If You Feel The Need to Panic, By All Means Do So!
I just don t feel that need. This losing streak has gotten to the point of where it is almost comical. Yes, it is probably from that lack of adrenaline like Watford opined, but at least 50% of it is 80% mental (as Yogi used to say). The psychological side of baseball is just as important as the mechanical side. I have no direct information about that, but knowing how progressive
I just don’t feel that need. This losing streak has gotten to the point of where it is almost comical. Yes, it is probably from that lack of adrenaline like Watford opined, but at least 50% of it is 80% mental (as Yogi used to say). The psychological side of baseball is just as important as the mechanical side. I have no direct information about that, but knowing how progressive the Dodgers front office is, they are undoubtedly doing some things on that side as well.
It may seem like the Dodgers will never win another game. I assure you they will. The starting pitching has been generally good this month, so that is a plus. It was good again last night.The pen has slipped, but I suspect it will return as the players are auditioning for the playoffs. Walker Buehler will be in the mix and Tony Cingrani has been filthy his last 2 or 3 outings.
You can feel free to panic, I just don’t feel that need. I am surprised that DodgerTherapy is not back up and operating. Writers like Bill Plaschke and Howard Cole write what the masses love to hear: negative news. If you write that, you are assured of good readership. Fans clamour for it. This reminds me of a blog I wrote last year at LAdodgerReport.
Losses aren’t any fun. I don’t enjoy them, but Kershaw goes tonight. Corey will likely be back by the weekend and hopefully Yu Darvish figures out his mechanics. If not, the Dodgers still have enough pitching. It’s getting close to “Go Time.” This team will answer the bell when necessary. Baseball is a crazy maddening game: the fact that a team is capable of winning so many in a row and losing so many in a row makes this game what it is: addicting.
Hide your guns. Put away sharp objects. This is going to pass soon.
Doc believes in Curtis Granderson. Remember, it’s not how you start – It’s how you end! It was nice to see Joc get a hit. It’s sounding more-and-more like A-Gon will not make the playoff roster as he is still having major back issues according to TrueBlueLA.
At Tulsa last night, Mitch White went 6 innings and allowed 4 hits, Zero runs and had one walk, with Zero strikeouts. That’s a strange line for a guy with his stuff. The Driller bullpen then coughed up the game. Sound familiar? Mitch White might be ready for the Dodgers rotation next year.
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Discussion (72)
Disagree, not disagreeable
I posed this question yesterday:
“So – exactly how badly do the Dodgers have to play and how many more do they have to lose before it’s OK to be concerned? I’m just wondering – the general tenor of discussion here is that only uneducated baseball bumpkins would deign to be concerned about what they are seeing.”
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This is the tenor of today’s post too. But it has been the tenor of nearly every post for a while now. Here are some examples:
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Yesterday: “Here’s how this game works: A guy like Pedro Baez suddenly steps up and is lights out in the playoffs. Stuff like that doesn’t happen occasionally in baseball – it happens a lot! From June 7-Aug. 19, the Dodgers went 52-9. In the last 11 days, the Dodgers have lost more times than they did during that 61-game stretch. Same team, but the manager has suddenly become an idiot?”
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Tuesday: “Right about now, the Diamondbacks own the Dodgers, What does that mean? What did it mean when the Mets were 11-1 against the Dodgers in 1988 going into the playoffs? Ponder that! What the D-Bags are doing is called “peaking too soon.” Payback is a bitch.”
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Monday: “All over the Dodger Baseball Blogs, fans are losing their minds about the lineups Dave Roberts is rolling out there. They are questioning his batting orders, substitutions, resting players and use of minor leaguers….
“Dave Roberts is getting some good intel on his players so that he can best pick the 25 for the playoffs. Doc has not lost his mind and neither should we – it’s all parts of his plan and that plan is Total World Domination in 2017!”
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Sunday: “It would be nice to have the old Yu Darvish, but I still happen to believe that the Dodgers can win it all without him. The lineup is just not potent without the Big Four clicking: Taylor, Seager, Turner and Bellinger. Belly is back. Turner appears to be out of his slump. Taylor has been there a good part of the year. We are just waiting for Corey Seager to come back. It might be another week or more. He just needs to rest and not push it.”
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Friday: “The Dodger starting pitchers were beat like a rented mule by the D-Bags this week. Kenta Maeda, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Rich Hill were all pounded without mercy.. and yet (Drummmmmmm Roooooolllllllllll), the Dodgers are still #1 in all of baseball in Team ERA (3.38)and Team WHIP (1.16). The Nationals are second and the Bags are third! By the way, the bullpen is even better and is also #1 in all of baseball with a 2.90 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP. That is totally sick! Forget about what hapened in Arizona. Never speak of this again. Turn the page. Move it. There’s nothing to see here folks.”
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Thursday: “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.”
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How many different ways are there to ape Dr. Pangloss and say that everything is fine, everything is great, the wins and losses don’t matter, so don’t worry? How many excuses will Dodger fans swallow? (The climate in Arizona messed up the starters, they miss Corey Seager, playing minor leaguers is OK the starters need a rest, they are just trying to figure out who will be on the playoff roster, etc. etc.)
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I posted these thoughts yesterday: “I hate the prevent defense – and I hate prevent baseball. You can call it resting your regulars, taking your foot off of the gas (Roberts’ term for it) or anything that you want. You stop trying to win, and guess what – you get what you are trying for. ”
and
“You can call it adrenalin rush or whatever you want, but the Dodgers in July had the inevitability about them – they would grind until they won.”
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Question – when was the last time that the Dodgers ground out a win? When did they last do what the Snakes did to them on Tuesday and Wednesday and figured out a way to win a close game?
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You can’t turn the intensity and the winning on and off with a switch.
Curtis Granderson is in a slump, and would be hitting the same no matter where he was in the lineup. If he’s hitting, there’s no reason he can’t hit 2nd. If he’s not hitting, he probably is not going to hit anywhere in the lineup.
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In the 2015 NLDS Granderson led off for the Mets in all five games and hit .389/.476/.976. He also led off in the WS and hit .250/.360/1.060. So it’s pretty clear that Granderson has had success at the top of the order. When Granderson came to the Dodgers this year he had been hitting well since the middle of May, and continued so early on with the Dodgers. Just because he wasn’t hitting 2nd at that time doesn’t mean he couldn’t have. Batting Granderson 2nd now simply coincides with his being in a slump, and nothing else. Maybe he’s finally lost it, and maybe not. But I’m not going to use a small sample size over a limited amount of time dictate to me where he should hit. And as I pointed out earlier, Doc does not make his lineup decisions in a vacuum. I can assure you that his coaches have input, and I don’t believe that he is too hard headed to take that input seriously.
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As for the Dodgers hitting, I suspect it’s a combination of things. Certain players have had slumps, but most importantly it’s been a while since Cody, Corey, JT and CT have all been in the lineup together. A large part of the Dodgers’ offensive success this year has come from the length of their lineup. That’s been missing lately. Get all of those guys clicking together, and it will be felt up and down the lineup. A chain is as strong as it’s weakest link, and for the Dodgers there have been one or more weak links in the chain recently.
I do not get the LA Times (and I often do not have the time to get it on the internet) so this was a great read for me. Thank you for sharing. I am not familiar with Houston Mitchell and do not know his bona fides. However, it appears that Houston is saying the same thing that many are saying on this site. Dodgers miss Corey Seager. The offense runs thru Taylor/Seager/JT/Bellinger. He offers sage advice to not bat Grandy in the two hole (or Kike’), and that Logan should not hit against RHP. Many were saying the same thing about Logan during the winning, so it isn’t just during the last 11 games. He also opines that it is okay to have these questions and still be very loyal to both Doc and the Dodgers.
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Jon Gray , a RHP, pitches tonight for the Rockies, so we may get one more game with Grandy batting #2. Corey should assume his regular #2 position on Friday.
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The most important line in that entire article is “Enrique Hernandez worries about his family in Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Irma. ” Puerto Rico was hit hard, but not as hard as many projected as Irma stayed mostly off the coast. But I have not heard about how Kike’s parents came through this.
I found this very interesting …..
Open on www.latimes.comhttp://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-dugout-roberts-20170907-story.htmlWhat’s with these teams that get better as the season goes on and why can’t the Dodgers pull THAT off. Dammit. A month ago I said Dodgers chances were good. Considerably less than good now. Oh well, such is the life of a Dodger fan.
Panic about the Dodgers season? No Way. If you live in Miami maybe you are entitled to a little bit of panic right about now, but not about Dodgers baseball.
Comical is a great description. That is exactly how I felt last night. Just like the great win streak of the summer of 2017, these losses cannot be sustained. Christ Taylor, JT, and Cody are all having tremendous years, but there is no doubt in my mind that Corey Seager is the offensive catalyst/leader of this team. He has been out 10 games with a 1-9 record. In those ten games the team has scored 25 runs including 1 shutout and 4 games where they scored 1 run. The run differential is 25-59.
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There is no doubt that Doc believes in Granderson. I have respected Curtis from his Detroit days and all of his charity and inner city dedication. He also seemed to get timely hits/HRs. He has brought that same dedication to LA where he is already making his philanthropic presence known, especially with inner city kids. But I still want to know why he is batting 2nd. After an 0-3 night, Curtis is now 2-34 while batting 2nd for the Dodgers, and 2-40 on the year. Those numbers cannot be lost on FAZ or Doc. The last time Grandy was productive in the #2 hole was 2010-2012. He has primarily been a leadoff hitter for his career. I would just like to hear an explanation as to why.
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I agree…good for Joc. I hope he starts to heat up.
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Mark touched on it, but both Tulsa and Rancho lost their opening playoff games. Tulsa lost 3-1 to NW Arkansas (Royals) while RC lost to Lancaster (Rockies) 7-3. The AA game featured two highly respected pitching prospects, and neither disappointed. Neither Mitchell White or Foster Griffin figured in the decision. White went 6.0 shutout innings, 4 hits, 1 BB, and 0 K. Griffin pitched 6.1 shutout innings, 2 hits, 2 BB, and 8 K. Layne Somsen gave up 3 runs (1 earned) in the 7th and took the loss. The Drillers offense consisted of 3 singles and 1 double on the night.
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For RC, Caleb Ferguson picked a bad time to have one of his uncharacteristic bad outings. He went 6 innings, allowing 5 runs on 9 hits, 2 BB, and 4 K. Offensively the Quakes were led by young 3B, Cristian Santana, who went 3-5. Keibert Ruiz and Ibandel Isabel had 2 hits each. Luke Raley hit his 1st playoff HR.
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In other Dodger minor league news, the Ogden Raptors finally clinched a playoff spot in the Pioneer League (Rookie) in their 11-7 win over Grand Junction (Rockies). Every Raptor player had at least 1 hit in their 17 hit attack, with Luis Paz leading with a 3-5 night. Donovan Casey, Romer Cuadrado, Carlos Rincon, Brayan Morales, Gersel Pitre, and Connor Heady all had 2 hits each.
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Bring on the Rockies.
I’m not in panic mode. I do believe the team will win the division. But…after that it’s anyone’s guess. The team looks lost at the moment while the D-Bags look like we used to a short while back. Trailing going into the ninth last night, I didn’t have any confidence that they would pull it out. Someone needs to step up. Haven’t been hearing much from FAZ during this tumble. Roberts continues to say all the right things but it’s beginning to sound like blah, blah, blah.
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Eithier has no bat speed.
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Fields has no movement on his fastball.
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Bringing Ravin into a pressure situation was a little strange (although it worked out).
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Taylor seems best suited for LF.
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Credit due: the D-bags are on a roll. They have five legitimate starters, a good bullpen, and plenty of offensive firepower. They have a chance to go a long ways in the playoffs (unfortunate for us).
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One win won’t change things around, but a 3-5 game winning streak certainly wouldn’t hurt.