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

2. Chad Billingsley, rhp, Dodgers (Triple-A Las Vegas)
Billingsley was solid in his last outing--fanning six and allowing just one hit in eight innings against Colorado Springs. Even though it was the first time he went deeper than five innings in any one of his five starts this season, Billingsley's overall numbers are hard to ignore: 3-0, 1.59 with 31 strikeouts in 28 innings. Throw in the fact that this is the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League and it makes it all that much more impressive.

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6. Matt Kemp, of, Dodgers (Double-A Jacksonville)
Kemp has a nice streak of his own going, hitting safely over his last 15 games. He's 23-for-59 (.389) with 11 extra-base hits over that span. "He just has such quick hands that allow him to make adjustments to balls all over the zone," a scout from a National League organization said. "He can tend to fly open some, but he hasn't been flying open all too much lately."

Welcome to Double-A, Raffy. In two starts in the Texas League after dominating at high Class A Rancho Cucamonga, Rodriguez has allowed 12 runs on 11 hits in just seven innings--and six of those hits left the yard.

Double-A Jacksonville center fielder Matt Kemp extended his hitting streak to 16 games and his on-base streak to 19 as he came a single shy of hitting for the cycle in the Suns' 9-3 win against West Tenn on Monday.

Kemp is hitting .406 during the streak, and all four of his homers have come during that span.

"Right now, I feel really good--very confident," Kemp said. "Every time I go up there, I feel like I can get a hit. I'm not thinking about this streak or whatever, though. It is what it is. I just go out there, take every AB the same and see where that takes me."

For now, it's taken him to the No. 2 spot in the Southern League in hitting, with overall numbers of .337/.402/.604 in 101 at-bats. The sixth-round pick in 2003 out of Midwest City (Okla.) High also ranks among the minor league leaders in hits with 34.

"Our whole team--we started off pretty slow, myself definitely included," Kemp said. "But a lot of the credit for everyone goes to (Suns hitting coach) Mike Easler for getting our swings back from a ton of hours in the cage. Mike really helped all of us a lot confidence-wise.

"I know personally, I was pressing big time early on and it showed. But, you know, you get a couple to fall and then you suddenly start seeing balls better--it builds from there."

Kemp, who spent a large chunk of the spring in big league camp playing center field with the major league club, is also playing center for Jacksonville. Last season--and in the Arizona Fall League--Kemp played primarily right and most scouts questioned his range and speed to play center field.

"I love it and it's definitely a position I want to play," Kemp said. "The more I'm out there, the better it feels, the more comfortable I am. I think playing in big league camp did a lot for me that way--I might not have done much with the stick over there, but I played really good defense.

"If they want me to stay there, I'll stay there. And if they want me to move back to the corner, that's fine. Whatever keeps me in the lineup every day--it doesn't matter where I play."

The Rainiers looked utterly lost late in the game - trailing 2-0, and unable to touch, let alone damage, Weaver. But then the factor that helped put the Rainiers in this bind ended up bailing them out. Weaver, Jimenez and Rainiers reliever Rich Dorman had benefitted from an extremely, um, generous strike zone. The umpire seemed to think the strikes needed a bit of lebensraum, and ceded a large portion of unincorporated territory to the pitcher in a sort of umpiring anschluss. This state of affairs left many hitters speechless - Rob Johnson and Shin-Soo Choo were particularly non-plussed - but it had rather the opposite effect on Salt Lake 3b Dallas McPherson. If you clicked on that link, you'd see that he's well-acquianted [sic] with the K, and I'd have thought that in generating the staggering K totals he has, he'd be familiar with the odd bad call. But a Rich Dorman FB on the outside corner (of the batter's box) had him seeing red. After swinging through a curve, McPherson barked at the ump from the dugout until he earned himself an early exit. This turned out to be quite important...

After Asdrubal Cabrera doubled to deep right-center, Weaver was pulled out in favor of Jonathon Rouwenhorst, who promptly induced a GB to McPherson's replacement, Casey Smith. Smith dropped the ball, then threw it past Kendry Morales for a two-base error. Suddenly, the tying run was on second with nobody out, Weaver was gone and the Bees were both angry and jittery. After Shin-Soo Choo failed to get a run in, Adam Jones knocked an RBI single, Greg Dobbs singled, and the Rainiers got a bit of insurance with a Mike Morse sac fly.

Emiliano Fruto closed things out despite looking a bit shaky - he walked the first batter, then threw a pitch up in the eyes of Bees catcher Mike Napoli. Fruto finished off the at bat by hitting Napoli on the back. From there, as one might expect, things got a bit better - a K, an FC and GB out and that was that.

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Game two was less interesting, despite a nice performance from Cha Seung Baek, the Rainiers couldn't get any separation. With a new umpire at the plate, Ks were much harder to come by - unless your [sic] Dallas McPherson, who must strike out shaving, dressing himself and eating.

The Bees took a one-run lead into the final inning, and though the [Rainiers] had runners at the corners with two outs, Hunter Brown grounded a pitch right back to Salt Lake pitcher Jason Bulger. All the Bees needed to do was complete the tricky 1-3 putout to win, but that proved too much - McPherson, who had just moved to 1B for the inning, missed the throw, allowing TJ Bohn to score the tying run. It was a ludicrous play, the perfect cap for a night in which McPherson had struck out 5 times, gotten thrown out, and gone 0-7. Fittingly, McPherson got one final at-bat in the top of the 8th and while I was teasing him for attempting to don the unheard-of Diamond Sombrero (6ks in one day), he took Aaron Looper deep to left-center. Ballgame.

"I expect to come out and do well in every start," Johnson said. "But I had a rough first start, and I've been working on getting better. I've got a pretty good curveball. That's probably my out-pitch right now.

"I'm pretty confident in all my pitches, though, really."

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"Really, a good pitch is a good pitch," he said. "It's just getting better command, better control and setting up hitters that's the key adjustments. Plus, your mental game and preparation have to be better.

"I'm a totally different pitcher with a lot more experience since two years ago in Ogden."