6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

After today's horrible outing by the Angels, I needed something to make the day worthwhile. That was no small task, given that I had busied myself simultaneously with replacing the bathroom lavatory faucet, covering my hands and forearms in sewage, so from that point of view, the day wasn't really getting better. Earlier, too, the microwave gave up the ghost with a loud, electric SNAPP! that you just don't want to hear in a household appliance, so we had to replace that. At fifteen years old, it's paid its dues, and retirement beckoned.

So the Dodgers came through, but it was the Rocks that shocked me to some degree. Joe Kennedy, who tossed 51 pitches to get through the first four innings, suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed in the fifth to give up five runs, three on an unexpected Jason Repko home run. There was a dialogue in our living room that went something like this: I was sitting peaceably in the living room explaining to my wife how Kennedy is one of the majors underrated pitchers (he owns the Rockies' franchise best single-season ERA of 3.66), when up comes Repko. They flash Repko's stats again -- .238/.333/.476 before tonight's game -- just after Izturis singled, and something like the following ensued:

Rob: Kennedy's one of the underrated pitchers in the majors -- he's better than that 8.18 ERA up there.
Helen: Are you sure? He is pitching in Colorado, you know.
Rob: Yeah, he put up great numbers last year. It's just early season flukiness.
Rob: Damn, Tracy screwed up batting Repko second. He should be batting sixth or seventh.
Helen: (Repko knocks a homer into the bleachers.) Wow, bet you're glad he's hitting second today!

And, yes, I am glad, but I would like to know what kind of ganja Tracy was smoking to put the weak-hitting Repko so high in the batting order. He scares me, and I really can't wait for Werth to come back.

Byun-Hyun Kim, a sad tale if ever there was one, doesn't look like he's learned that much after knocking around Boston for two years. Two walks in two outs and a wild pitch scoring a run isn't the kind of performance that encourages anyone to think the Rocks will pull their club out from its long run of awfulness.

On the other hand: Clint Barmes is just spectacular, and his .410 April gives a sign of spring to a Rockies farm system that may be one of the most underrated in baseball. (Baseball America ranked them sixth best in the 2005 Prospect Handbook.) He fields easily, and so far his hitting is simply phenominal. Todd Helton, despite a slow start, can be counted on to recover, and Preston Wilson is a good player, too. You can see signs of the Rocks starting, slowly, to recover from their bottom-dwelling.

Meantime, in San Diego, Brian Lawrence 2-hit the Snakes, beating Arizona 2-0, and extending the Dodgers' lead in the division to a game and a half. The Giants, in Pittsburgh, beat the Pirates 7-6 behind Noah Lowry. Lowry, whose second turn through the majors isn't going as smoothly as his freshman year, now sports a 5.60 ERA, giving up four earned runs, three walks, and two strikeouts in 4.1 innings, disqualifying him for the win, which went to reliever Tyler Walker. The Giants are now 3.0 games back of the Dodgers, and have won five of their last eight games, when Moises Alou returned to the lineup. Of course, that includes three-game series with Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, so it's not exactly convincing.

Aside from Lowry's frightful appearance (how can you not strike out the Pirates?), the Giants figured the surest path to victory was to not expose the other team to any one bullpen pitcher too long. Hence, a total of eight Giant pitchers ascended the mound, surrendering a grand total of two earned runs. (Aside: did anyone else note when former Angel Al Levine joined the Giants?) Still, you have to beat the bad teams to contend, and that they did -- barely. Minus Bonds, and still only three out? It's not a great position to be in, but Giants fans shouldn't be panicking, either.

Finally: Wilson Alvarez is ready to return, and might make it back as early as tomorrow.

Recap

This is so beyond just missing a couple bats.

This is about missing an entire team.

The Twins are just mowing down Angels today, and Kelvim Escobar, though he might be Superman at home, has found his kryptonite: Astroturf.

Arte's buying the wrong players, overpaying for Orlando Cabrera (who isn't hitting), and El Ladrón, who will never be an ace for anybody.

This is just unwatchable. Tomorrow we go up against Johan Santana. They can lose that one without me watching it, too.

Wake me up when you get your act together, guys.

Update: Twins 4, Angels 2.

Frank's Pinkslip Panic

I always did like F'd Company's Pinkslip Panic, but the real-life version at Dodger Stadium continues, when Frank McCourt fired vice president for stadium operations Doug Duennes on Thursday. He ran "security, parking, maintenance and most game-day personnel" activities. He will be replaced by Lon Rosenberg (?).

Ralph Branca Sues Sports Memorabilia Firm

Ralph Branca, the Dodger pitcher who gave up the "shot heard 'round the world" in 1951, is suing a sports memorabilia dealer for misuse of his name and image, by Brandon Steiner:

Branca, 79, says in court papers that Brandon Steiner, a sports memorabilia dealer, offered him $25,000 to let the Topps Co. sell baseball trading cards with Branca's name and photograph. Under the deal, Branca would have to autograph 4,000 of the cards.

Branca's court papers say he and Steiner, who claimed to represent Topps, signed the agreement. He says he later learned that Steiner did not represent Topps and had made his own deal with the company for $48,000 to use Branca's name and photo.

As a result of Steiner's alleged double deal, said Branca's lawyer, Brian Caplan, "he (Steiner) ends up pocketing the $23,000 differential."

Court papers say that "since Steiner either forged Branca's signature or signed the second Topps agreement on behalf of Branca without his authority to do so, Branca conveyed no rights to use his name and likeness to Topps."

Ideas That Won't Fly

Sportswriters are full of unworkable ideas, such as the Orange County Register's Randy Youngman. Take his proposal to re-draft Jered Weaver:

From John Furbish, Anaheim:"Just read where (Cuban defector) Kendry Morales already cashed his $3 million signing bonus from the Angels while still stuck in the Dominican Republic.

"Wouldn't that amount of money have sealed the Jered Weaver deal? By now, he'd probably be at the Double-A or Triple-A level and contributing to the Angels future. Funny how the fans' money is spent at times. Actually, when I think about it, it's not so funny."

Comment:You are correct. The Angels offered Weaver $5.2 million, and Weaver held out for $8.1 million, so that nearly $3 million difference certainly would have helped the Angels more by now than Morales has.

Sudden thought ... what if the Angels use their No.1 pick on Weaver again this year, to try to force him to accept an even lower offer than a year ago? Weaver certainly can't afford to sit out another year.

Unfortunately, major league baseball draft rules forbid this. Nice try, though.

One of Richard's favorite phrases is "let us never speak of this again", something I've read repeatedly over the last year, and even Josh has picked up on it. (That's not a slam, by the way, just an observation.) (Update: sorry, that was Richard.) Usually attached to an inglorious Angel loss, I found myself expecting to see it at the end of Pearly Gates' liveblog post on yesterday's 7-4 shellacking. That is, this game should have been eminently winnable. However, that didn't happen for a couple of interrelated reasons.

1. Weak fielding. Paul and especially Chone Figgins made crucial blunders that sank the ship.
2. Fielding-dependent pitching. One interaction I didn't consider when the Angels started the season was that Paul Byrd isn't a strikeout artist; he's going to get a lot of his outs by the ground ball, and so you'd better have guys who can make those plays. Figgins is marginal by that score, and McPherson is still gaining his sea legs. Only Cabrera of the three is anything close to what you'd call reliable, and even he's not my first choice in shortstops.

As to the offense -- call it a lack of clutch hitting, whatever, but the Angels squandered opportunity after opportunity yesterday. What this team needs is a real power boost, and the only legit power threats are Vlad, Anderson, and on a good day, McPherson or Finley.

Finally, I'm pleased to see that Richard and I are converging on the idea that Jeffy's not the ideal DH candidate and Juan Rivera should be given a shot. As I wrote when the trade broke, Rivera is a step down from Guillen, but he's not that much of a step down, and the saber-thinking seems to be he could become Guillen if given a full-time shot; DH is as good a place as any, and the Angels are ransacking the kitchen cabinets looking for bones these days.

Recap

I just added Yahoo Sports MLB home page to the blogroll at the side. I wish I could remember the helpful soul who suggested this to me over the course of the last year to thank him, but Yahoo player splits -- even though they only go back to 1987 -- are immensely faster than anything MLB.com has. Need to know a player's career record against a particular team, as I did the other day with Washburn? The only way to do it on MLB.com is to look up the historical team numbers over the player's career and wait... and wait... and wait. If you're lucky, you'll get an answer. If not, the Java engine might time out, or God knows what. I don't care what Ken Arneson thinks, it's just too easy to write bad applications in Java. I see it all the time, and it just doesn't have to be that way.

My wife, who went to Arkansas State, tells me U. Arkansas had a great cheer at the football games: Woo! Pig! Soooey! Not only is it great because it's simple, but it's great because you can get it down no matter how smashed you are. (Not that she would do anything that unladylike, of course.)

Hee Seop Choi now gets that kind of a cheer, and for the same reasons, the Dodgers have a new star du jour. "This town ain't big enough for the two of us" threats may, for the moment, be cast aside with the victory, the sweeter for it having come from a player until recently a castaway on his own team. Choi more than doubled his RBIs on the season with the slam.

Through four, OP and Jennings had remarkably similar outings if judged by hits, walks, and runs, but OP struggled mightily in the first, tossing 27 pitches. He settled down increasingly after that, though, only giving up three hits and one walk. You'd be hard-pressed to remember that this victory brings him to .500 against the Rockies.

The Rockies' pen, porous as ever, continues its woes, with Jose Acevedo giving up a pair on a Drew homer, though Chin-hui Tsao, whom I incorrectly remembered from last year as a Dodger-killer, provided a nice (for the Rocks) scoreless eighth.

Recap

Keep your expectations tiny, and you'll go through life without being so whiny. Seriously:

1. They always overcharge you; the question is by how much? Compared to other teams, the Dodgers are doing just fine.
2. It's ballpark food. Panda Express isn't the Water Grill? Weak margaritas at $7.50 a pop? Jeez. Okay, so I'll bite on the not-so-warm pizza, and the trouble with the garlic fries; I got some at my last Dodger Stadium outing, and the ones on top were tasty and warm, but throughout they tended to be a bit greasy.

As for signing a power-hitting catcher, well, those are pretty rare and overpriced -- just like the pizza. Which did you want, anyway?

Salacious Promotion

Hey, if Sports By Brooks can do it, why not AZ Snakepit? Anna Kournikova in a bikini? It's kinda baseball related, right?

The Baltimore Shuffle

In the upending of things in the AL East, the O's were perfectly situated to take advantage of slumps and extended injuries to both the Yankees and Red Sox. Sammy may not be Sammy! anymore, but he's on pace for 20-30 HR's this year, which beats Jerry Hairston, Jr. all to bits. And while there's no way they can keep getting seven homers a month out of Brian Roberts, if they even get 20+ out of him it goes a long way for making up for what may be Rafael Palmiero's last season in the bigs as a starting first baseman (.247/.291/.315, 1 HR, 73 AB). With as many stratospheric ERAs as the bullpen currently sports, their rotation anchored by the inconsistent and/or castoff quartet of Sir Sidney Ponson, Eric Bedard, Rodrigo Lopez, and Bruce Chen, however, I'm betting this early season streak won't last, and they'll fade to a .500 team by the All-Star break.

Hee Was Much Better Than Cats, I Want To See Choi Again And Again

Jim Tracy on Hee Seop Choi's newfound .260 respectability:

"I will try to find favorable situations for him," Tracy said.

Roster Moves

• Maicer Izturis will miss 4-6 weeks, thanks to a medial collateral ligament strain. This may accelerate the timetable for Kennedy's return, possibly moving his reinsertion date to the upcoming Seattle series.

  Izturis will not require surgery, but may be forced back to AAA Salt Lake when he can play again.

• Ex-Dodger Dave Hansen signed with the Mariners, in a minor-league deal.
• Wilson Alvarez one-hit the Giants' Fresno AAA affiliate in four and two-thirds innings. Alvarez could rejoin the Dodgers as early as Monday.

At the end of the fifth inning, after Lackey had thrown 3,952 pitches and Scioscia had Jake Woods up in the Angels bullpen, I thought sure Mike was gonna give him the hook. No such thing materialized, though, and Lackey immediately got burned on a Jason Giambi single. Lack came back and struck out Posada and then got the hook, but it made me wonder what kind of incriminating photographs Lack has of Mike.

I won't go over the top and say it was a good outing because he got the win, nor because he held the Yankees to one run; giving up seven hits and three walks over five and a third innings qualifies as walking an Ishiian tightrope, one he could have fallen off of at any moment. That is to say, I'm beginning to think we saw the best of Lackey during Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, and he's just not going to get any better, ever. That's too bad, because he could have been a nice pitcher.

At least half of Lackey's success came from the scuffling Yankees, who, as they pointed out on Baseball Tonight, will now be assured of a losing April for the first time in twelve years. That the team with the highest payroll in baseball appears headed for a year of mediocrity (i.e., failing to win the division, boo-hoo) warms my heart, as it should lift the spirits of every fan of every non-Yankee team in the AL East. Now that Kevin Brown is no longer with the Dodgers, I can laugh at him every time he has a bad start -- which he did through three, but after that he settled down and gave the Angels an old-timey bad time, retiring 11 straight from the fourth on. You can see the end coming for Brown, and sooner rather than later.

I am, however, beginning to worry some about Finley. Despite his heroics in yesterday's game, he's got a .165/.247/.354 year-to-date line, significantly worse than his career .237/.305/.408 April numbers. Fins is 4-25 (.160) over the last week, showing absolutely no signs of improving. Some of that may be league adjustment, but it's hard to untangle league from age.

Recap

Blue Think Tank, who appears eager to succeed Tom Meagher as the leading stats-oriented Dodger blog out there. Off to the sidebar soon enough.

Mariners Wheelhouse, incorporeal but still among the living, points us to a new Batgirl fansite. We have gone full meta.

Okay, kids, it's getting worrying. The Dodgers need to bear down and start acting like they know how to win again, because that hot start all of a sudden has turned into a streak of mediocrity, and worse, losing.

I don't have much to say about the (embarrassing, pathetic) game itself, but I do have one comment about Charlie Steiner. I was initially very negative about him, but then I decided to give him a chance, and for the most part, he hasn't let me down too much. But today, in the fifth, with J.D. Drew on second and two out, the crowd was roaring because of Milton Bradley, one of the few Dodgers left with a hot streak.

Steiner had launched on a longish story about his opponent on the mound, Brad Halsey, and how they met on the Yankees' bus last year.

The crowd roared behind him.

He kept talking over it.

I couldn't give a tinker's damn about how you met Brad Halsey, jack. What I do care about, and this is vitally important, is that you don't break cardinal rules of radio broadcasting. These were two:

• Never start a long story on two outs. No matter how much Ross Porter ever sounded like he just finished a marble sandwich, he never allowed himself to screw that up.
• Sometimes you have to let the crowd do the talking for you. For examples, try the forty seconds of silence Scully observed after Koufax struck out the side to end his perfect game, or his letting the crowd talk for him after Gibby smacked one into the stands off Eckersley in '88. This is an exciting moment in the game, dummy, you don't just step all over it. Have some freakin' respect for the game, f'r chrissakes. This is just awful and inexcusable, hiring a man who loves to hear himself talk too much.

Everybody needs to get back on track.

Recap

You know, I would never have expected Jarrod Washburn to be a Yankee-killer; a man with flyball tendencies should be a man begging for pain when up against a lineup that homer-happy. Yet, like the cleaner wrasse, he (usually) escapes the jaws of his predators. (Still working on the part of the analogy where he performs some useful service for the Yankees, sorry.) Somehow, Washburn has a 2.55 ERA, 3-1 record against the Yanks lifetime (Update: use Yahoo lifetime player splits, they're faster), and 1-0, 1.29 ERA over the last three years. If the Angels have been Yankee-killers, they can look to Washburn as their David with the sling. If he were going to stay, I might suggest calling him Jay-rod.

Not much to report here, other than the homers from Fins and GA to lift the Halos to final victory. A-Rod continued his home run streak, thus saving himself from public garroting at whatever neighborhood watering holes he frequents, but the blue-lipped third baseman who favors elegant yet simple black handbags will be back in the town's bad graces just as soon as he goes 0-4 in a game, or scuffles with a routine groundball. The Bronx is a tough place to play.

Update: Oh, of course, and how silly of me to miss mentioning David Pinto's observation that Mussina is likely close to done if he doesn't increase his strikeouts. With an ERA hovering around 5.00, the tanning he'll receive in the papers won't begin to match the death threats Yankee fans will send his way.

Oh, yes, and David Matranga gets the callup to complete the 25-man. Well, good luck sticking there, kid.

Recap

• Former Dodger Paul Schuey has retired from baseball, giving up a comeback attempt with Cleveland.
• Maicer Izturis has been placed on the 15-day DL, with a sprained left knee. He was injured fielding ground balls during batting practice.
• The Giants have disabled closer Armando Benitez, with a strained hamstring. His roster spot will be replaced with Scott Munter from the Giants' AAA Fresno farm team.

  Update: Benitez tore two of three tendons that attach to his pelvis. He will be down for four months, but the injury is not believed to be career-threatening.

  Yeah, right.

An Angels Retrospective

Chronicles has posted the first two parts of a three-part series chronicling the Angels from the strike year of 1994 to 2004. It's great background for those bandwagon fans too lazy to do actual research on the team (i.e., me). Those claiming Disney wrecked the team will have to wrestle with the bare fact that this period was "the most successful ten-year period in club history".

An Answer For Stefan

To answer your question, namely, why did the LA crowd boo Shawn Green last night, well, the only thing I can think of is they are classless boors. Or could it be they remember the Dodgers are still on the hook for $10M of his 2005 salary? I will entertain other ideas in the comments section.

Nakamura Booted?

The Times says Nakamura's time at the big club could be coming to a close presently. Once Antonio Perez is reactivated, the Japanese import will probably be demoted again.

"I admit I am feeling pressure," he said. "I am learning about every pitcher I face. After about 100 at-bats, I will have an idea of how pitchers throw here. Right now, it is not easy to hit."

Reaching 100 at-bats will be difficult. Perez, a solid hitter who can play second base, third base and shortstop, can't stay in the minor leagues beyond his rehab assignment because he is out of options, meaning he would have to clear waivers before being demoted.

"I know and understand the contract situation of other players," Nakamura said. "I might be the guy to go to the minors."

On the other hand, the Daily Breeze has a slightly different view of things, saying the team will give Nakamura the time it takes to adjust.

"We need to get him involved and get him at-bats," Tracy said of Nakamura, who had 307 homers and 916 RBIs in 13 seasons with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of the Japanese Pacific League. "His approach (at the plate) is so different. It's a timing thing. The professionalism of his at-bats is something I look at. It doesn't always have to be, 'Hey, did he hit it out of the ballpark?' "

Time... just not at bats.

Angels, Anaheim End Mediation

What, again?

Batgirl Gets The Love

Thanks to Aaron Gleeman for the word that Batgirl's gettin' some love from the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. I love Batgirl, and though I don't read it every day -- let's face it, this is the AL Central we're talking about here -- she's one of the funniest bloggers out there.

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Nuclear Annihilation

Rev. Halofan publishes his top ten reasons for optimism after yesterday's embarrassing 12-4 blowout in which just about everything that could go wrong did, but really, didn't anybody remember what I said about one performance not making the ace? Colon will be reliably unreliable, except in the postseason, when he will lay waste to the Angels' hopes of advancing.

Best, Worst Active Managers

Via Dodger Thoughts, this Kansas City Star column about managers measured from several different perspectives. Mike Scioscia comes out looking pretty terrible, but Jim Tracy lands atop the list. Scioscia suffers in part because of collapses of the '03 team (due in large part to injuries), blaming the manager for the GM's mistakes (the GIDP/E ratio, which tends to favor good-fielding teams in front of groundball staffs), and squandered baserunner percentage (okay, got me on that one). I don't think Scioscia's getting an even break with those metrics, but it's all there for you to read.

I finally broke down and got the Dodgers' media guide, and what a beauty it is: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the team's first World Series title (and the only one in Brooklyn), it's loaded with the useless information opposing teams' broadcasters fire off at their audiences. For instance, we learn that Jose Offerman leads the club in single-season errors (42), or that Scott Erickson finished second in the 1991 Cy Young balloting. It's not as bad as the "pitching to left-handed Capricorns" that the Motel 6 ads poke fun at, but it sometimes approaches the suburbs of Irrelevance City.

If my earlier fence-sitting made me appear to justify Tracy's decision to pull Choi, today's 4-5 with a home run effort vindicated further time in the lineup. Now that his average is at a respectable .260, doubts begin to evaporate. It won't always be so, especially as Tracy puts him in against lefties and tougher righties, but for the first time since we've seen the young Korean in a Dodger uniform, we know why DePodesta traded for him. Choi wasn't just superfluous junk accumulated along with the prized pitcher. His only failing came in the ninth, when he flied out to center with men on first and second, one out. If you have to have a guy be perfect because the rest of the offense is stalled, Choi's not your man. I can't bring myself to blame him for that.

Erickson pitched brilliantly by his lights, giving up three runs in five innings on four hits and two walks. It wasn't enough; Russ Ortiz outpitched him -- barely -- but still scraped together another win against a listless Dodger offense. The 0-fers included Drew and Valentin, and Bradley only got a single off.

The crowd hated Green, and let him hear it; in response, he went 2-4 and homered to give his new club the lead. To show his manners, he even gave a kid in the audience his batting gloves after the homer. It's sad to me that the home crowd didn't recognize why Green wore Arizona colors; I recall a recent Angels game against the Mariners where Scott Spiezio came to bat, and the audience practically gave him a standing O. That's class, kids, and it's a difference between the two clubs' fan bases. Much as I grew up one, Dodger fans often transcend mere annoyance and skid straight into downright rude, at least, en masse.

The Snakes' starting rotation has shaped up contrary to the preseason expectations of some of the Baseball Prospectus crew; Ortiz so far has had himself a small-sample-sized feast, and the bullpen, after last year's lava-covered immolation, at least found some quality guys to throw back at the division again this year. The quartet of Cormier, Lopez, Koplove, and Lyon managed a zero-run, three-inning effort, not too shabby for a team pretty widely derided as a bottom-dweller in the division. Whether they keep this going over 162 games is another matter, but again, I would tend to be at least a little optimistic. If nothing else, it's evident they're destined -- at least -- to play spoiler this year.

Recap

I got some interesting comments in the post about yesterday's game, questioning whether Jake Peavy or Javier Vazquez is actually the second best pitcher in the NL West. It's a good question, so let's take a peek at VORP over the years:

Year  Vazquez   Peavy
=======================
2004    23.1     57.5
2003    53.0     29.2
2002    29.8      5.7
2001    53.4
2000    48.1
1999     8.2
1998   -12.3

Now, this is hardly conclusive. PECOTA thinks Peavy had an outlier year in 2004; as well, it projects a similar downturn for Vazquez. But given Vazquez' history and Peavy's lack thereof, not to mention Vazquez' return to the NL and exit from the Bronx, I'd still take Vazquez over even Brandon Webb as the long-term pick to become Arizona's ace.

Two on the Angels from the Times:

A Really Rankin', Base Production: Morales, Again

You better not pitch
You better not swing
You better not bitch
I'm tellin' you why --

'cause Kendry Morales is comin' to town, or so imputes the Times. No, really:

"I'm hearing we're in the final stages," Reagins said. "Things are looking like they're headed in the right direction. We think we're close — but, every time we say we're close, we get another hurdle to overcome."

OBP? What's That?

I had some guys in my catty little comment on the A's offense suggest that "there's something to all this 'productive outs' stuff after all..." Well, not really; given two teams with roughly equivalent OBP but one of whom gets more of its OBPs from hits, the better-hitting team will win more ballgames. This trenchant observation underpins the Angels' lineup construction, something Tim Brown defends today:

Scioscia's Angels, on a choppy course through three weeks, are 11-8 and again lead the American League West, which they won on the next-to-last afternoon of last season. They are again what they are; on-base poor, scoring-position rich, contact-driven and extra-base ambitious.

Perhaps little of it makes sense to some of the statistical gatekeepers of the new generation, or aligns with the philosophies in the pages of "Moneyball," but it reveals Scioscia's Dodger upbringing, and is particularly convenient at a time when Scioscia's lineup offers almost no alternative.

The season after the Angels walked and struck out fewer times than any team in the American League, led the league in stolen bases and committed its fewest errors, they are again on the same track, playing away from many of the Moneyball tenets, of walks and on-base percentage and conservative baserunning and letting the defense fall where it may.

If anything, what this shows is that the Angels could stand to take a cue from what the A's would do if they had the money to buy a Vlad Guerrero, and that is, buy another one. We've got, as it stands, Dallas McPherson, but his small-sample-sized .158/.200/.211 (19 AB) make it clear he's not up to snuff just yet against major league pitching. It might take him a year or two to really adjust, too.

Brown and I aren't the only ones to notice the consequences of the Angels' power outage, either. The team unloads two of their best hitters (Glaus and Guillen) and they're wondering why they're stumbling out of the gate? It's a problem Halo's Heaven bemoaned when noting Tim Salmon's absence this year:

The one thing we could use is a player with a career average 1.000+ OPS, someone who's averaged 25 - 30 homers a season.

This team misses TIM SALMON. Percy was old, Glaus fragile, Eckstein limited. But if Righty Salmon were healthy and simply DHing, batting 5th behind Lefty Garret (followed L-R-L-R by Frosty, Cabfare, D-Mac and J/B Molina), this team would certainly be scoring more runs.

The way I see it, either D-Mac heats up or the team starts finding ways to get Rivera some more at bats. Jeff DaVanon is a poor choice for a DH, especially since hitting is never something he's done all that well.

You tell me:

I could swear I've heard that before somewhere.

Now that the Yankees have started 8-11, tied with the lowly Devil Rays for the worst record in the division, the fair-weather Yankee fans have started in on them, and not the least of these is Jay Jaffe, a self-described Yankee "carpetbagger". The team that could do no wrong from 1997 through 2000 has now started its descent to mediocrity, such as Yankeedom reckons it, which means their higher aspirations include "getting in to the playoffs" and the usual star-crossed hopefulness other teams exhume publicly on opening day. That is to say, their offseason has been a widely derided trainwreck, as Jaffe made plain in a recent Baseball Prospectus:

On the heels of their unprecedented collapse in last year's American League Championship Series, and on the eve of a 2005 season that opens with them facing the same archrivals who subdued them, this Yankee team fills me with dread. The jig is up; the Yankees have created severe problems for themselves, and the money they've used to solve those problems is in considerably shorter supply than they've led us to believe. They're a $200 million tightrope walker, and I have to admit, I'm curious at what the splatter would look like if they tumbled.

The part of me that's rooting for the splatter is the same part that sees a roster built with all the grace of a congressional spending bill fraught with dozens of tacked-on pork-barrel amendments. Well, that or the car Homer Simpson designed for his half-brother Herb. In other words, ick.

The key -- or at least, one number of the combination to the Yankees' braintrust padlock -- was the unloading of supposed future ace Javier Vazquez. Jaffe moaned that "it's painfully clear the Yankee front office is, if not out of ideas, then at least at an impasse as to how to implement the ones they have with creativity and foresight." Though I wrongly bet against a trade, the Yanks decided his postseason meltdown justified exiling the young right hander. Was it a case of Mel Stottlemyre finally wrecking one arm too many? I think so, a failing the Yanks acknowledged by unloading their longtime pitching coach. (Update: apparently reports of Stottlemyre's demise were greatly exaggerated.) Vazquez, paying for Mel's mistakes and the insane and stupid pressures of pitching in the Bronx, got FedEx'd to Arizona after a tumultuous offseason in exchange for a triple-scoop of Randy Johnson.

In Johnson, the Yanks were certain they were going to get the kind of real ace they lacked last year, and the year before, and the year before that. Johnson's off to a slow start, with a 4.19 ERA that, amazingly, isn't his worst April record; that would be 8.10 in 2003, when he went down with injuries most of the year. Whether this was a good move will be noted at the end of the year, but by the time Johnson's contract is over, the smart money's betting Yankee Stadium will become the House of Boos every fifth turn. The 41-year-old's knee is held together with regular injections of Synvisc, a medication whose long-term effects are unknown, so new is it.

So as with the Yankees unloading a good if inconsistent pitcher in the guise of Jeff Weaver, so did they unload Javier Vazquez. Despite his earlier insistence that he didn't want to pitch on the west coast, once traded to Arizona they signed him to a three-year, $33.75M contract. And, as we might have expected, Vazquez, despite his atypical five earned runs allowed against the Dodgers on April 9, has settled back down and looks like the crotchety skinflint from Montreal. The Snakes got the better of the Yankees by far on this deal; I might even be tempted to go so far as to say they now have the second best pitcher in the division at this point, after the Giants' Jason Schmidt.

All that said, the Dodgers have the best depth in the division, something they exhibited with their cheap-yet-effective bullpen. If Lowe doesn't blow up in the first, or Vazquez wasn't quite nails, the Dodgers should have had a decent shot to win this game. The Dodgers missed some key opportunities, though:

• In the third, Derek Lowe bunted into an inning-ending double play. Instead of getting the bunt down the first base line, he killed it about six inches in front of the plate, where former Dodger prospect Koyie Hill easily grabbed the ball, tagged out Lowe, and got off a throw to cashier the runner.
• On a borderline bad luck play in the fifth, Bradley hesitated on a grounder hit to first that cost the team a GIDP.
• Finally, in the eighth, Tracy had Olmedo Saenz come to bat against Vazquez. Now, Saenz had never seen Vazquez before, but Choi had a couple hard-hit balls into the outfield. Was it worth it to get Choi's bat out of the lineup? I don't think so, and this is what John's Dodger Blog meant when he wrote

  But my argument all off-season (not in this space, but just in talking to people) was that this was the year Tracy had to give Choi 500 AB's. The only way to really see if Choi's potential is going to be tapped as a Dodger is if they give him the chance to show it over the long haul. ... The conventional wisdom is that Choi is a stiff, a numbers-geek favorite because of his minor-league OBP, and that he has a slow bat. I don't think this is something that should even be debated until we've seen him get enough chances to prove himself.

I'm of two minds about Choi; on the one hand, the statheads are right, we won't know about Choi until he actually collects enough at-bats to make a statistically significant contribution one way or another. On the other hand... he's getting there at a rather high pace, and Tracy continues to lessen his playing time. Lefties? Nakamura, you're up. Power righties? Saenz, come on down. Not-so-power-righties in a clutch situation with men on base and two out? Uh, I need a pinch hitter.

Furthermore, there's signs that Choi's carrying his offensive failures to the first base bag with him. In the top of the fifth, Choi didn't even bother to make an ole play on a Luis Gonzales smash down the first base line, instead just trotting in the general direction of the ball and watching it go past him. Maybe that's just his reputed slowness, but I wonder; I've seen him make similar plays before.

Arizona should be rightfully proud of what they've done this offseason; as of tonight, they're only a game and a half back of the Dodgers. I don't know if they'll be able to keep this pace up through the season, especially if/when Bonds returns to the Giants. But I find the sabermetric CW on Green and Glaus -- namely that they're overly risky signings considering the Snakes' payroll situation -- a bit overdone. Both are far from done, though they may be less than productive toward the end of their contracts. But to date, Arizona's had a nice run in the early season, and has reason to hope that, if a few breaks go their way, they could end up in the postseason.

Finally, a couple words about the Dodger broadcast itself: somebody needs to grab the sound guy by the lapels and explain to him that the crowd needs to be mixed beneath Vinny, so we can hear him at all times. This includes outros to commercial break. Secondly, the new wraparound scoreboards, while very nifty in the park, freaks out contrast on the cameras on night games. What we get is an extremely dark crowd scene with a nicely visible scoreboard, which makes the park look like a Las Vegas funeral. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

Recap

Commenter William in the comments on a previous post asked whether Lowe's wife is indeed named Trinka. It's absolutely true. Here's a picture of them together in Fenway after the Sox won the World Series:

I was going to make a snarky comment a la the one I made for Scott Erickson and Lisa Guerrero, but with the situations somewhat reversed. Yes, it's true that Mrs. Lowe isn't exactly my taste (ahem!), but I'll refrain from saying too much now that Lowe's got a 1.27 ERA in four starts and 28.1 IP. God knows the Dodgers need him more than we need to look at his wife. Besides, you can't do much better than saying, "I just want you guys to know it's going to be Jackie Robinson Day every day I pitch from now on." Hell yeah!

A couple from BTF Primer today --

• Tommy Lasorda has a blog? Who knew?
• A followup in the Daily News about the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1955 pennant story I blogged about a while ago. It turns out that it was Peter O'Malley, not Newsday sportswriters Stan Isaacs and Jack Mann, who wanted to have the flag sent back to the old home borough. O'Malley eventually received the pennant, had it painstakingly restored, and delivered it to Brooklyn, where it will be displayed all summer this year, save for a brief appearance at Dodger Stadium in August.

• A good man from a bad trade: Derek Lowe left the Red Sox last year knowing he wasn't wanted, despite his remarkable postseason performance. The righthander used it as a motivation in Los Angeles to show Boston what they're missing, he said in this USA Today article:

  He's off to a 1-1 start with a 1.27 earned-run average, seventh in the majors. "I'm a 100% different pitcher," he says. "My mind is at ease. I'm in a place where I'm wanted. I don't have anything to prove. I'm at ease with where I am."

  His wife, Trinka, says: "I can see it when he pitches. He isn't standing on the mound thinking, 'If I don't win, I'll be booed by the fans and crucified in the papers.' He's confident, freer."

  Originally a Seattle draft pick, Lowe and Jason Veritek were traded to the Red Sox for ... Heathcliff Slocumb.

  Yeah.

• According to the Register, Eric Gagné is just a couple days from throwing on the mound.
• Jose Valentin's bruise is feeling better. He should be available for regular duty Monday.
• "Jayson Werth continued to take small steps in his recovery from a broken left wrist. Werth hit off a tee for the third consecutive day and added some soft-toss hitting. He could take batting practice soon with a minor-league injury-rehabilitation assignment to follow."
• "Elmer Dessens was officially placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday in order to make room for Penny on the active roster."

Dodgers 8, Rockies 6

For a young man, Byung-Hyun Kim has the lines and weary look of an old man. Outside of his 2001-2003 seasons, he's never really made it to the promised land of consistent major league success. His big tour through Arizona's 2001 postseason made him a footnote to not one but two Yankee comebacks, the sap on the mound who coughed up runs so the storied Bombers could make their (ultimately futile) run at yet another title.

After being run out of Boston, Kim's spring training for the Rockies was so bad, he threatened to quit the game, saying

"It's definitely not the way I wanted to make a first impression," Kim said through an interpreter, "but at the same time, it feels good to be a part of this team. One thing that I noticed is that if this had taken place in Boston, I'd have been taken out way before I was able to give up all those runs. It kind of feels good that way. I definitely feel that things will get better from this point on. If it doesn't get any better than tonight, then I should just retire. That's my feeling. Overall, I am glad to be here, and I'd definitely like to become a contributing part of this team."

All of which is to say I was pleased to see him facing the Dodgers today.

Penny, while hardly perfect, was far better than I expected considering the circumstances, and the Dodger pen again showed its merits. Giovanni Carrera had a great outing, and no comment on this game would be complete without mentioning Milton Bradley's 4-5 effort.

Recap

Ishii DL'd

The Mets placed former Dodger Kazuhisa Ishii on the 15-day DL Friday, with a strained muscle. Replacement Jae Seo held the Nationals down, giving up only one run over six innings, and even going 1-2 with a walk offensively.

Break Out The Sackcloth -- Cubs Win? Cubs 5, Pirates 2

Cub fan angst is rising to a boiling point, and the focus of that rage is sneer-quoted "closer" LaTroy Hawkins. Never anybody's first choice for that position, the expression "game over", so familiar and cheerful to Dodger fans, is a shibboleth and a bad omen around Wrigley:

The word in the papers: game over. Chris De Luca from the Sun-Times provides some in-clubhouse instant psychoanalysis.

Maybe Hawkins could finally smile because he knows his personal torment -- which in turn has tormented Cubs fans -- was finally over. Manager Dusty Baker will utter the words today that not only will calm Hawkins' mind, but soothe the stomachs of Cubs fans.

LaTroy Hawkins will no longer be the Cubs' closer.

While that's good news for Hawkins, it remains to be seen whether it amounts to good news for Cubs fans. Bleed Cubbie Blue, for now, is just happy that the alien who replaced Neifi Garciaparra-Perez (.396/.420/.563, 48 AB) hasn't been recalled to his home planet. With Kerry Wood's shoulder twingy again, you can never tell what's going to fall apart next. Good news is when you make the next start with your scheduled rotation.

Recap

Just when I was starving for a good pitching performance, along comes Kelvim to end the drought. Thank God. Seven strikeouts, and two hits, and reminding me that the Angels can, when they put their collective minds to it, actually cobble together a crisp performance, even though tonight they narrowly escaped a couple real stinkbombs defensively:

• Cabrera missed a double play in the third when he misfired to Erstad, missing a GIDP opportunity.
• Cabrera, again, in the seventh fired the ball to third when he should have gone to first, with the result being men on the corners. (Gameday shows this as a fielder's choice with Durazo out at first -- wuzza? Maybe the onscreen baserunner indicator was wrong.)
• On the next play, D-Mac blew what should have been a routine around-the-horn double play, instead opting to get the third base runner.

And that's not even counting Shields' sudden lack of dominance; Mike felt obliged to yank him for Frankie in the eighth to face Eric Chavez. Maybe that's not too surprising considering there was a man in scoring position and Chavez is hitting .286 (4-14) lifetime against Shields ... but he's hitting .375 (3-8) against Frankie?

Wuzza?

Meantime, I'm having a hard time dealing with the starting pitching machine that is apparently the A's minor league system. I mean, really, where the hell do they come up with these starters who blank our lineup at will? I think it's some kind of enchantment. Anyway, Blanton should have wrapped that toss with a bow, serving up Fins a pitch up and middle in.

Hit me, please.
  -- Love, Oakland Athletics

And remember, all this is without the disabled Kiko Calero. But at least our guys held on for another win, and if Shields bent, he didn't break.

Plus, we finally get to see... wait for it ... an actual Angels game in HD. Woo and hoo!

So, in summary: Finley's stroke talks, Kelvim Escobar rocks, Blanton gave us some shocks, but the A's bats have a pox.

Recap

Not that I suspect anyone is really that bothered by it, but I didn't get any game summaries done yesterday. (Pardon me, but I do labor under the delusion that somebody actually reads this drivel from time to time.) Part of the reason why was that I've been tinkering with some sidebar changes that have just driven me nuts, and part was that we were out with some of our disreputable lesbian friends at one of those sleazy gay bars you hear so much about. Anyway...

The Rockies Horror Baseball Show: Rockies 8, Dodger 6

In just seven days... I can make you a te-eeaaamm!

Is anyone else reminded of last year's awful April outings where the team's pitching couldn't hold up to the early-season chill in Colorado? I expect the Dodgers will do better later on, but it was frustrating to only be able to watch the Dodgers' progress -- or lack thereof -- on my cellphone with the bases loaded and Olmedo Saenz at bat. Meantime, the video screen at Hamburger Mary's was showing -- what else -- music videos, and not Dodger baseball. Dammit. Blecch.

Recap

Son, What You Need Is A Good Whuppin': Angels 9, A's 5

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright
Oh, and that's all right with me

-- Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

Every now and then, I'd like to labor under the pleasant delusion that the Angels really are the power in this division, something I just can't bring myself to think, for the simple reason that it's so obviously untrue. If you need proof, see last week's extravaganza against the Mariners, John Lackey's attempt to prevent his exodus from the rotation, and even Friday's 4-3 loss to the A's. So Chronicles thinks that latter was "just a couple mistakes"? Well, yeah, and those mistakes are the ones that lose you games. It's a symptom of a bigger problem, a sign of a team that can't consistently put it together from one game to the next, the problem that's plagued John "Slingblade" Lackey for two damn years now.

So, back to yesterday's game, which I was privileged to watch from about the beginning of the fifth on. Exemplifying the kind of pitching Paul Byrd does not need to bring to the mound, yet positives remain from it: while he gave up a mess of hits (six), he only gave up a single walk and two strikeouts. It's not nearly as good as I'd hoped he'd be, but simultaneously marks only the first time he's gotten the hook before becoming eligible for the win.

Offensively, as much as the Angels' recap tries to make it out as another episode of the SuperVlad Show, the reality is that the supporting players made this one work:

• Jeffy got on base 2-4
• Cabrera hit 2-4
• McPherson picked up his first RBI, and dragged the enormous towrope of his average closer to the Mendoza line
• Figgins started to show signs of his 2004 self with a superb 2-5 night

Only Josh Paul, a very important member of the 2005 squad thanks to Benjie Molina's continuing physical problems, was totally overmatched (0-4). I give Erstad a pass for now; I promise not to complain too much until after we get past May 1.

All that said, however, I would like to direct your attention to the Angels' efficacy against the A's bullpen. That's 3.1 innings of zero-earned-run ball, something the Angels are having a hard time getting from their relief corps this year. Whether Brendan Donnelly wants to admit it or not, it would make sense for the reports of declining velocity to be accurate. Look at his 12.00 K/9 from last year versus his 6.75 rate this year (allowances for Mr. Small Sample Size made), the trend is worrying, especially since the A's restocked their pen with strikeout artists. They're now ahead of the Angels in aggregate K/9, a statistic they now lead the league in; the Angels' pen trails them by about a point and a half.

Recap

I just went through another pass of cleaning up the links on the sidebar, and I wanted to say something nice about Astros blogger Throws Like A Girl. I linked to her back in the playoffs last year, but I was reminded of her on another site, and was rewarded on my return with this sweet narrative of Cubs broadcaster Ron Santo calling a game:

It is hard not to fall completely in love with Ron Santo, who brings a passion and despair to his color commentary for the Cubs which is simply unprecedented in professional broadcasting. Just now, as Jerry Hairston worked on stranding two more Cubs runners in the top of the seventh against St. Louis, he was nearly speechless. After Hairston checked a swing on a low and outside pitch, Pat Hughes, play-by-play guy, asked, "Did he swing?" Ron answered listlessly, "No." Then silence. Then a quiet, "C'mon, Jer." Then more silence. Hairston then looked at strike three, and Ron expectorated a quick, "Jesus!" before catching himself.

This is a game that the Cubs are currently leading by two runs. But this is the same man who said last night, in the top of the ninth, that the Cubs needed some more insurance on their 7-1 lead over the Reds.

I've added her to the sidebar links, and I plan on checking in once in a while during the regular season. I recommend you do the same.

T-Shirts In Dodgerland

Because the game threads on Dodger Thoughts have become so profoundly long, it's nearly impossible to keep up anymore. For instance, I missed Eric Enders' deadline for his Ghame Over t-shirts (don't bother, the link's dead), but I did find this Team Depo shirt. A beauty. Drop a line to bigcpa@cox.net for details.

Update: Here's a direct link to order. Enjoy.

Pythagoras, You're A Mean, Mean Man: Rockies 9, Dodgers 1

That son of a bitch left the Dodgers on the west coast along with all their luggage. The hell? This is Coors Friggin' Field, man! Balls come here to end up in the stands!

This is also, unless I'm mistaken, Jeff Weaver's first time ever pitching at Coors.

I have no words. There's always tomorrow. And the Dodgers are still three and a half up over the division.

Update: From the Giants point of view I protesteth too much, I suppose:

Only one scenario seemed frightening to the Giants coming out of spring training, and it seems to be unfolding: The Dodgers are a bunch of high- fiving maniacs, and Barry Bonds can't play. Until recently, the general feeling surrounding Bonds' absence was "that's cool." In a division marked by mediocrity, none of the Giants' rivals figured to take a commanding lead. The Giants' classy veterans could keep things close until Bonds' return, setting up a second-half stretch drive with intriguing possibilities.

...this is a team riding high without the injured Eric Gagne. Based on career records, there would be nothing surprising about Bradley, Valentin, Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew staying hot, as a unit, over a long period of time. Cesar Izturis has developed into a dangerous leadoff man, and embattled manager Jim Tracy should finally be recognized as one of the National League's best.

The two most disturbing scenes for Giants fans to date: The animated, team-oriented Bradley leading celebrations in the Dodger dugout, and Bonds remaining eerily quiet about his surgically repaired knees. The last thing the Giants wanted was to feel pressure about getting Bonds back into the lineup. It may not be long before that pressure arrives.

Does team chemistry count for so much that Bradley's hitting is immaterial? Winning breeds chemistry. Learn it. Love it. Recap

Omen: A's 4, Angels 3

Let's get this straight: One day, Frankie's gonna blow his arm out. Until that day, he's pretty dominating; but not always, and when he starts off by giving up hits, he's like as not gonna go kablooie in a hurry. We've seen it time and time again: whenever his stuff isn't working, it really isn't working, and the A's took plain advantage. Yesterday's blown save wasn't a question of whether Frankie can get the job done; he clearly can. The question is whether he'll be able to do the job all the time.

Eric Gagné he isn't.

Too bad, because Lackey finally got it together for once.

Too bad the bats didn't. Does anybody want to discuss the merits of having McPherson (.154), Figgins (.238), DaVanon (.205), and Finley (.175) all in the lineup as regulars?

Recap

A Team Of One

Does anybody else find it alarming that there is indeed a subdomain at mlb.com of barrybonds.mlb.com?

The Dodgers so far have scored 92 runs, 17% more than the nearest NL teams (77 for the Mets and Marlins). Meantime, the Dodgers pitching staff has a collective 3.51 ERA, fifth in the majors, after the Braves, Cards, Astros, and Marlins -- and of those, only the Marlins are hitting. What was it Bobby Cox said -- "Believe me, they know what they're doing."

Frank Fixes Foul Foulline Seats

As I mentioned in last Friday's post about Jackie Robinson Day, the new seats in the former foul ground at Dodger Stadium seem to have a lot of problems with sight lines, so much so that Frank's already come out and done the honorable thing: he plans on fixing them, in the offseason, probably. It's good news to hear that Frank can actually admit mistakes and change course.

Fourth And Fifth And Sixth Outfielders

Looks like the All-Baseball gang has picked up a couple new writers at The Fourth Outfielder, namely Paul Scott and Antonio Siordia. For Antonio, who says he is "not knew to baseball or writing", we hope better proofreading will improve his future efforts, the first of which is this piece about Norihiro Nakamura. Scott's maiden voyage is a musing on whether Izzy will make a quality leadoff man.

Love Is Not Love Which Alters When It Botches A Sliding Catch But The Routine Play Could Have Held The Batter To A Single

Idiots today bags on Oakland outfielder Eric Byrnes for screwing up a showy sliding catch of a routine single. As a result, the ball rolled to the wall, three runs scored instead of just one.

With two outs, pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs looped a ball to left field. Ignoring a century of baseball wisdom that contends you try and keep the ball in front of you on such a play even if it means conceding the base hit, Byrnes opted to try for the spectacular catch — we shall be generous and say that he had maybe one chance in 20 of actually coming up with the ball. Instead the ball hit the ground, bounced past the sprawling Byrnes, and rolled all the way to the wall, plating all three Seattle runners. Byrnes does the sensible thing, and at worst, two runs score. (You could even argue that only one run might have come in on that play if Byrnes plays it safe — he had a better chance of keeping the runner on second from scoring with a decent throw than he did of making an improbable catch.) Instead, Seattle gets three runs.

As I babbled on the comments over there, I consider this possibly a lesson learned by watching the donkey-kick Shawn Green took in 2003 for failing to get to a single that ended an Odalis Perez bid for a no-hitter. The press absolutely moiderized Green after that, but the point is that the guy who appears to try but fails to come up with the ball (and lets three runs go) is excused; the guy who allows the single but holds the opposing team to only one run receives a can of whoopass along with his morning newspaper. Mentioning Jackie Robinson's "invisible range", Bill James noted that the guy who positions himself correctly gets no credit by making it look easy, but the guy who has great athleticism but misses more balls receives the accolades. Call Byrnes the "before" poster boy.

Angels Still Awaiting Payoff From Morales

An article in the Register makes it clear that Bill Stoneman's having buyer's remorse about supposed phenom Kendry Morales. With the timetable for his release from Dominican paperwork snafus still up in the air, Morales is turning into a sunk cost for the Angels.

Angels general manager Bill Stoneman said the club's experience with Cuban defector Kendry Morales will make him think long and hard about signing such players in the future.

"We might be asking different questions," Stoneman said. "We'll have to see."

...

"If we jump in [and try to push the legal process along], we just muddy the waters down there," Stoneman said. "I think he will be here this year, but we've been saying, 'soon,' for a long time. I'm not sure right now what 'soon' means any more."

So the Dodgers lost a game last night. It's all good, really, because the Dodgers' eight-game winning streak made me actually start to sympathize with the anonymous dude who writes Dodger Blues, Bill Plaschke, and T.J. Simers, perverse as it may seem; the DePo Dodgers being off to their best start since the Brooklyn days, practically, gives these guys not a whole lot to write about:

I told Jeff Kent, "I'm with you guys win or lose," and he groaned, and for the record you should probably know that no matter what I say to Kent, his first response is always to groan.

"When I was on other teams, I'd read your stuff and feel sorry for the Dodgers," Kent said, and I think we can all recall times when we felt sorry for the Dodgers.

Of course Kent's groaning; look at this column:

[Darin Erstad] is just like Jeff Kent on the baseball field. I'm not saying I like Kent, of course, because Kent still remains a little condescending, and certainly removed from any small talk that might be interpreted as having a good time.

You get a thick skin reading such stuff, but from Simers, when the team's on a real, middle-of-August, fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot streak, about all Simers can grouse about is Kent's grunting in the presence of a certifiable ass.

Of course, I don't mean by this that Dodger Blues deserves to be lumped in with the Times' terrible two. The Blues writer, whoever he may be, is obviously annoyed with the Dodgers' mediocrity, but he's not out to roast the team at all costs (like Simers); consider this after last year's incredible comeback division-clinching win:

Going in to the bottom of the ninth, it looked like the Dodgers were dead. They were barely breathing, and already showing signs of rigormortis. A couple walks, a couple hits, and a grand slam later, however, the Dodgers had turned the tables. Let's get one thing straight right now though: Steve Finley's grand slam is NOT going to replace the Kirk Gibson home run counter. They won the West, not the goddamn World Series. That said, pretty incredible fucking day. [...] A 3-run lead, an error, a bullpen collapse, a game-tying hit off a former Dodgers, a walk-off slam... we couldn't ask for anything more.

That is, the difference between Simers and Blues is that Simers needs the Dodgers to play badly; Dodger Blues actively cheers for them when they do well.

In the midst of this, Bradley's hitting streak ended, but Jason Phillips' continued. I won't naysay this team -- not yet, anyway, not until they hit .500. Heading to Colorado, they stand a good chance of going 2-1 against a reeling Rockies team. That would make them 14-4, still a heck of a good record.

Recap

Folks, we have an Ace.

-- Rev. Halofan, on Bartolo Colon's 4/20 performance

One good performance does not an ace make, a circumstance that the Angels' leading cheesehead, Jarrod Washburn, has an intimate familiarity with. Wash's 8.0 IP, one-run game against the A's should have put him in line for that mantle, right? Instead, we got the Old Wash, and as usual, the Angels had to struggle to make up for his leakiness. It's the same problem facing John Lackey, save that Washburn's time with the club is probably drawing to a close.

With O-Cab smacking a walkoff homer into the left field stands, the temptation is to say O-Cab replaces Eckstein's production nicely, especially given Cabrera's two homers on the year, and Eckstein's zero. Actually, Eck's .289/.429/.333 line gives him a 4.2 VORP, while Cabrera owns a 2.5 VORP. I don't say Eck will be able to keep that up over 162 games, but I do maintain the Halos have once more overpaid for a player they absolutely didn't need to. Frankly, I'd rather see they got a real ace. Too bad the pitching available in free agency lately has been so thin.

Recap

More of the lil' column that just doesn't give up, just like Phthirus pubis...

BP Transaction Report Highlights

Chris Kahrl in Baseball Prospectus has his her latest Transaction Report, which I thought I'd summarize briefly. For the Angels:

Placed C-R Bengie Molina on the 15-day DL (strained quad); recalled 3B-L Dallas McPherson from Salt Lake. [4/18]

I guess this is the benefit of carrying three catchers, none of whom are all that. In Bengie's latest absence, Jose Molina and Josh Paul seem set to split the playing time, while Maicer Izturis was spared the indignity of a trip to America's theocratic wasteland. Then again, Izturis might not be in that much danger, the way people are being played in the early going. Lou Merloni seems to have been forgotten, and Robb Quinlan appears to be first in line for what looks like half (or less) of the playing time at third now that McPherson is back.

I mention "half" because while McPherson ought to get most of the playing time in a near-platoon arrangement, he might have to settle for sharing the job with Quinlan until Mike Scioscia learns to fancy Quinlan less. The Angels' lineup leans pretty heavily to the left, especially with McPherson, Darin Erstad, Garret Anderson and Jeff Davanon all doing their best stuff against right-handers. In that situation, Merloni's platoon rate (.280/.359/.437 vs. LHPs) and Juan Rivera ought to have a chance to make themselves handy if opponents start spotting lefties against them. Of course, if people start jiggering their rotations to slot their lefties against the Halos, what really matters--beyond the effect on the standings--would be the monster season that Vladi Guerrero would probably put up if he saw more of the people he's slugged .667 against over the last three years.

In other news, Kahrl calls Khalil Greene's loss "a major setback" for the Padres, one they're planning on corking by inserting Jeff Blum in at shortstop, as they did last night. Too bad Blum has only played 108 games (642.1 innings) at that position.

If, once upon a time, the art of managing was all about putting players in a position to do the things that they can do well, Blum’s pretty thoroughly misdeployed. Now that they’re without a shortstop for any length of time, who then can they turn to? Given that Blum and Garcia cannot do the job, now would be a good time to give J.J. Furmaniak a trial, or if that seems overly risky, perhaps Damian Jackson makes sense. Regardless, this is a situation very similar to last season’s disaster in Snugglyville, when the Cubs lost Alex Gonzalez and lacked for a viable alternative.

Update: I am informed Chris is a she, formerly a he. As you will, then, and my apologies for the confusion.

Shoutouts

One of the things that just tickles me is when I find a link this this blog on somebody's sidebar (usually by looking at my referrers). What sweetens the discovery even more is finding a literate and thoughtful blog at the other end, as was the case when I popped over to Concerned But Powerless. A mix of "sports, politics, television, music, movies, and general absurdity", Vic (of whom, last name?) has a bunch of stuff worth reading if for no other reason than style points; particularly, I liked this bit about the questionable casting in an upcoming David Fincher film about the Zodiac serial killer. On the sidebar soon enough.

And, secondly, thanks to Studes at Hardball Times in today's "Ten Things I Didn't Know Last Week" column for the link back to last Friday's recap of my adventures at Dodger Stadium on Jackie Robinson Day.

What Have We Learned After Two Weeks?

The Score Bard tells us:

NL West
Without having Gagne to close,
L.A. is still crushing its foes.
If DePo were me,
I'd be dancing with glee,
And be sticking my thumb on my nose.

As proof I'm not reading the papers enough, Chronicles reminds me the Times still writes stories about the Angels. One of them in today's paper has Adam Kennedy making such progress with his rehab that he's expected back sooner rather than later, as in, by the Angels' homestand against Detroit May 6-11. He'll be in Salt Lake starting this weekend.

First Blogger loses its mind (again). Now, somebody's unplugged the Baseball Toaster, including Dodger Thoughts. Just bad juju everywhere today for whatever reason.

Update: as a courtesy to everyone, in case you're having trouble with Blogger forwarding you to the dashboard on certain blogs: just go to your browser's cache control and flush cache. I suspect Blogger is handing out bogus 301 (permanently moved) statuses in some cases where the guts of the system can't return fast enough, and this is being cached by the browser, making it look like Blogger's broken (it isn't).

Angels 2, Indians 0

There's bad ways to get attention -- and there's good ways, like yesterday's impressive pitching from Bartolo Colon. Colon tossed a four-hit, two-walk gem apparently, against a none-too-shabby Indians lineup, and spoiled a two-run outing by Jake Westbrook. Run support... ah, run support.

At 8-7, the Angels are tied for first with the M's, but only a half game ahead of the Rangers and a full game ahead of the A's.

Recap

Stingers In First Place

The Angels' AAA Salt Lake Stingers affiliate is now in first place with a 9-4 record after sweeping the Dodgers' AAA Las Vegas 51's. The 51's and Stingers will continue playing each other immediately, with another two-game series in Las Vegas starting tonight.

Nomar Injured

Nomar Garciaparra injured his groin with a muscle tear, and is likely out for half the season. The collapse following an anemic .157/.228/.176 start isn't helping his salability on the open market after the year's end. Hendry might re-up him, which would be a mistake.

Spiezio Disabled

Scott Spiezio, whose presence in the majors gets more and more tenuous every day, has been put on the M's DL with a strained oblique. He's mainly been used as a pinch hitter, and is 1-12 in that role.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall.

And then, J.D. Drew powers one into the stands in the ninth, and damned if Jose Valentin doesn't follow up with a game-winning triple in the tenth.

Or Milton Bradley hits one game-winning jack after another.

There'll be long stretches this year where I'll tear my hair out, times I'll forget about this incredible romp, times I'll find myself requestioning some of DePodesta's moves.

But for now, it's all clicking, in a way the Padres aren't. Look at last night's box score; there's barely a man on there hitting over .250, and most of them are small-sample-size pitchers. That's gonna change, of course, but the real story was continued early-season wildness by the Padres' normally stable bullpen. Linebrink, normally one of their anchor middle relievers, gave up a walk and single in the ninth; his early-season 5.68 ERA likely won't last, but like the Angels' relief corps, he's a guy picked upon the cheap, and for a reason: he's been very, very good with the Padres over the previous two years, but he's also had inconsistant performances over the years, with a career ERA of 3.45.

The Padres for their part are wont to discuss their recent change at the top, the acquisition of former A's CEO and GM (1983-1998) Sandy Alderson for their vacant CEO position. Ducksnorts says it's an "intriguing move", fighting DePodesta's Moneyball fire with fire from a different generation of A's management. Recall that Alderson begat Beane, who begat DePodesta, thus opening a whole series of Vader-Luke possibilities in the NL West, only skipping a generation. (Kevin Towers will remain as GM, for now.)

For their sputtering start, the Pads are likely to tell you about injuries to key players like Dave Roberts, Khalil Greene, and Eric Young. But the real problem the Padres face is that those guys who are in the lineup every day aren't producing. That'll change, but casting an injury magnet like Roberts into a starting role after his extensive downtime in Los Angeles makes one wonder how much good judgement Towers really has. It's not widely recognized because the Pads lack a Bonds-type player, but the barrenness of San Diego's farm system is driving something of a win-now mode. Alderson's ascent to the GM chair might happen sooner rather than later if they don't.

Recap

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

-- Ecclesiastes 9:11

And so it was that I looked up today to see the Giants were 6-7, one game under .500. Considering they're missing their two big sluggers, Bonds and Alou, that's a pretty good place to be, actually. The Dodgers, four and a half games ahead of the Padres and Diamondbacks, also have the best record in baseball, for now, and little to worry about except the eventual fall to earth.

The Angels, on the other hand, have managed only a .500 7-7 record, tying them for first place with the M's and A's. Part of the reason they're at breakeven was Lackey's loss yesterday, which was cause for a Mike Scioscia closed-door meeting.

"John has the ability to make pitches in tough situations, but when he hits a bump in the road, his frustration level elevates," Scioscia said. "He has to realize that everything he does is not going to turn to gold….

"We talk about mound presence. At times, John has been swallowed up by the circumstances of a situation. Instead of trying to throw the ball harder or make the break [of his curve] bigger, he just needs to make pitches. We're talking about consistency. This is not a guy who's never done it."

Well, sure, and there's a line as long as your arm, John, in case you can't hack it:

"John is searching for consistency," Scioscia said. "His career at times has been spectacular; at times he needs to clean some stuff up. Right now, he's on a plateau. We need to get him back to how he was throwing the ball at the end of last year. He needs to put together a string of good starts."

They've been saying that for two years now. I remember vividly being at Angel Stadium (nee Edison Field) for opening day in 2003, and Lackey getting shellacked 6-3.

If not, would the Angels consider a change? Right-hander Dustin Moseley is 2-0 and has given up no runs and five hits in 12 innings of his first two triple-A starts, and current Angel relievers Chris Bootcheck, who threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings Tuesday, and Jake Woods can start.

Well, "start" is a relative term. Sure, they can occupy the mound for 18 outs or so, but how many runs in that time?

Starting pitching continues to be a worry for the Angels. It will be so long as their minor league system fails to produce quality starters.

At some point, I might be faced with the temptation to draft a Barry Bonds, or an Eric Byrnes. If you root for the A's, the temptation to Just Say Vlad is compelling enough to cause intestinal knots, unless you play in a league that avoids players in the same real-life division as the team you actually root for.

In my Hardball Times Angels preview, I speculated that the pen would fall apart this year.

I really, really didn't want for that to happen, but here we are with Gregg and his 9.00 ERA in 9.0 IP. (At least Yan, Bootcheck, and Shields put up okay numbers for the day.)

Oh, and look, there's Figgins failing to get on base, and Erstad OBPing at a rate of .324.

Tell you what, I'm gonna start throwing things if they haven't gotten this straightened out by the end of the month.

Update: ... although, it's always instructive to check out the other team's blogs and see what they have to say. For some reason, words like "candyass" -- something I would just about never apply to one of the opposition's players -- flow freely when attacking your own. (Though that's about how I feel right now when applied to Kevin Gregg's pitch stylings.)

Recap

Aimless thoughts in the aftermath of today's incredible duh-wha-howdtheydothat game:

• The relief corps is a thing of shreds and patches, but somehow manages to avoid losing games. Buddy Carlyle, first voted off Dodger Island when Brad Penny returns? I'm betting that way...
• Milton Bradley, cool down? You bet, just like he did last year in August, when he struggled to a .224/.339/.327 line.
• Scott Erickson or Elmer Dessens, first out of the rotation? When the game started, this was a legitimate question, but now that Dessens has been felled by a freak injury, it's one less decision for Tracy and DePodesta to make.
• Jason Phillips -- words fail me.

Deconstructing the Times story on today's game:

Bradley was almost apologetic in describing heroics that are becoming routine.

"It's getting redundant," he said. "I'm getting tired of talking about it. You know the story."

Hey, I can stand this kind of repetition --

Pinch-hitter Jason Grabowski homered in the sixth and the Dodgers added four runs in the seventh with two out. Jeff Kent doubled and scored for the 11th consecutive game. Pinch-hitters Jason Phillips and Olmedo Saenz delivered RBI hits and Izturis brought home two runs with a double.

Next you'll be telling me Paul DePodesta has arranged a lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israelis --

Meanwhile, rookie relievers D.J. Houlton and Steve Schmoll combined for three scoreless innings. Schmoll also contributed with his glove after Jeff Cirillo had doubled and moved to third on a fly out in the eighth, leaving his feet to spear J.J. Hardy's squeeze and doubling Cirillo off third.

Even despite Carlyle's less-than-impressive performance, the bullpen wasn't all sorrow --

Good news just keeps coming for the Dodgers. Not that a cavalry rescue is in order, but Brad Penny is on his way back.

Dodger brass will meet with the right-hander today in San Diego and decide whether his next start Sunday will be for the Dodgers or triple-A Las Vegas. Penny's encouraging performance Monday for Las Vegas [where he struck out nine batters] excited the Dodgers, but they aren't sure they want his first major league start since he aggravated his biceps nerve injury in September to be at hitter-friendly Coors Field.

Meantime, we can be grateful that the club shows intestinal fortitude in the wake of the pitching miscues, and the team hasn't come unglued like the Padres seem to, so far.

Recap

A great column at the Ventura County Star (registration required, use bugmenot.com if'n ya don't wanna):

Lowe, a remarkably relaxed individual, had dug into his locker before Friday's start, looking for a different pair of shoes to wear. (The Dodgers had lost his first two starts, so the shoes had to go, he said.)

He opened up one box and showed the contents to to reporters: "Think I should wear these?"

Instead of having his Dodgers number, 23, stitched on the tongue, this particular pair of blue shoes had the number 32, which Lowe wore in Boston but most assuredly is not available in Los Angeles. Written on the side of one shoe, in silver lettering, were the words: "To Derek. Sorry you can't have the number. Sandy Koufax."

Lowe decided not to wear the shoes, but was more than happy with his choice of footwear, given the three-hitter that followed.

"Absolutely," he said. "I need to mark them so I know which ones they are."

Oh, and in light of his success on a night the Dodgers honored Jackie Robinson, Lowe had one other proclamation for reporters: "It'll be Jackie Robinson Day every time I pitch."