June 2014 – Page 5 – Dodger Thoughts

On June 10, 2014

In Uncategorized

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Clayton Kershaw on A.J. Ellis: “Who could have thought his vertical jump was high enough to hurt his ankle on that catcher’s mask?”

— Jon Weisman

Remembering Bob Welch, 1956-2014

On June 10, 2014

In Farewells, History

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By Jon Weisman

Bob Welch was much more than a single strikeout of Reggie Jackson.

He pitched three one-hitters; I was at one of them, a 15-year-old trying to explain to the people he was with why the game was special. He pitched a shutout against the Reds in 1983 and homered off Mario Soto for the only run of the game. He had a 3.14 career ERA with the Dodgers, then moved on to Oakland and had a Cy Young Award-winning season when he won 27 games. After retiring, he became the pitching coach for the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, who won the World Series.

He was also someone who shared his personal life and battle with addiction in the book, “Five O’Clock Comes Early,” and as recently as this year, he was sharing difficult details of his life so that it might be of help to others.

It was hard not to be a fan of Welch, long after he faced down Jackson from 60 feet, six inches away.

Nevertheless, that strikeout looms so large in the legacy of Welch, who has passed away at the age of 57. Before Jose Lima, before Orel Hershiser, before Jerry Reuss, before anyone, it might be the singular postseason pitching moment in my lifetime of following the Dodgers.

Here’s my chapter on that event, from 100 Things Dodgers …

Let’s tweet about @ScottVanSlick

In Postgame

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Van Slyke makes the catch next to Puig at the CF wall, and the pair then race each other back to the dugout.

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) June 10, 2014

Scott Van Slyke @ScottVanSlick has six homers in 71 at-bats off three pitchers in 2014.

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) June 10, 2014

Van Slyke’s six 2014 home runs have come in five different time zones.

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) June 10, 2014

Scott Van Slyke has the Dodgers’ first 3 3 3 4 day since Kevin Elster christened the Giants’ new ballpark in 2000. http://t.co/a7VpeJOKqr

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) June 10, 2014

Van Slyke was 270 feet away from the first 3 4 3 4 day in #Dodgers history (going back to at least 1914).

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) June 10, 2014

Dodgers 6, Reds 2

– Jon Weisman

Puig strong in latest NL All-Star ballot tally

In Uncategorized

By Jon Weisman

Yasiel Puig has widened his lead among outfielders in the latest National League All-Star balloting update.

Puig is now more than 200,000 votes ahead of second-palce Giancarlo Stanton and nearly 300,000 ahead of the next two outfielders, Carlos Gomez and Andrew McCutchen. Only Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowtizki has more NL votes than Puig.

The 23-year-old right fielder was out of the money when the initial tallies came in, but then surged to first place by about 50,000 votes last week.

Fans looking to see Puig start the game shouldn’t become complacent, however, as the voting can shift dramatically week to week.

Meanwhile, Adrian Gonzalez remains in first place among first basemen despite a 1-for-26 start to June, but Paul Goldschmidt is coming on. The Arizona slugger, who a week ago was in fourth place and more than 150,000 votes behind Gonzalez, has eliminated about a third of that deficit.

Dee Gordon, Juan Uribe and Hanley Ramirez all rank the same as last week. Gordon has increased his margin over Brandon Phillips of Cincinnati, but the Pirates’ Neil Walker reduced his gap from 165,000 votes to 121,000.

Two weeks ago, David Wright and Uribe were nearly even in third and fourth place among third basemen. But while Uribe has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, Wright has zoomed to the lead.

Who played first when Garvey didn’t?

In Pregame, Uncategorized

Dodgers at Reds, 4:10 p.m.
Chone Figgins, 2B
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Yasiel Puig, RF
Matt Kemp, LF
Scott Van Slyke, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
Jamie Romak, 1B
Tim Federowicz, C
Dan Haren, P

By Jon Weisman
Jamie Romak gets a surprising start at first base today at Cincinnati, as the Dodgers rest slumping Adrian Gonzalez, while keeping Scott Van Slyke in center field ahead of Andre Ethier.

Gonzalez has been such a mainstay at first base since coming over from Boston, and Van Slyke such a logical understudy, that you just don’t expect to see someone like Romak there. It got me wondering about other rare cameos at first base for the Dodgers — in particular, when Steve Garvey was around.

Garvey played nearly every game at first base for the Dodgers from 1974-82, but not every inning. Here’s who backed him up.

1974: Bill Buckner went 7 for 21 in six games at first base, while Gail Hopkins went 0 for 4 in two games and Tom Paciorek added two innings.
1975: Ken McMullen went 4 for 10 with a triple in three games, including starts on September 1 and 2.
1976: Garvey played all but six innings this year. On May 7, he was hit by a pitch in the eighth inning, and John Hale pinch-ran. Buckner moved over from left field to play first, and grounded out in the top of the ninth. Ed Goodson also played four defensive innings across three games.
1977: Four different subsitutes — Boog Powell (2 for 5 with a walk in four games), Ed Goodson (1 for 8 with a walk in five games), Rick Monday (0 for 5 in five games) and Joe Simpson (0 for 1). Goodson started on May 28, Powell on August 15.
1978: Garvey started alll 162 games, but it was a nice year for the backups. Pedro Guerrero went 4 for 7 with a triple in three games, Monday 1 for 3 and Vic Davalillo 1 for 1.
1979: Guerrero went 3 for 14 in eight games and became the first first baseman besides Garvey to homer since 1973. It was a late-September game that Garvey departed after two innings. Derrel Thomas and Gary Thomasson each got an inning at first base; Thomas went 0 for 1 at the plate.
1980: Guerrero sizzled at first base, going 3 for 4, while Thomasson struck out in his only at-bat as a first baseman. The 43-year-old Davalillo also picked up an inning in the last defensive appearance of his career.
1981: The Dodgers’ title year saw Mike Marshall, Jay Johnstone and Reggie Smith each go 1 for 4 at first base, while Guerrero went 0 for 1.
1982: In the final season before Garvey departed for San Diego, Marshall got the most playing time of anyone else at the position since 1973, going 8 for 28 with two homers and five walks. Monday went 2 for 10, and Garvey’s initial successor, Greg Brock, 0 for 4.

Innings by Dodger first basemen, 1974-82
Steve Garvey: 12,346 1/3 out of 12,724 1/3 (97.0 percent)
Mike Marshall: 90
Pedro Guerrero: 66
Bill Buckner: 49
Rick Monday: 44
Ed Goodson: 35
Ken McMullen: 19
Boog Powell: 15
Jay Johnstone: 13
Reggie Smith: 13
Gail Hopkins: 12
Greg Brock: 8 2/3
Vic Davalillo: 5 1/3
Gary Thomasson: 3
Tom Paciorek: 2
Joe Simpson: 2
Derrel Thomas: 1

* * *

Some trivia from Sunday’s game:

Jamie Romak and Miguel Rojas became the first Dodgers to get their first MLB hits back to back since Wilkin Ruan and David Ross in Arizona on September 2, 2002, noted SportsNet LA. Ross later hit a home run off Mark Grace in that game.
The Dodgers had their shortest victory since May 1, 1983 in Chicago, and their shortest complete game by a pitcher since Nick Willhite against the Mets on June 7, 1964 — 50 years and one day earlier. Via Dodgers PR.
Clayton Kershaw “is the only pitcher in baseball dating back to at least 1914 with four consecutive starts with exactly nine strikeouts,” notes Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.

Jewish Community Day at Dodger Stadium on June 29

In Promotions, Tickets

The 15th Annual Jewish Community Day at Dodger Stadium will take place June 29, when the Dodgers take on the St. Louis Cardinals at 1:10 p.m.

The Dodgers are offering a special ticket package, which includes a voucher for a Dodgers-in-Hebrew baseball cap and a ticket to the game in the Reserve MVP or Preferred Reserve. The game also features a Kids’ Adrian Gonzalez Replica Jersey giveaway to the first 15,000 ticketed fans 14 and under in attendance.

Kosher food will be available to fans in the Left Field Reserve section, including kosher dogs, jalapeno kosher dogs and Italian beef sausages.

A limited number of tickets for Jewish Community Day are still available and can be purchased at www.dodgers.com/jewish or by calling 323-224-1421. In order to receive the commemorative item, fans must purchase the ticket package through the website by June 20.

— Emily Nuckols

Here we are again: 9 1/2 games behind in the NL West

On June 8, 2014

In Health/injuries, Pregame

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Dodgers at Rockies, 1:10 p.m.
Kershaw CXC: Kershawll the Right Moves
Chone Figgins, 2B
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, LF
Scott Van Slyke, CF
Jamie Romak, RF
Miguel Rojas, 3B
Drew Butera, C
Clayton Kershaw, P

By Jon Weisman

And there it is: 9 1/2 games.

In two contests decided by the final swing Saturday, the Dodgers lost and the Giants won, pushing the Dodger 9 1/2 games back in the National League West and matching their largest deficit in the 2013 season.

In addition to this moment coming two weeks earlier this year than last, there are two key differences. One is that unlike the 2013 Diamondbacks, who were seven games over .500 at the time, the Giants are roaring: 20 games over .500, 30-11 (.731) in their past 41 games.

The other is that unlike the 2013 Dodgers, who were 12 1/2 games behind in the wild-card race when they hit rock bottom, this year’s team is only a half-game behind Washington and Miami.

There is a growing similarity between this year’s and last year’s Dodgers, however, and that’s injuries. While the hip problems that developed Saturday for Dee Gordon and Yasiel Puig might not be serious, it’s becoming harder to find Dodgers who have escaped the trainer’s room. Already, pitchers Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brian Wilson have missed significant time. So have outfielder Carl Crawford, third baseman Juan Uribe and catcher A.J. Ellis, not to mention second baseman Alex Guerrero, who you expect would be with the Dodgers by now if he weren’t still recovering from his ear bite.

Saturday could have been a rousing day for Los Angeles: a four-run, seventh-inning comeback, capped by Tim Federowicz’s three-run home run, combined with a Giants loss. Instead, the Dodgers are as far back as they’ve been in 50 weeks, and try to fight back today with only five regular starters in the nine positions of today’s lineup.

Maury Wills’ advantage over Dee Gordon

On June 7, 2014

In History, Pregame

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Dodgers at Rockies, 1:10 p.m.
Dee Gordon, 2B
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, LF
Andre Ethier, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
Tim Federowicz, C
Zack Greinke, P

By Jon Weisman

Dee Gordon is on pace for 93 steals and has an outside shot at Maury Wills’ team record of 104, but Wills ended up with an edge that Gordon won’t have.

Because the Dodgers played in a three-game playoff with the Giants that counted in the 1962 NL regular-season standings – and because Wills was an iron man that year – Wills played in 165 games in his record-setting season.

Wills stole four bases in those extra three games, with three of the steals coming in game 165, when he went 4 for 5 in the Dodgers’ ill-fated, thank-goodness-Twitter-didn’t-exist, 6-4 loss to San Francisco.

Wills scored the Dodgers’ final run of 1962 in classic fashion: he singled to left, stole second, stole third and came home on a throwing error by Giants catcher Ed Bailey.

MauryWills.com

That gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead, which they took to the ninth before they allowed four crushing runs.

Dodgers replace Arruebarrena with Rojas

In Pregame, Transactions

Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Dodgers at Rockies, 5:40 p.m.
Dee Gordon, 2B
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, LF
Andre Ethier, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
Drew Butera, C
Hyun-Jin Ryu, P

By Jon Weisman

The Dodgers have called up Miguel Rojas and optioned Erisbel Arruebarrena, in a move no doubt partly designed to allow Arruebarrena to continue his development.

Arruebarrena went 4 for 13 with a double, walk and .742 OPS in four starts for the Dodgers, subbing in when Hanley Ramirez was sidelined, but had played only four innings with no plate appearances in the Dodgers’ nine games since May 26.

Yasiel Puig, do you wanna build a snowman?

In Uncategorized

By Josh Tucker

By now, you know Yasiel Puig is a big kid – he loves toys, teddy bears, and minions. Puig really likes minions.

Anyway, the Dodgers landed in Colorado last night, and the first thing on Puig’s itinerary was to find and play with snow. So this morning, he took an adventure to the mountains — and without further ado, here is video of Puig building a snow castle:

It turns out, Yasiel Puig was building a giant “L.A.” because he loves you. Watch:

Clayton Jansen and Kenley Kershaw

In Humor, Pitching

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Hard not to love these moments of Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen impersonating each other. Video via Dodgerfilms, aka Bobby Crosby, who was profiled in the May issue of Dodger Insider magazine.

— Jon Weisman

The Dodgers’ second-round pick: Alex Verdugo

In Draft

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The Dodgers took two-way player Alex Verdugo from Sahuaro High School with plans to start the 6-foot, 200-pounder in the outfield.

Here’s the report from MLB.com:

Vin Scully remembers D-Day

In History

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Spoken on June 6, 2013.

– Jon Weisman

Logan White talks about Dodger first-round pick Grant Holmes