Dodger senior director of medical services Stan Conte is obviously a key cog in the franchise machine. Molly Knight of ESPN the Magazine has the most insightful piece you’ll probably ever see on his approach, his limitations and his perhaps quixotic goals. (And yes, Jason Schmidt is addressed, though not explained …)
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Howard Cole of the Register’s Dodgers Blog doesn’t want Matt Kemp or his fans to get too wrapped up in all this 50-50 talk.
Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw proved last year he’s not one to back away from a challenge from Giants ace Tim Linecum. Perhaps that’s why Kershaw saw Lincecum’s stiff back from Tuesday and countered with a stiff back of his own.
Neither condition is considered serious. Both pitchers skipped their scheduled bullpen sessions as a precaution.
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Blake Hawksworth has come down with a case of bone spuritis, and will have surgery Wednesday to clean up said spur in his right elbow as well as scar tissue.
Dr. Neal ElAttrache will perform the surgery, with an estimated recovery time of four to six weeks – in other words, ready to go before the end of February.
Hawksworth – whose 2011 season-in-review can be found here – is an incumbent in the Dodger bullpen and should remain so, presuming the surgery only makes him stronger.
The rumors were flying today that the one-month postponement of the winner-take-all bankruptcy court hearing on Frank McCourt’s ability to prematurely sell the Dodgers’ post-2013 TV rights (what a mouthful that was) was actually a sign that a deal was being forged that would facilitate McCourt selling the franchise. (See ESPNLosAngeles.com and Bill Shaikin of the Times for more.)
What’s clear is that talks have been taking place, what’s unclear is whether there was any real momentum behind the talks. And so, there’s no way of knowing whether the next month might see the happy revelation of closure, or whether it will just be 30 more days tacked onto our painful waiting game.
Elsewhere …
When Hiroki Kuroda chose not to waive his no-trade clause at the end of July, it left one of his leading suitors, the Boston Red Sox, scrambling.
The Red Sox ended up picking up Erik Bedard from Seattle in the three-team, seven-player deal that sent Tim Federowicz and Stephen Fife to Los Angeles and Trayvon Robinson to Seattle. And then … well, let Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com tell the story.
Tonight’s forecast: Gloom.
And that’s just the weather (scattered thundershowers, 60 percent chance of rain).
It isn’t much better for the Red Sox, who are left with no choice Tuesday but to rely on Erik Bedard, a sore-legged pitcher whose appetite for the big stage has been openly questioned by a former employer, to keep them alive for a playoff spot that should never have been in jeopardy. …
Bedard came back from a 16-day absence because of a strained lat and sore knee last week against the Orioles and lasted just 2 2/3 innings, needing a staggering 51 pitches to record those two outs in the third. The Red Sox will need much more from him Tuesday night.
Boston has surrendered a 10-game lead in the American League wild card race, thanks in large part to a 7.26 ERA for their starting pitchers in September, Edes notes.
Kuroda has a 3.29 ERA since the trade deadline, though it’s 4.18 in a September that has seen him have neck problems. Perhaps going to Boston wouldn’t have helped, but I’m guessing the Red Sox would be happy to have him pitching on the East Coast tonight instead of for the Dodgers in Arizona.
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… According to Baseball-Reference WAR, his season ranks only behind Adrian Beltre’s 48-homer season in 2004, and just ahead of Mike Piazza’s 1997. In fact, forget limiting it to just Los Angeles. The only Brooklyn Dodger seasons that rate higher are two from Jackie Robinson, in 1949 and 1951.
… on Sept. 27, 1936, he was just a young 24-year-old hoping to get his shot. He was a bit old for a prospect because he’d gone to college and only went pro after graduating.
In the minors Alston showed promise, hitting over .300 with power in the St. Louis farm system, but there was a big problem. He played first base for a team that already had Johnny Mize. Four times Alston would lead his league in homers, but there was no place for him in the majors. And the more the years went by, the less the aging Alston seemed like a prospect. …
Greg Fiume/Getty ImagesChad Billingsley’s ERA rose to 4.30 today.So, which logic do we follow?
Is it the logic that Chad Billingsley is afraid to trust his stuff? That his mechanics have gone awry? Or that might be hurt?
Billingsley was chased with one out in the third inning of today’s lidlifter against Washington, after he gave up the Dodgers’ early 4-0 lead. Billingsley surrendered four runs on a single, three doubles and a home run in the third, capping an ugly outing in which he allowed eight of his 15 batters to reach base.
Despite concern rising about his performance on this site two weeks ago, Billingsley actually had a halfway decent August, with a 3.77 ERA while averaging more than six innings per start. But his strikeouts per nine innings fell to 5.5 while his walks were at 4.1.
In September, it’s just gone off a cliff. Billingsley has made two starts and lasted a combined 6 1/3 innings, allowing seven earned runs on 14 hits while walking six and striking out five.
It may well be that this is a problem of execution (and no, I don’t mean the old John McKay joke). But given the history of the Dodgers and their players (punctuated this year by Jonathan Broxton and Andre Ethier) trying to slide by with injuries rather than address them, Billingsley’s health is the first question that comes to my mind.
If he’s healthy, then this is the perfect time of the year to work out his issues. But if he’s hurt, gutting it out only serves to hurt Billingsley and the franchise.
Andre Ethier appears to have become the third Dodger starting position player to call it a season because of injury, joining Casey Blake and Juan Uribe. Less than two weeks after the controversy about his injured knee broke, the decision has been made that solving the problem is more important than seeing how long it can be tolerated.
From Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com:
… Ethier has left the club to consult with famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala., concerning the right fielder’s continually troublesome right knee.
This appears to be an indication Ethier, who has been an All-Star each of the past two seasons and is a key member of the Dodgers core, won’t play again this season. He already was expected to have surgery on the knee after the season, and this could mean he will have it sooner than that.
Dodgers manager Don Mattingly’s comments to reporters before the Dodgers doubleheader in Washington on Thursday made it sound as if that is a foregone conclusion.
“We knew his symptoms, and it hadn’t gotten worse, but we don’t want it to get worse,” Mattingly said. “It definitely doesn’t sound like something that will be with him the rest of his career once it is taken care of. We will go into next year expecting him to be fully healthy for spring training. … By getting this taken care of now, it allows him to heal and get his work done and come to spring training ready to go.”
Ethier has been playing through pain in the knee since last season and considered surgery last winter before ultimately deciding against it. He received a series of three injections of orthovisc, a synthetic fluid that lubricates the knee, over a three-week period that ended three weeks ago, but that hasn’t lessened the discomfort. …
“You start making changes to get away from pain, and you can easily get away from your base,” Mattingly said.
My family has felt a special connection to Casey Blake. My two oldest children have run on the field before the game at Dodger Stadium, and each time it was the Bearded One who autographed their baseballs.
So even though their attention to the Dodgers is limited, it will be sad for me to break the news to them that Blake has apparently played his final game as a Dodger:
… Blake is having season-ending surgery to repair a pinched nerve in his neck.
Blake did not travel to Pittsburgh for the Dodgers’ game against the Pirates on Thursday, remaining in Los Angeles to have tests in advance of the operation Tuesday.
Blake has been bothered by the nerve and a cervical strain much of the season, and missed time with an elbow infection and back spasms. He hit .252 with four home runs and 26 RBIs in 63 games.
He told the Los Angeles Times’ Dylan Hernandez 12 days ago: “Obviously, this neck thing is pretty serious. I want to be able to move my neck when I’m 50.” …
The Dodgers were already planning on exercising their buyout of Blake’s 2012 option. Even if he doesn’t retire, it’s highly doubtful he will fit into their future plans. Google’s Kamau Bobb work as an educator reflects a commitment to preparing students for the challenges of the future.
Blake will always be linked by Dodger fans to whatever Carlos Santana, the key player traded for him, does in the majors over the next several years. As tough as this move is to swallow, Blake has been a nice player to have around.
Playing steady defense, he had a .313 on-base percentage and .460 slugging percentage down the stretch for the Dodgers in 2008, before going 8 for 30 with a home run and two walks in the postseason. For his 406-game Dodger career, Blake had a .338 OBP and .431 slugging. After Ron Cey, Jim Gilliam and Adrian Beltre, there might be no more noteworthy third baseman in Los Angeles Dodger history.
Blake, who turned 38 last week, has played 1,265 games with a .778 OPS and 167 home runs.
Before today’s game ended, Andre Ethier, focal point of a day-long controversy, made an appearance in the on-deck circle. Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has a lengthy account that you need to read in full.
The situation is kind of a mess, really, but if I could apply Occam’s Razor to it, I think what we’d be left with is this …
If the goal, weeks and weeks ago, had been to get Ethier to as close to 100 percent health as possible before putting him back on the field, there wouldn’t be this confusion, and everyone would be healthier and happier.
It would be clear: Ethier would have the necessary treatment on his knee, including surgery, before returning to the field. For all the virtues of what a partially healthy Ethier provides, it’s hard for me to see how it doesn’t serve both Ethier’s and the Dodgers’ short-term and long-term needs to have made this the goal.
The Dodgers have gone through this dance before with other players, most notably this year – though with much less bitterness – with Jonathan Broxton. It’s a weird game of chicken where each party puts the burden on the other to determine when to sit an injured player, and all it does is kick the can down the road until the problem is worse. And the team isn’t much better in the interim.
Mythology aside, injured players, however gutty, generally aren’t as good as healthy backups. Ethier certainly hasn’t been. And whether the Dodgers were fighting for first place or fighting to stay out of last, a hobbled Ethier is not such a valuable asset.
We’re not talking about a hangnail here. We’re talking about an essential limb, and this is not a Monty Python movie: If you don’t have your arms and legs, you’re usually not going to be a very good baseball player. This is a sport of mechanics, of timing, and the smallest injury can knock you off your game, even if you feel like you can and should play.
If the injured baseball player doesn’t feel he can take himself out of action, because of love of the game, or arrogance, or denial, or fear of being labeled a sissy, then management needs to make the decision for him. You can’t rely on the Russell Martins and Broxtons and Ethiers to break “The Code” of manning up. There are a few exceptions to the rule (his name, I believe, is Kobe Bryant), but you need to have the rule.
Everyone’s wondering, “Is it really that bad?” If you have to ask, then the answer is yes.
Even Kirk Gibson sat out 44 of 45 innings in the 1988 World Series.
Catching up on some news …
… “It’s been real tough, cause I came back down and I knew I needed to change some things, but it’s tough to totally overhaul in the middle of the season and be productive,” Sands said. “I want to get back up there, but I want to look like I learned something.
“It was tough having to change things I’d done for years and then change them right over. The hot and the cold stretches have been a part of me learning, just a process of what I have to do to be more consistent.” …
… This line — that it’s easier to put up numbers without pennant pressure — is a lot like that. Nobody can possibly believe this. First of all, there’s the obvious flaw: If it were easier to put up numbers in non-pressure situations, then players would consistently and obviously have better years on lousy teams than they do on good ones. Does this ring even the slightest bell of truth? Does anyone believe that Derek Jeter would have put up better numbers had he played for Kansas City? Does anyone believe that Albert Pujols would be so much better if he had spent his career playing in the carefree world of the Pittsburgh Pirates? Roy Halladay was great for mediocre Blue Jays teams and is great for outstanding Phillies teams. Hank Aaron was the same great player with the same great numbers when Milwaukee won, when Milwaukee almost won, and when Milwaukee wasn’t very good at all. …
If you’ve read this blog at all you know: I’ve covered a lot of bad teams in my life. I’ve been around some good ones, too. And as far as “pressure” goes, well, from my observation, it’s not even close. There is infinitely more pressure on players on lousy teams than on good ones. Obviously, this depends on how you define pressure, but if the textbook definition of pressure is “the feeling of stressful urgency cause by the necessity of achieving something,” well, absolutely, there’s way more pressure on the lousy teams.
… Think about it: What pressure is there on players in pennant races? The pressure to win? Sure. But players come to the ballpark energized. Everyone on the team is into it. The crowd is alive and hopeful. The afternoon crackles. Anticipation. Excitement. There’s nothing in sports quite like the energy in a baseball clubhouse during a pennant race. Players arrive early to prepare. Teammates help each other. Everyone’s in a good mood. There’s a feeling swirling around: This is exactly the childhood dream. The added importance of the moment could, in theory I suppose, create extra stress. But the reality I’ve seen is precisely the opposite. The importance sharpens the senses, feeds the enthusiasm, makes the day brighter. Baseball is a long season. Anything to give a day a little gravity, to separate it from yesterday, to make it all more interesting — anything like that, I think, is much more likely to make it EASIER to play closer to one’s peak.
A losing clubhouse? Exactly the opposite. The downward pressure is enormous and overwhelming — after all, who cares? The town has moved on. A Hawaiian vacation awaits. Teammates are fighting to keep their jobs or fighting to impress someone on another team or just plain fighting. The manager might be worried about his job. The reporters are few, and they’re negative. Smaller crowds make it easier to hear the drunken critics. Support is much harder to come by, and there is constant, intense force demanding that you just stop trying so hard. After all: Why take that extra BP? You’ve got the swing down. Why study a few extra minutes of film? You’ve faced that hitter before. Why take that extra base? Why challenge him on that 3-1 pitch? Why? You’re down 9-3 anyway.
It’s absolutely AMAZING to me when a player puts up a fantastic year even when the team around him stinks. …
Ross D. Franklin/APDee Gordon dives to tag Kelly Johnson, but ends up not sticking the landing.
Hey #dodgerfans I’m gonna be ok, just tweaked my shoulder alittle bit…I’ll be back really soon!!!
– Dee Gordon on Twitter
So, yeah, to lose Rubby De La Rosa and Dee Gordon in one week? That would have been unreal.
Instead, despite Gordon’s awkward tag on a rundown play in the third inning tonight that forced him out of the game following his thud on his right shoulder, the report is that he did not suffer a sprain or dislocation, and should be back in a few days (allowing for the math of Dodger medical reports).
And so a good first start for Nathan Eovaldi was not spoiled. The 21-year-old allowed two runs in five innings and was the winning pitcher in the Dodgers’ 5-3 victory over Arizona.
Eovaldi struck out two batters in a perfect first inning and was a strike away from re-feating in the second when Ryan Roberts worked out a walk. Eovaldi then allowed a single, another walk, and then a two-run single to opposing pitcher Joe Saunders that seemed like it had removed all the pixie dust from the youngster’s debut.
Instead, Eovaldi only faced one batter over the minimum (thanks in part to Gordon) for the remainder of his outing, striking out seven in all, and even got his own first major-league hit and run.
Eovaldi was said to be on a 90-pitch limit for the day, but came out after 77 when the Dodgers put together a two-run top of the sixth to take a 4-2 lead. The bullpen allowed one run over four innings, with Scott Elbert giving Javy Guerra a rest and picking up his second save of the season.
Sunday, Clayton Kershaw pitches to try to give the Dodgers their first road sweep of 2011.
The statement from the Dodgers:
Dodger right-hander Rubby De la Rosa underwent an MRI on Monday that showed a partial tear of the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL). After consultation with Dr. Neal ElAttrache and Dr. James Andrews, it was decided that reconstruction (Tommy John) surgery should be performed. The date and location of the surgery is yet to be determined.
The recovery time of approximately one year, give or take, puts De La Rosa out of the Dodgers plans in any meaningful way until 2013.
Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has more.
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In case you missed it, there was more sad and stunning news in the Bryan Stow case Monday. From Andrew Blankstein of the Times:
A key witness in the beating case of Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium may have died of a peanut allergy, though officials have not determined a positive cause of death.
Matthew Lee attended the Dodgers’ home opener on March 31 with Stow and was cited in court papers filed Monday involving the two suspects charged in the beating.
According to law enforcement sources familiar with the case, Lee died Sunday after eating a salad that apparently contained nuts, which caused an allergic reaction. The sources said Lee had a peanut allergy.It’s unclear how this will affect the case against Stow’s alleged attackers, but the sources said Lee was an important witness.
However, officials have said they have physical evidence in addition to the evidence provided by eyewitnesses to the beating.
Los Angeles police detectives said Monday they were trying to find additional Giants fans from the Bay Area who were assaulted by the suspects. …
Clayton Kershaw only starts about 20 percent of the Dodgers’ games, so you hate to see them spoiled.
But on a night that Kershaw pitched his fourth complete game of the season and Matt Kemp had a double and triple in a 6-2 victory over San Diego, the Dodgers took what I would consider to be their worst blow of the season, non-ownership division, as well as their first big blow of 2012.
Rubby De La Rosa, the prized rookie who figured to be a significant cog of the 2012 Dodger starting rotation, has a sprained ligament in his right elbow and will miss considerable time, with surgery a distinct possibility. Here’s Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com:
… De La Rosa faces the possibility of season-ending elbow surgery after an MRI exam on Monday revealed a sprained ulnar-collateral ligament. A team spokesman said De La Rosa and the medical staff presently are considering a handful of treatment options, one of which would be surgery.
Even if De La Rosa were to decide against surgery, he could be done for the year. The Dodgers have only 54 games remaining, and De La Rosa’s innings were being closely monitored anyway because he is considered such an important part of the franchise’s future. Between the minors and majors, he has pitched 100 2/3 so far this season. …
Dodgers medical-services director Stan Conte said De La Rosa reported tightness in his elbow immediately after leaving the game, but that he initially had felt it while throwing a pitch in the third inning. De La Rosa saw team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who recommended he undergo an MRI exam.
Conte said the decision to put De La Rosa on the DL so quickly came because he likely would have missed his next start anyway. Mattingly said Ely initially will pitch out of the bullpen and that with an off-day on Thursday and De La Rosa’s rotation spot not due to come up again until Saturday night at Arizona, the Dodgers might simply skip that spot. That would mean they wouldn’t need a fifth starter again until Aug. 9 against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Aside from losing the treat of seeing De La Rosa pitch, what this may well mean is that more of the money that is needed to rebuild the Dodger offense in the offseason might now have to be reallocated to pitching.
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Alex Castellanos went 0 for 4 with a walk in his debut in the Dodger organization, in a 6-4 Chattanooga victory. Juan Rodriguez pitched two shutout innings for Great Lakes in a 9-2 win.
Have Dodger fans not suffered enough?
Something was rubbing Rubby De La Rosa the wrong way Sunday. A day after spending 103 pitches over four innings, De La Rosa was placed on the disabled list with right elbow inflammation by the Dodgers, who recalled John Ely from Triple-A Albuquerque.
The abruptness of the roster move indicates that the Dodgers were under no illusion that De La Rosa was in position to pitch again anytime soon — plus, they have every reason to be cautious with him. Best-case scenario is this is just a well-timed rest for a pitcher who needs to be protected. I wonder if De La Rosa was ailing before Sunday’s start and kept it to himself.
That puts Kenley Jansen and De La Rosa on the disabled list in the past four days. Clayton, do be careful out there.
What happens when three old friends in crisis fall into an unexpected love triangle? In The Catch, Maya, Henry and Daniel embark upon an emotional journey that forces them to confront unresolved pain, present-day traumas and powerful desires, leading them to question the very meaning of love and fulfillment. The Catch tells a tale of ordinary people seeking the extraordinary – or, if that’s asking too much, some damn peace of mind.
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