Atlanta, St. Louis and Pittsburgh are sure doing what they can to keep alive the Dodgers’ hopes of playing past Oct. 3, even if only for one day. But it sure has been an ugly week.
On the bright side, Jaime Jarrin has signed a three-year deal with the Dodgers that will keep him in the broadcast booth for his 55th, 56th and 57th seasons.
Elsewhere …
- I talked Dodgers in this interview with Will Carroll at the Nickel.
- Javy Guerra and Tim Federowicz are expected to be the Dodgers’ first roster-expansion callups today.
- John Ely might not get a callup because of 40-man roster issues, but he was named Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year. He led the league in ERA, WHIP and innings, writes Christopher Jackson of Albuquerque Baseball Examiner.
- Dodger pitching prospect Zach Lee has a 2.27 ERA with eight walks and 29 strikeouts in 39 2/3 innings since July 27 for Double-A Chattanooga.
- Yasiel Puig, Eric Eadington, Red Patterson, Steven Rodriguez, Gorman Erickson, Rafael Ynoa and Joc Pederson will be on the Dodgers’ Arizona Fall League team.
- The life and career of John Roseboro is the subject of Bruce Markusen’s piece at the Hardball Times.
- Former Dodger shortstop Rafael Furcal has a damaged elbow ligament and will miss the rest of 2012. Tommy John surgery is a possibility. Furcal had a .325 on-base percentage and .346 slugging percentage in 531 plate appearances for St. Louis, .276/.278 from May 17 on. He played in 121 of the Cardinals’ first 131 games.
- No one plays third base like Adrian Beltre, writes Tyler Kepner of the New York Times (via Rob Neyer at Baseball Nation).
- San Diego, which began its season 28-50, is 34-21 since – best in the National League West. Jeff Sullivan writes about their resurgence at Fangraphs, while The Associated Press writes about their new O’Malley-led ownership.
Anonymous
I haven’t listened to a lot of Jaime but, on the basis of what I have heard, it astonishes me that someone who immigrated here from a non-baseball country could become the Spanish-language version of Vin. Obviously, he had a great role model, but that’s not enough in its own right.
Linkmeister
I’m poking Mr. Timmermann because it’s so much fun, and besides, my team was the one which got stomped. Notre Dame pounds Navy in Dublin.
Anonymous
Congrats to Jaime. I find myself listening more and more to him. When Vinny isn’t accessible I go to Jaime.
Anonymous
I do too sometimes, but because Spanish is my second language I have to make an effort to listen much more closely. Are you a native speaker?
Anonymous
No I’m a not WBB, but my dad was. So early on it was Jaime on the radio. So I got the Jaime-isms first: despidela con un beso.
Anonymous
¿Con acento ecuatoriano?
Anonymous
No my dad tenía acento tapatio.
Anonymous
Tough break for Raffy. But its something we’ve seen before.
Anonymous
Seeing that Gwynn and Abreu would have been ideal PH for Rivera and Ellis its hard to believe they wouldn’t be called. Of course its still hard to believe we are a better team with our current 25th man on the roster over either of them.
Anonymous
Abreu in particular, as he knows how to work a walk. Gwynn stills gets overpowered at times.
Anonymous
Either one would require an opening on the 40-man roster. Not likely.
Anonymous
Thoughtful article on Roseboro who, in my opinion, went too easy on Marichal. A minor provocation does not justify felony assault with a deadly weapon, for which Marichal ought to have been charged and tried. Marichal, whose pitching I admired, got off light. I hope no such incident ever recurs in baseball but, if it did, I expect the consequences would be far more severe than those imposed on Marichal.
underdog
So Ely *is* getting a call up after all. They’re moving Silverio to the 60 day DL to make room, which makes sense. Surprised they still had that option!
Any cynicism and doubts put aside for a second, I’m happy for Ely. The guy’s had a stellar season in a hitter’s park and league, deserved at least to taste the majors again. As a long reliever or emergency starter it’s not a bad idea to have him around either.The other call ups right now are Guerra, who I have sadly lost some faith in, but will hope for the best–and Tim Fed. who will be good to have around. If nothing else, good to have some more arms around now. Wonder what other position players they’ll call up soon.
Anonymous
They had that option all year, but were avoiding it, likely to prevent Silverio getting the corresponding treatment regarding MLB credit and salary and options.
Anonymous
Now I just hope they let Ely start, instead of Blanton…
Anonymous
Blanton’s last start was pretty good.
Anonymous
It was very good, though the ‘pen tried to give it away.
Anonymous
>> San Diego, which began its season 28-50, is 34-21 since – best in the National League West.
You know, a different team did almost the exact same thing in the NL West last year.
Anonymous
With the Gnats winning, It’s almost now or never today
Anonymous
As I noted in the past few days, Jaime Jarrin gets way too little attention in the English-language media. I hope he’s a superstar in the Spanish-language media.
Can anyone provide a few bullet points to summarize his style? For example, if someone asked me to do so with Vin, I would mention that he does the broadcasts himself, that in major moments he tends to say less rather than more, that it is difficult to tell which team he’s broadcasting for (the opposite of “homerism”), and that all of these characteristics are extremely unusual for most sportscasters. I’d love to hear more about Jarrin.
Nick Arden
I’ve never understood a word Jarrin has said so I can’t help you.
Anonymous
Jaime Jarrin is very popular among Dodger fans. His style is somewhat like Vin’s, but he’s also successfully crafted his own voice. When he came to the U.S., he did not know baseball, but spent 1958 listening to all of Vin’s broadcasts. He mostly mimicked Vin for a while.
Eventually, he became more comfortable and developed his own style and catch phrases. If you are learning Spanish, he is great to listen to because he has extremely good diction. His voice is very precise and polished.
Jarrin is also from Ecuador, which gives him an accent that is different than most Spanish speakers out here in L.A.
Anonymous
Thanks!
I wonder if it’s possible to listen to him on the internet (since I’m not in Southern California)…
Anonymous
You can hear him through MLB’s radio arm.
Anonymous
Here’s a name from the 2012 draft that’s new to me. 15th-round pick Duke von Schamann was just promoted from Great Lakes to Chattanooga, where he won his first start. So far this year, the 21-year-old doesn’t have a huge number of K’s, but he also doesn’t walk many.
http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120831&content_id=37686298
Anonymous
Programming note for those in the States outside the Southland: Tonight’s game will be shown on the MLB Network.
Anonymous
The Braves are behind today and the Cardinals have fallen behind Washington again in a seesaw game.
Anonymous
All of a tragic sudden the wild card is important :(
Jon Weisman
NPUT
Anonymous
http://www.dodgerthoughts.com/2012/09/01/september-1-game-chat