Thursday, August 18, 2005 |
Two Games
Splat: Braves 10, Dodgers 2
Nobody's talking about how lousy the Dodgers pitching is? I dunno. Maybe the best way to think about the Odalis Perez and Derek Lowe signings is as transitional pitchers. The Dodgers need to figure out how to put together a better rotation in the places ahead of those guys, but hopefully they become backend pitching; I have too much hope for DePo to figure that he's going to stand pat on the rotation as is. Now, if he makes an earnest attempt to re-sign Jeff Weaver, well, now...But to the positives. Jayson Werth went 2-4, and the Small Sample Size Police tell me he's hitting .353/.421/.588 in August. Three strikeouts, no earned runs through two innings of work for Brazoban. Robles gets on base three times, and scores a run. Nobody expects the Dodgers to beat the Braves; but we do expect them to at least put up a good show. For tonight, we had to settle for a smattering of good performances.
Update: The San Bernardino Sun has some interesting things to say about this. Turns out OP was injured when taking the mound:
"I couldn't go down to release my pitches the way I wanted to," he said. "When I was warming up in the bullpen, playing catch, I had to jump up for a ball. When I came down, I won't say I pulled something, but I felt pain right here (right side of his abdomen). After that, I couldn't dip down. But I don't think that's any excuse not to perform."Also: Brazoban threw a new pitch called a change-up, and effectively.At that point, Perez had yet to tell either Tracy or pitching coach Jim Colborn about the injury, which Perez will have reexamined today.
"Never heard a word about it," said Tracy, when told by reporters of Perez's revelation.
Colborn found out when he read it on a medical report. Perez told trainer Stan Johnston of the injury after the game.
Update 2: I have -- wait for it -- I have been critical of the Dodgers minor league system as being overrated because of its inability to produce even so much as a single major leaguer. On occaision, I noted the appearance of Jeff Francoeur (2-5 in last night's game with a triple and a home run, and possessing a .373/.389/.755 line with the Braves in 110 AB) as the hallmark of a real live competent minor league system. Drafted in 2002, Francoeur is already a useful player, one busy helping to beat the Dodgers.
Or is he? Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus looks at Francoeur's complete absence of walks, and concludes that Francoeur isn't really major-league ready, despite his impressive slugging percentage. "Unless you really believe he's a .370 hitter with .700 power, it's pretty clear that what we're seeing here is a fluke, a Shane Spencer month to kick off a career."
Make A Wash: Blue Jays 4, Angels 1
Finally, a game we can't blame on either the bullpen or lousy fielding by Cabrera or Finley, though the act of putting Finley in the lineup by itself tended to decrease the Angels' chances of winning. No, this was a hat tipper, with Wash coming back from injury, the likelihood of him coughing up a few was increased quite a bit. With the Angels' offense relegated to Vlad and maybe Benjie on a good day, the Halos have to be hoping for Robb Quinlan to come back and start showing he can contribute at the major league level for a hundred at bats or so, 'cause I can't imagine Stoneman biting on the mess that is Mike Sweeney.
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