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Wednesday, September 08, 2004 |
Robin Ventura, Dodgers 8, Diamondbacks 2
What kind of wacky bench do we have that Robin Ventura can smack one over the fence with the bases juiced? Actual conversation:
The scene is Rob's office. MLB.com Gameday Audio is going. The phone rings.Nomo did okay for himself, his first win since April. He'll provide some interesting fireworks against the Cards, so I'm mentally prepared for the loss. Antonio Perez also came up and got his first hit as a Dodger. Trouble if your name is Alex Cora?
Rob: (Reading caller ID) Hi, honey.
H: Ragglefraggle Expos, ragglefraggle Dusty, ragglefraggle can't bring Sammy out to pinch hit, ragglefraggle Matt Clement, ragglefraggle...
Rob: Ah, hang on a sec, the bases are loaded and Robin Ventura's at bat. He's good with the bases loaded. Holds the major league career lead in grand slams for active players.
Ross Porter: Blah blah yip reet ... fly ball deep ... it's gone! A grand slam for Robin Ventura!
Once Ventura's homer put the game out of reach for the hapless Snakes, the real question here was not on the field, but in the broadcast booth. Eric Davis, as the first installment of several ex-players-and-wannabe-broadcasters, was rocky; he clearly hasn't done this much before. Unfortunately, two points need making here:
- As with baseball, you can't judge a rookie by a single outing.
- But also as with baseball, it helps if you come up and right away make a positive contribution.
Comments:
what makes you think there will be "fireworks" when nomo faces the cardinals? if his shoulder troubles are behind him, i don't see why he would fare any worse than alvarez, weaver, or lima would against a tough team. he did all right against the yankees, if i remember correctly. as long as he's healthy, the man can pitch, and consistently. the fact that he hadn't won since APRIL was because he'd been pictching hurt since april. i think if his fastball's got the velocity, and he's got command of his pitches, and the dodgers score some runs, we could even win. nomo's not an automatic loss. last night's game was very encouraging to me.
-vishal
-vishal
# posted by 
: 9/08/2004 01:28:00 PM
: 9/08/2004 01:28:00 PM
Vishal -- the problem Nomo has is that his fastball velocity still isn't up to the mid-90's he has when he's fully functional. Without that, he can't set up his splitter effectively, without which, he's a dead duck and the hitters can sit on his 88-MPH "fastball" -- and knock him silly. He's back up to 92 on the gun sometimes, but he's nowhere near what he was last year, not consistently. If he gets a quality start Saturday, he oughta get player of the week.
i don't think *any* of the dodger starters, outside of penny, has a mid-90s fastball. i think if nomo can be consistently 88-92 with it and locate it well, he'll do all right. remember, it was when his fastball was topping out at 83-84 and regularly was even slower than that, that he was getting hammered. and compared to then, he's much improved. granted, he hasn't faced much in the way of tough major league hitting since he's come back(AAA and arizona, which is pretty much the same thing as AAA), but his strikeout rate tells me he's fooling a fair number of hitters, and he hasn't been walking very many, aside from that one third inning in phoenix, his first game back... i'm not saying he'll toss 8 shutout innings against st. louis or anything, but i'm not feeling so pessimistic about him.
-vishal
-vishal
# posted by : 9/08/2004 05:12:00 PM
: 9/08/2004 05:12:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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