to their winning ways.
Rants and Raves
- Tim Locastro continues to hit at AAA while playing CF and 2B (.395 BA/1.025 OPS)
- Joc Pederson is up to .200 and playing LF.
- Rios was 4-5 with a Grand Slam and 6 RBI.
- Liberatore pitched an inning at OKC and allowed 3 hits and 2 runs
- Walker Buehler pitched a perfect 9th without a strikeout – just 3 groundball outs.
- Tulsa won 16-0 (that’s not a typo). Mitch White pitched 5 innings and allowed 2 hits. His AA ERA is now 2.57.
- Yusniel Diaz is starting to figure it out. in 26 games at AA he is hitting .348/.920 OPS/.414 OB%. He may need another year, but maybe not. It seems that when it clicks, it’s time to hit the show.
- Matt Beaty is quietly having a great season.
- Alex Verdugo looks gassed.
- Jeren Kendall is still struggling with Low -A Pitching
- Cristian Santana is still doing very well at GL – the Dodgers have quite the stockpile of catchers.
- Unless the Dodgers have ideas of playing Austin Barnes at 2B next year, maybe they should trade Yasmani Grandal before electronic balls and strikes take over. He has a lot of value. All catchers do. Yasmani is having a strange year. His BA is up, but his walk rate is way down as is his OB% and OPS.
- Kike needs some serious work on his swing… especially against RHP.
- Yasiel Puig should get better by the day as he applies his new hitting science to the game. Maybe he can start hitting LHP?
- I think Forsythe should lead off against LHP – he has a .443 OB% and .895 OPS. With Seager out, mover Taylor to #2.
- Can Andre Ethier rebound in September?
- It’s going to be an interesting September.., Buehler will almost certainly be up and so should Font… maybe Verdugo.
- Who is Brandon McCarthy?
- Maybe you wonder why Chad Billingsley is todays photo? Why did I do that, you might wonder? Because I felt like it! That’s all folks! 😉
- I don’t generally like pre-season football, but it’s the last game of pre-season so I am going to see the No Luck Colts play tonight against my better judgement.
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Discussion (69)
Disagree, not disagreeable
As I am witnessing another smackdown in the desert to the D-Bags, I go back to a couple of days ago when Colleti was a guest on Roggin and Rodney sportstalk. Ned said that even he was surprised of the run the Dodgers were on. “Hey, he said, the other teams are getting paid too”, meaning that nobody was rolling over for them. He also mentioned that what was happening now is more of a normal correction, it wasn’t possible to sustain the run they were on and lastly, he liked the idea of us facing good pitching so it can prepare us down the road. I agree with him. The D-bags are good at home, we didn’t pitch Kershaw, a healthy Wood or Darvish. It’s just our turn in the fish barrel. What I do like the last couple of days, and it will bode well in the play-offs, is we didn’t pack it in like the Donnie baseball days, we kept scrapping and were a key hit or two from coming all the way back. Also, big thing is that the D-bags NEEDED this series in a big way for their confidence going forward. Even Rodney is talking smack, like he can’t wait to see us in the play-offs. Careful what you wish for, you know that Roberts and his crew will have the Dodgers ready to roll come October. Just another speed bump, let’s get Seager healthy, get Bellinger back in his groove, enjoy the hell out of the season Puig is having(He could be flat out dangerous in the play-offs. The at bat last night was awesome, how he worked that walk), and enjoy the show. Where’s the popcorn?!!??
Pathetic showing in the desert. Goldschmidt showed up. Turner didn’t. This is playoff pitching? Never were ahead. The magic is over. Now it’s time for mano a mano. Hold your breath for Brock Stewart. The Pads smell blood.
I am tired of Roberts leaving a starting pitcher out there who clearly has nothing and let the team get farther and farther behind. This is another problem of having a bullpen built on guys who usually go 1 inning at a time. In the “olden days”, if a starter was yanked early a reliever came in and pitched as long as needed.
There’s no doubt the Dodgers got spanked by the D’Backs the last three games. It was bound to happen. For the last two months fans continued to speculate that the pace they were on could not be sustained, and they were proved right. Now we need to allow them to them to get fully healthy and reset. Can’t stop the negative comments, and there will be those. They have already started.
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September could be a fun month. Kershaw and Wood will be back on the bump, Bellinger will be on a quest to 40 HR’s as a rookie. Alex Verdugo will get his MLB debut. Walker Buehler not far behind. Which one of the left handed bats will get hot…AGon, Dre, Grandy, Joc, Chase and hit the playoff roster on a good streak. How many games over 100 will they win?
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Not just the ML team, but the farm teams are also playing well. The two DSL 2 teams have made the playoffs, and both won the first round and are in the semi-finals. DSL1 lost the first game to the DSL Mets2, while DSL2 beat the DSL Twins in their Game 1. The AZL Dodgers are .5 game behind the AZL White Sox for the 2nd half championship and a spot in the playoffs. They have 3 games remaining including 1 against the White Sox. The Ogden Raptors are currently in 1st place in the 2nd half and are in very good shape to make the playoffs. Rancho Cucamonga is one game away from clinching a playoff spot for the third consecutive year. The Tulsa Drillers are 1 game ahead in the 2nd half for that 2nd playoff spot. They have five games remaining including the final three against the number two team, Springfield Cardinals. In addition to the teams doing well, there are a number of individuals that are at the top of the stats in their respective leagues. There have been three Players of the Year, DJ Peters (California League), Matt Beaty (Texas League), and PCL Pitcher of the Year of the Year, Wilmer Font, who is also scheduled for a promotion to the 40 man. Official PCL news release for Wilmer Font:
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Open on www.milb.comhttp://www.milb.com/documents/7/3/4/251649734/Font_2017_Pitcher_of_the_Year.pdf.
Some will point to all of the current problems, while others will recognize that it is a 162 game season, and for two months the team could do no wrong. Now they have hit a road bump. They have 30 games until the end of the regular season. They win half and that is 106 win season. It has been a fun year so far. Let’s not let a five game losing streak disparage what has already transpired.
A good Astros team got better by landing Verlander. It could be a very interesting WS if both the Dodgers and Astros get there.
DDM
You are right there.
In fact I would say that Verlander is certainly pitching better than Yu at this time, although he arguably cost more.
They are going for it, as are the Angels.