Saturday, June 10, 2006 |
Pickoff Moves
Mauling All Angels: Mariners 4, Angels 1
The Chronicler observed in last night's gameday thread that the Angels have once again given Escobar terrible run support, with Escobar picking up a 4.05 ERA in his last five starts, and all of them losses. The Angels have certainly looked better, with Vlad doing a Bill Buckner imitation out in right field that cost the Angels a pair of runs. Escobar deserves better, to be sure, but his lack of strikeouts is really starting to hurt him; there were a couple circumstances where, if he had gotten the K, he might have escaped a jam.Maybe the best news to come out of the day was not the score result but the fact that Bartolo Colón will make another rehab start, giving Jered Weaver another start and postponing the Angels' need to make a decision about his status. It's hard for me to believe that Colón will be better than Weaver in the immediate future, although the intermediate case becomes a bit murkier; Colón, with adequate starts, could become a very good pitcher again, while I'm very skeptical of Weaver's ability to keep his phenominal start going over an entire season. Would Escobar be more valuable to the Angels as a relief ace? It seems like a waste of resources, but given his sudden drop in K/9, it's not farfetched.
If I had, as does Dodger Blues an Asshole of the Moment, it would have to be Jarrod Washburn, who has made my permanent blacklist for pitching well in Anaheim in some other guy's uniform when he could never do it as an Angel.
A Pitcher's Duel In Colorado? Dodgers 3, Rockies 0
At the beginning of May, the Rockies were the talk of the short-attention-span set in baseball for simply having a strong opening; first place must have felt good, no matter how briefly held. Knocked out of first place on May 14 after a 3-0 loss to Houston, the Rocks played 11-12 from there through yesterday — actually, not bad ball, but the rest of the division has just been winning and winning, with every team except the Padres sporting a winning record over that time:
So it's not like, as in years past, the Rockies are playing terribly so much as they're inconsistent, the typical problem besetting .500 teams. But if that's what the Rocks are this year, they're surely a better team than in years past, which makes last night's win by the Dodgers that much more surprising. Byun-Hyung Kim posted a very creditable quality start, which, had he gotten anything like decent run support, would have earned him a win. Brad Penny simply outdueled him, made doubly impressive by the fact of the game taking place at elevation. That he drove in one of the winning runs himself was triply impressive.Team Record =============== Dodgers 15-8 Giants 14-9 D'backs 14-10 Padres 10-13
Roster Notes
- Eric Gagné may yet go back on the DL after his elbow balked following ten short warmup tosses.
- Jeff Kent should come off the DL and play when he is eligible, for Tuesday's Padres game.
- Odalis Perez, who gets less and less playing time because he sucks more and more, will get skipped his next turn thanks to a scheduled day off; he will next be used on Saturday, June 17.
- Conor McGeehan signed a free agent contract with the Dodgers and will start at extended spring training.
- Despite the emergence of Matt Kemp, Ken Rosenthal characterizes the Dodgers as the "most aggressive" team in pursuing Alfonso Soriano.
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