- Attention, Peter Seidler and his band of wannabes, never-weres, and just plain punks, the Dragon up the Freeway is alive and well and it just smoked your ass, you bunch of disrespectful reform-school dropouts!
- Clayton Kershaew’s Mother, Marianne Tombaugh, died Saturday. Up until now, we know very little about her life and death. Perhaps, Clayton will keep it that way… perhaps not. We learned very little about his father, who died in 2016. At any rate, we respect his right to privacy and give him our condolences! R.I.P. Marianne!
- Someone suggested that James Outman may not be a great Centerfielder, and that is true. He is not bad, however, and the more he plays, the better he will get, so there is that. Thompson and Heyward are probably incrementally better, but Outman is younger and faster! I am fine with him playing CF. I am worried about his strikeouts, not his defense.
- Yesterday, Duke was talking about the number of strikeouts that Outman had in comparison to Trout. Trout has 46, and Outman has 51. The difference is that Trout has 15 more Plate Appearances. Outman does not currently fit into a platoon as he also has reverse splits. He is hitting .253 against RHP and .306 against LHP. Go figure.
- The Dodger’s pitching was outstanding yesterday as the Catman is back in mid-season form and Yency has righted his ship.
- V-Gon has been a Godsend, and Graterol and Bruihl are unique bookends.
- It’s not how many hits you get – It’s when you get them!
- Tonight, it is Thor, and he says he is good to go, but I am nervous!
- It’s beginning to look doubtful that Jimmy Nelson will pitch this year and Daniel Hudson is far from a sure thing!
- Andy Pages has a higher ceiling than Jonny LeDuca, but LeDuca is three years older and probably has a better chance of making the roster THIS year than Pages… especially if they need a platoon bat.
- Michael Busch was 2-4 with a double and HR yesterday as he again played 2B.
- Alex Vesia had another successful IP with 2 Ks and a hit.
- There are rumors that Pages and LeDuca are moving to OKC. If so, it may also mean some players in OKC have Opt-Outs!
- Jon Rooney should move to OKC, but Robertson closes there.
Monday Rants & Raves
Attention, Peter Seidler and his band of wannabes, never-weres, and just plain punks, the Dragon up the Freeway is alive and well and it just smoked your ass, you bunch of disrespectful reform-school dropouts! Clayton Kershaew’s Mother, Marianne Tombaugh, died Saturday. Up until…
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Discussion (30)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Hope you all saw the highlight reel catch Bellinger made in Houston. It was awesome. He had to leave the game after the catch as he landed awkwardly.
Bickford sucked it up and took everything to another level. One would think he will walk away from this experience a better pitcher from here on out. We shall see.
Really enjoying that – had a bit of everything!
Pleased for Trayce, especially after getting picked off whilst pinch running.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Pitcher look so bad and manage to come back and be the hero as Bickford tonight.
I was rooting for a walk-off pitch clock violation. But ball four is good enough.
Bickford did do well. But Yancy… yikes. Will we see Andre Jackson back soon?
Sure did look like the Dodgers might squander this one. Nice comeback.
I don’t believe what I just saw. Pitcher didn’t even challenge Thompson with a full count. Unbelievable!
Does this prove Thompson can still hit righties? Lol
Great AB for Trayce. Not a hit but just as good
Feel-good outing for Bickford. He should be proud, no matter the outcome.
This game is…….
Interesting?
Honestly, Peralta’s seeing-eye double looked …mmmm.. but we’ll take it.
Thor only goes 4, that’s it.
Muncy again- textbook example of fouling off fringe pitches to get the one he could finally square up. Except now he goes opposite-field. Impressive!
Encouraging at-bat for Muncy. He fought off the unsure pitches, then got the dead-center pitch he wanted and homered it.
Sunday scores
Oklahoma City 7, Round Rock 5
Springfield 3, Tulsa 2
Lake County 3, Great Lakes 2
Stockton 13, Rancho Cucamonga 12
Tuesday schedule
8:05 a.m. PT: Great Lakes vs. West Michigan [Tigers]
4:35 p.m.: Tulsa at Corpus Christi [Astros]
5:05 p.m.: Oklahoma City vs. Sugar Land [Astros]
6:30 p.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Luis Valdez) at Visalia [D-backs] (Jacob Steinmetz)
All four teams are off on Monday.
10:10 PM ET
Twins (23-18) 1st place
Dodgers (26-15) 1st place
SP Pablo Lopez R
2-2 3.47 ERA 49.1IP 62K
SP Noah Syndergaard R
1-3 6.12 ERA 32.1IP 21K
Confirmed Lineup
RF Mookie Betts R
1B F. Freeman L
C Will Smith R
3B Max Muncy L
DH J. Martinez R
CF J. Heyward L
2B M. Vargas R
LF D. Peralta L
SS Miguel Rojas R
Partly-cloudy-day
0% Rain
67° Wind 10 mph Out
NO Outman against a right hand pitcher
Brewers signed Darren Ruf and place Voit on the IL. Someone reported yesterday that Pages and DeLuca were promoted to AAA. This has not happened. At least not as of 10 minutes ago.
Not worrying too much about Outman’s K rate right now. The pitchers have caught up with him, and we need to see how he adjusts to that. Meanwhile, Bellinger is at .270 now with 7 long balls and 20 driven in. He has cooled off a little. But his K rate is way down.
Great Article:
https://theathletic.com/4519445/2023/05/15/dodgers-padres-nl-west-standard/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983
Here’s a snippet:
Gavin Lux, 25, was at the center of those plans, but he suffered a season-ending knee injury in spring training, leaving the Dodgers scrambling at shortstop. Not to worry: James Outman is emerging as a leading Rookie of the Year candidate in center field. Miguel Vargas shows vast offensive potential and is adapting well to second base. And while none of the Dodgers’ top young pitchers has made an impact, either because of injury or inconsistency, the odds are at least one will succeed. If not, five more pitching prospects are behind them in the Double A rotation, creating fresh excitement among club officials.
Forgot Feduccia, he’s another option that might help. Is Barnes framing pitches well for Kersh really that important?
Alright, the Dodgers have righted the ship because overall pitching and the top-half of the batting order are playing much better now — health being the key factor.
BUT, the same problem they have now is the SAME problem they had last year. Their 6 to 9 batting spots are too weak!!
I won’t go into player-details here now, but suffice it to say, if marked improvement doesn’t happen soon at the bottom of the order with the present roster, then it must be remedied by some deadline trading, or by calling up to the show BOTH LeDuca and Pages ..or even Busch again.. by mid-summer.
So regardless how well things are going today, something gotta be done to fix this weakness, or this team ain’t winning the championship.
Padres and Dodgers.
It’s me verses us. Thx to AF for signing and developing us guys.
I did notice Machado Soto and a few others having a laugh in the dugout in the 9th after getting swept; like they didnt really care.
Hey they all got paid….boy that would piss me off. That team has issues….glad we aint them.
If Tony gonsolin is your number 4 starter , how good is your pitching rotation? Maybe a generous strike zone, but the cayman is really rounding back in shape! So even if syndergard struggles Gavin stone is almost mlb ready. Bullpen looks much better! Still a little concerned about lineup , est when Will smith sits. Not wishing bad luck on Barnes, but really wish we had a better backup Catcher. I just don’t think he’s as great behind the plate defensively as others do. But not my call. Hopefully roberts won’t let syndergard go to far if he struggles early, need to win this series as cardinals are playing much better. Nothing less w a split in St. Louis. God bless Clayton and his family. I’m sure his momma was a special person, look how her son turned out.
I agree with your observation, Duke, on Bill Miller yesterday. I thought Gonsolin got a more generous zone than Ryan Weathers. Especially in what I call “the 5 river”. Those are inside pitches, off the plate, to RHB. He graded out with 8 of those that were actual balls, called strikes. And I though Tony got the lion’s share of those.
Why?
I doubt it’s Bill Miller liking the Dodgers better then the Padres. I don’t know of any history of a feud between the two.
Miller has been around MLB for 26 years and maybe Bill has “Joe West disease”. Joe West gave nothing to young players who had yet to earn it. Some of the veteran umpires subscribe to that ridiculous crap are proned to not give younger players, who haven’t paid their dues, a break. Weather’s is 23 in his third year, was a bonus baby, first rounder, who has 37 MLB starts. Gonsolin, on the other hand, is an established MLB strike thrower.
Or maybe Miller just had a shitty day?
I love the fan base on this site. If we lose 3 straight there will be a hundred + posters coming out of the woodwork with tips, advice and criticisms. When we’re winning about 30 folks chime in. Human nature, I guess.
Curious, did anyone else notice Machado nudging Kim out of the way during a mound visit yesterday? Normally, I would not think much of it, except that i also noticed Tatis not congratulating Kim in the dugout after Kim hit an HR in Game 1 or 2 of this latest series.
Nice to see Gonsolin regaining his form from last season.
I appreciate the steady demeanor of our rookies Outman and Vargas.
My condolences to Clayton and his family on the death of his mother. I suffered the same thing recently due to the death of my father, at the age of 95. That made me change a lot.
I hate streaks!!!
Twins have lost 10 in a row to us.
Gonsolin pitched well, but he did get some help from the ump.
With all the data available today, there is probably some stats somewhere that show how often pitchers and hitters get screwed by poor calls on balls and strikes. Maybe it all is random and evens out. But maybe not. NBA stars notoriously get away with extra steps, for example. Do baseball umps subconsciously favor stars? Or disfavor guys they don’t like? Does the home team get an edge? Just something I wonder about.
Outman’s Ks are a concern, but some perspective is in order. Outman’s 3 Ks in the latest game lifted his total to 51, which is tied for 4th in the majors with Schwarber and the Rockies’ Ryan McMahon. Jazz Chisholm has more Ks,and so does Teoscar Hernandez.
Hernandez, Chisholm, McMahon and Schwarber are all producing an OPS under .700. Outman’s is .909.
The leader in Ks is Freddie’s replacement in Atlanta. Matt Olson has K’d 60 times but has 11 HRs and a pretty healthy OPS of .866.
Trout’s OPS is now .872, which isn’t bad but way below his career OPS of .998.
After all of our changes, we currently have the best record in the NL.
Not bad for a team full of cheap owners, an overrated GM, a manager who should’ve been fired 18 times, and a lot of crappy players on the field.
“*It’s not how many hits you get-it’s when you hit them” While that is true it also is true that the most runs result from the most hits. The division leaders in both leagues all have the highest run differentials of their divisions. Hits and runs indicate the most talent but clutch timing does decide the history. Well sometimes the umps also have a say in that.
Condolences to Clayton and his family. Losing your mother is always tough.
Hope Syndergaard is really good to go. If he should exit early again that would tax the bullpen a lot. Maybe they should call up stone just in case.
Nice winning streak, keep it rolling.
Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!