What About the Platoons?

And Urias has been through a lot in those two years while he has been recovering.

Many thought maybe his major league career was over, after hearing about his injury.

All of this, has not only made him mature even more, it has made him the pitcher he is right now.

It’s far too early to look at stats; let’s look at some stats.

Four batters are currently getting it done in a big way:

Joc–1.063 SLG%

Barnes–1.000 SLG%

Bellinger–.958 SLG%

Verdugo–1.000 SLG%

Before you shout SSS at me for Verdugo, he has only two fewer AB’s than Barnes. And here’s a bonus fact: While Barnes has a neat 2/0 BB/K, Verdugo has an even cleaner 0/0 one. These boys make contact.

Four batters are currently struggling: Seager, Muncy, Turner, & Taylor. At the request of the survivors, the numbers have been omitted. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

(Hernandez & Pollock have also been more than fine: .375/.450/.750 & .333/.417/.571 respectively

Pitching is even harder to do, as the starters have only gone once through in the rotation and, in relief, one bad outing can spoil an entire line. Obviously, the standout poor performers are Kelly & Stewart [the latter will be shipped out as soon as Kershaw’s ready] and Yimi & Baez [although Baez did two toss 2 scoreless IP last night].

The only starter who performed poorly is Buehler, who will hereby receive an official LADT Mulligan and be allowed to start his next game with a 0.00 ERA. Just waiting on the league to approve this. Mark, you might want to send Manfred a case of whiskey to grease the wheels if you can.

Management: Subjective, but Roberts appears to be up to his old tricks and the F.O. gave him the roster it gave him: no Harper, Ottovino, etc.

Checked in on the Madre this week and youngster P Lauer and Tatis Jr. They are a team to be reckoned in the future.

But we will overcome..

Tweet last night from Alex Pavlovic:

“Julio Urias is making his first start in nearly two years and he’s still three years younger than anyone on the Giants roster”

Mark, there is an older gentleman that sits almost directly in back of the catcher at Dodger Stadium He is always there, well dressed, dark rimmed glasses, and dark dyed hair with a deep tan. He is visible every pitch. Do you know who this person is?

Having too many position players is rarely a problem. That said, Muncy would be a near-perfect DH.

I think we can make this work but, yeah, I’d really like to see Verdugo get some regular AB’s without just waiting for an injury or for someone to play himself out of the lineup.

I’m guessing the F.O. has a timeline for how they’d like this to play out. Assuming we make the playoffs, the only thing that matters is who’s playing come October.

Bellinger is hitting much better than he did last year and although his hitting stance and swing look a lot like it did last year, RVS has done something to make Bellinger better. There were reports that Belli started early with RVS this winter. There was little written about Joc working with RVS though but I think Joc has made the most out of RVS’ tutelage.

Joc is clearly keeping his bat a lot longer in the hitting zone than he did last year and is now more consistently getting the barrel where it is supposed to be. He looks like he is thinking up the middle and then reacting to the pitch and either pulling or going with the pitch. Several of his home runs are to center and left field.

Joc has a different swing against lefties. He is keeping his front shoulder in more and looks like he wants to hit line drives up the middle against lefties. If he keeps that philosophy he could do much better against lefties this year. Joc might be giving Doc reason to not pinch hit for him if a lefty reliever comes in before the 6th inning, maybe the 7th inning. That would help the Dodgers by not pairing the righty/lefty match up too early and then have righty on righty in the last three or 4 innings.

There are a couple of locations pitchers can’t put the ball against Taylor or he will drill it. He seems to still have too many locations pitchers can put the ball though where he will struggle. It looks like the same is true for Muncy. Verdugo however is looking better and better. Freese didn’t look good to me in Spring Training and he still doesn’t. I think Beatty will take his spot next year.

I like Urias and Stripling in the rotation and this year it might be appropriate to go with a 6 man rotation. If the bullpen is a weakness it won’t be when someone in the rotation joins it and that will happen when Kershaw and Hill return.

I’m kidding Mark but maybe Baez has again moved ahead of Stewart on the bullpen ladder but has Kelly now dropped under Stewart? Is Kelly the new 25th man?

Kudos to you M.T. on the Verdugo comments… Let me preface this with I’m a big fan of Verdugo… He’s a AAAA player who ain’t going back to OKC and I wish they would give him the RF post and tell him it’s yours to lose… WE might be surprised…

Well, you don’t win too many games with 2 runs scored, that is true. But, I think I’ve heard this song before. 5 innings and 77 pitches, shutout going, just 3 base-runners in five innings. Time to pull him! That was the first mistake.

I feel bad for Kelly. He gave up that leadoff HR, fine. Then he proceeded to retire the next 3 guys, progress! Let’s build his confidence and send him out for a second inning. That was the second mistake. Really playing with fire here. Gotta make sure to use the least effective reliever the most. After a single and 2 outs with a runner at third, the fat guy gets lucky singles off a pitch at his ankles. That probably would be a good time to call it a night, but no…a double to put runners at second and third. Now, it’s way too tempting to put in a lefty to face a lefty and make that mid-inning pitching change, third mistake and two more runs come home. Thanks Doc. And while you’re at it, please bore me with another mid-inning pitching change. Floro mercifully ends the inning with a fly ball.

Roberts needs to stop putting himself and the team into these situations. Urias should have pitched the 6th, then this would have been a normal game. One inning each for Kelly and Baez then hand it off to Jansen. Instead, two innings each for Kelly and Baez and one batter each for Floro and Alexander. Alexander should not be limited to lefties only and maybe, just maybe, we should refrain from using Kelly for multiple innings until he finds his rhythm and has a couple of solid outings.

With a good manager and a normal spring training workload, we would be 6-0 right now. We can NOT go through April with false limits on the starting pitchers. If they look tired, pull them. If they’re cruising along, let them pitch. We are screwing up our pen by putting an unnecessary workload on them.

It was good to see Taylor go yard and have another hit. He gets on the board. He’s a good player and will have big moments all season. It was great seeing Verdugo leave the yard, but calm down Mark, fools day was yesterday and 30 homers is a big number. Hopefully he’ll ultimately be somewhere between Tony Gwynn and James Loney.

I hope we can get a little more length out of our starters especially when they have shutouts going in the near future. Let that sink in a little. Both losses came in games where the starting pitcher had shutouts going though 75 pitches. Geez.

I’m just a little concerned about facing left handed pitching right now. I guess we’ll know if that’s our Kryptonite again after the next two games.

Joc shouldn’t start against LHP regardless of how good he has done in 4 games. Its crazy to think people are even suggesting it. He can not hit LHP no matter how good you think he is doing, If Joc actually played full time his numbers would be garbage, so lucky for him he only plays against RHP. Verdugo on the other hand can hit LHP, he can put on a professional at bat against LHP, if Muncy doesn’t turn it around I can see Belly to 1st and Verdugo to Right in the very near future. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Verdugo but I already knew he was going to prove the early nay sayers wrong, it is early but i like what I’m seeing from him, alot.