Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

Dodgers pinched, 2-1

The Angels lead the Dodgers, 2-1, in the bottom of the ninth of tonight’s game, following a tiebreaking home run by Erick Aybar off Kenley Jansen to start the inning.

A.J. Ellis walks obligatorily, and James Loney singles him to third.

Angels right-hander Ernesto Frieri, with a 0.00 ERA, is on the mound. Juan Uribe is up, with Tony Gwynn Jr. and Dee Gordon on deck.

I wouldn’t wait. I would send Bobby Abreu up to hit for Uribe right then.

My feelings are moot. Uribe grounds to short, with Ellis being retired on a fielder’s choice. Loney advances to third on the play and Uribe to second.  Gwynn strikes out, and Abreu, batting for Dee Gordon, hits a grounder up the middle that Frieri flags for the final out of the game.

Playing 20 games in 20 days, 10 at home and 10 on the road, the Dodgers won 10 and lost 10.

Both starting pitchers dodged their share of bullets before ending up with no decision. Most notably, Nathan Eovaldi, who remained winless as he lowered his ERA to 1.82, got out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the fourth, thanks largely to a Loney-Ellis-Loney double play.

The batter? Aybar, of course – the guy who would later win the game with his first home run since September 18.

And in San Francisco, Matt Cain pitches a whale of a game, matching Sandy Koufax for the most strikeouts in a perfect game with 14.

* * *

Kings broadcaster Bob Miller wrote a lovely first-person piece for the Times in the aftermath of the Stanley Cup.

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42 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    What a terrible night of baseball.

    • Anonymous

      In the words of Darryl Sutter, “Nobody died.” There’s another game Friday.

  2. Anonymous

    Erick Aybar? Sheesh. I understand the logic of bringing in your closer for the 9th in a tie game, but I’ve never liked it – especially when the closer has been getting used day after day.
    Angels sure did plug those holes in thier sinking ship in a hurry.
    Trout a hell of a player. Trumbo not bad either.

    • Anonymous

      Is Sands the Dodger version of Trumbo or is ti Van Slyke?  We may never know because of the need to have bench players Rivera and Abreau playing ahead of them.

      • Anonymous

        Sands played enough to show that he is not now an MLB player and probably not ever.

        • Anonymous

          Or our versions of Dallas McPherson or Brandon Wood?

        • Anonymous

          Much too early to say that. Sands has been inconsistent, but he’s had some excellent stretches.

          • Anonymous

            I have to agree with WBB.  Not ready to give up on either Sands or SVS yet.  Way too early.

          • Anonymous

            Obviously you don’t give up Sands since it costs nothing to keep him in AAA, but you also don’t give him MLB ABs ahead of Abreu or Rivera when the team is in 1st place. Nothing < Sands < Abreu's Corpse

          • Anonymous

            Actually replying to TiensyGohan–Once Kemp returns and Loney returns to end of 2011 form, I would hope Abreu and Rivera would make up part of a strong bench and Sands would be playing left most of the time.

        • Anonymous

          He did?  I think I sort of mentioned Trombo.  How old was he when he stopped looking like a struggling prospect and started looking like a MLB stud?

  3. Even Colletti was hoping Uribe would be pinch hit for. 

  4. Not a terrible night of baseball. As much as I dislike the Giants, that was really cool. I’m a baseball fan before I’m a Giants hater.

    And since I’m always saying terrible things about James Loney, let me point out that that was some stupendous base running by him in the 9th inning. Didn’t know he had it in him.

    • Anonymous

      Hopefully Loney will finish strong again this year.

  5. Anonymous

    Congrats to Cain on his masterpiece. Thanks to MLB channel for allowing us to witness history. I believe that’s the first perfect game I have ever seen. The Tom Browning game was on the radio as was the Dennis Martinez game. The Martinez one was a perfect game right? I believe Mike Mussina got to within one out before he gave up a hit.

  6. Anonymous

    Back to the disaster that was the 9thlast inning. Why leave Ellis on the base paths? That ball hit to Aybar was not that hard. A faster runner would have made that play close at home.

    •  And yet still been out.

      • Anonymous

        The throw needs to be good. The catcher has to make sure of the catch. Then make the tag and hold onto the ball. If any of those elements fail the runner is safe. I don’t agree with the belief that the runner would have been thrown out, especially a faster one. He may have but maybe also means maybe not. Unfortunately Mattingly didn’t give us the opportunity.

    • why not pinch hit for Uribe? Why not use Abreu after deciding not to pinch hit for Uribe and use a far inferior hitter in Gwynn? And then once you use Gwynn, why not use him and his speed and bunt the ball. Or was the 11 career homeruns, .250 avg and .318OBP to good to pass up?

      • Anonymous

        If anything at least he put the ball in play, which for him is an achievement. The error was the baserunning or more specifically the base runner.

        • well to add to it, maybe they still stop a fast runner at 3b on the loney hit. But maybe then on the Uribe grounder a fast runner goes on contact and forces another good throw, catch, hold the ball and apply the tag. And even if he is out at home there is one out and then we can talk about why using Gwynn vs Abreu. :)

          • Anonymous

            That’ s fine. But between Uribe, Gwynn, and Abreu the ball never left the infield :(

      • Anonymous

        Why wouldn’t you save your one decent bat off the bench for Dee? 

        •  I don’t understand. Wouldn’t you want a guy with 2400 hits who is hitting over .300 this year hitting or a guy with less than 350 career hits who is hitting .265 this year up first?

  7. foul tip

    TN,  with a relatively small population, has not produced very many major leaguers.

    But pitchers with a TN heritage probably never will have a bigger stage than yesterday.

    First, of course, was Cain’s perfecto. He graduated high school in a Memphis suburb.

    Nashville’s RA Dickey’s second career one-hitter v. the Bucs also was a masterpiece, tantamount to a no-no, though the one-hitter ruling almost certainly will stand.

    Dickey (10-1) became MLB’s first 10-game winner and ran his career-best shutout streak to 32 2/3 innings before yielding an unearned run in the 9th. That topped the previous club mark of 31 2/3 innings in a row turned in by Jerry Koosman in 1973.

    Losing pitcher David Price (Murfreesboro)  (8-4), would prefer people not pay much attention to how things went for him yesterday.  Tied for AL wins lead, he gave up a season-high 7 runs on 9 hits in 5+ innings. He walked 3, struck out 8.

    But in former Vanderbilt ace Price’s last 5 outings, he has struck out 50, walked 3. He had been 8-0 in his past 10 starts.

    STATS LLC says the starting pitching matchup was just the second since 1921 to feature the AL and NL wins leaders in the regular season.

    It’d never happen, but those 3 atop some decent team’s starting rotation probably would give it a legit shot at a WS title.

  8. Anonymous

    remember a couple years back since kershaw and lincecum was a push the argument was would you rather have cain or billz?  yea…blah.

  9. foul tip

    Btimmer or other knowledgeable or resourceful DTers–

    Where does the recent 7-3 road trip rank in Dodger history?  The last few years, at least, seems the team has been more Roadkill than Road Warriors.

    And what’s the historical perspective of AJ Ellis’  batting line of  0 0 0 0 4 0 0 Monday  night?

    Personally I’ve never seen that before.  But then I’m a long way from a baseball expert.

    • Anonymous

      First time that’s been done since Ryan Langerhans did it for the Mariners on 4/8/11 against Cleveland. His team lost too. 

      The last Dodger to do it was Bill Mueller on 4/18/2006. Jayson Werth did it the year before.

  10. Anonymous

    Mattingly outmismanaged Scioscia, two out of three. Not hitting Abreu for Uribe borders on managerial malpractice.

  11. Cain’s game has to be one of the top two or three game scores of all-time.

    • Anonymous

      That’s some select company. And also Kerry Woods.

  12. A.J. Ellis is the 201st player since 1918 to have zero AB and four BB in a game.
    http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/Ucz1w

  13. Well, the team is 40-24, and nobody would have believed it had you told them that in the spring. However, Manager Don, heretofore covered in Teflon, is beginning to set my teeth on edge. The lineup construction continues to be non-sensical as Dee Gordon is rammed down our throat as the leadoff hitter day after day after day. Manager Don also continues to give away outs with his borderline obsessive bunting complex…how many rallies has he shot behind the ear by having his 2-hole hitter bunt with nobody out and a man on 1st? Manager Don obviously has the respect of his clubhouse, and there seems to be a high degree of professionalism regarding preparation, etc. These are good things, important things, and I’m not calling for his head by any means. But in terms of game management, get ready for a frustrating tenure.

  14. Anonymous

    What rule was invoked last night when Aybar allowed the ball to roll out of his glove? Why was the dp nullified?

    • Anonymous

       I don’t know the rule number, but if the ball’s intentionally dropped, it’s the umpire’s discretion. If Aybar had let the ball hit the ground first, it would have been OK.

  15. Anonymous

    Why are we giving Mattingly such a hard time about last night?  Most managers do not go to their backup catchers until they absolutely must and with extra innings a likely possiblity with KJ in the 9th, you want to hold onto your hitters.  You can argue that he should bat Abreu for Uribe, I’ll give you that, but maybe he thought they would walk Abreu if he used him there.  Maybe he should have put in Uribe for Gwynn, but then you are stuck with Gordon if they walk Abreu.  Not sure it was so black and white as everybody thinks, and maybe he wants Uribe to get going and is thinking long term it would’ve helped Uribe more to be the one who gets that key RBI.  There’s a lot more to managing than winning this one game.

    •  I agree with this. I didn’t want him to pinch hit for Uribe. I also didn’t want Uribe to bat to be fair. But he’s paid 24 million over 3 seasons and we need his glove at 3b and we need his bat to get going. I do have trouble as mentioned with him using Gwynn before Abreu. Even if they walk Abreu it still forces the angels hand. It’s not easy to walk a batter and then pitch to the next guy with bases loaded. And if they don’t walk him then the better hitter is hitting with less than 2 outs and RISP.

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