Monday, March 19, 2007 |
Pickoff Moves
Today's Birthdays
Fritz Brickell LAA b. 1935, played 1961, d. 1965-10-15
Roy Evans BRO b. 1874, played 1902-1903, d. 1915-08-15
Jeff Hamilton LAN b. 1964, played 1986-1991. Despite spending all of August 1988 on the DL, he helped the Dodgers win the rings that cemented Tommy Lasorda's Hall of Fame bid. According to some sources, he almost became a significant part of a trade that would have sent Barry Bonds to Los Angeles, and can you imagine Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds in the same locker room, let alone on the same field?
Paul Powell LAN b. 1948, played 1973, 1975
Don Rose CAL b. 1947, played 1972
Dave Ross LAN b. 1977, played 2002-2004. Like another favorite catcher of mine, Paul Lo Duca, a late bloomer; the Reds signed him to a 2-year/$4.5M deal last month to my surprise, but I guess they figured his .255/.353/.579 (247 AB) 2006 season was repeatable. We'll see if it is, but the fact that he hit more than half of his home runs at home despite playing less than 50% of the time there is probably a Sign.
Roster Notes And Other Minutiae
- For I returned, and saw under the sun... the Dodgers are suddenly 13-7 in spring training games despite yesterday's 5-0 loss to Cleveland; Dodger offense and defense betrayed Derek Lowe, unable to plate any runners despite six hits, only two of which went for extra bases (both doubles); two errors led to three unearned runs.
- Matt White, billionaire (no word on whether he owns a mansion und a yacht), has been cut, along with "pitchers D.J. Houlton, Eric Stults and Jonathan Meloan, outfielders Delwyn Young and Choo Freeman and infielder Tony Abreu, who injured his shoulder on Saturday and is out for two to four weeks."
- The Dodgers have sent lefty Greg Miller back down to the minors, but plan on returning him to starting.
- More evidence the Dodgers need to move to Arizona: It took the draw of Dice-K and the Red Sox for the Dodgers to sell more than 9,000 tickets; the 9,067 attendance was a Holman Stadium record. Contrast that with the 5,455 who watched Derek Lowe face the Indians on Sunday. By contrast, the Angels had 6,111 in an away split-squad game against the A's and 8,310 against the Cubs, though it should be noted that the Cubbies always draw well in Arizona.
- And speaking of the Angels... Napoli, Q, and now-buried youngster Matt Brown all went yard in a 6-5 loss that underscored just how important pitching is to the Angels' game; the team took a two-run lead into the ninth, but Chris Bootcheck coughed up the game winner and allowed three runs. Nick Adenhart "had command issues at times" according to the game writeup, which sounds familiar, but he did creditably considering this is the one of the few times he's faced major leaguers.
- John Lackey, Cy Young contender? It could happen, but that's really Johan Santana's crown to lose.
- Brandon Wood and Nick Adenhart were both demoted to minor league camp, and a bunch of other Angels besides, including Phil Seibel, which the Rev. mentions without providing a confirming link. I must say that even minus that, it's totally believable considering how badly he's pitched this spring. Also reassigned:
Arredondo, Ryan Aldridge, Nick Green, Kasey Olenberger and Steven Shell. Other pitchers included Tommy Mendoza, Robert Mosebach and Brenton Del Chiaro.
Ben Johnson, who tripled twice in four at-bats, was reassigned along with fellow catchers Tim Duff and Brett Martinez and Flint Wipke. First baseman Mike Eylward, who doubled and tripled and is hitting .375, was reassigned along with infielders Sean Rodriguez, Casey Smith and Hainley Statia. Outfielders Terry Evans, hitting .294 with three doubles, and Aaron Peel were also reassigned.
- Matt Welch points us at former Dodger Dave Stewart's analysis of the top 10 starting rotations in the game; and yeah, Stewart's full of it. I generally don't link to this kind of stuff because at some level, it's shooting fish in a barrel, and who does that? And doesn't it put holes in the barrel?
Props For The Times' Web Stuff
Some good stories in the Times today about the Web, which I wanted to use as a springboard to praise (for a change):- Steven Bochko is thinking about how to make entertaining shorts for the Web. The Internet is a future entertainment medium, but certainly not the only one; it's good to see people with significant success in entertainment putting serious thought into this, as opposed to the scammer pedophiles at DEN who figured they'd make a bundle without ever giving the business model any thought.
- Speaking of webcasting and TV, Scott Collins has a piece about Hayden Black's "Goodnight Burbank", an online satire of local TV news.
- Then there was the enjoyable Steroids Debate Dust-Up series between Mat Gleason of Halos Heaven and Tim Marchman of the New York Sun.
Labels: angels, dodgers, spring training
: 3/19/2007 11:11:00 AM
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