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

Mike Napoli, Blake DeWitt Among Eric Neel's Unsung All-Stars

Mike Napoli, C, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
He splits time with Jeff Mathis, so he has only 66 at-bats in 18 games. But in those 66 at-bats he has 18 hits, and of those 18 hits, nine are for extra bases, and of those nine, eight are home runs.

Blake DeWitt, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers
This was supposed to be Andy LaRoche's spot and Nomar Garciaparra's spot before that, but it's fallen to DeWitt because the other two have gotten hurt. And to his credit, DeWitt has stepped up, playing very good defense at third and hitting much better (.306/.385/.471 with 2 HR and 18 RBI) through 29 games than Joe Torre could have hoped for. If the Dodgers are in this thing come September, don't underestimate the spiritual value of DeWitt's inside-the-park home run against the Rockies Tuesday night.

UTK Quickies

Rafael Furcal (20 DXL)
The Dodgers must be looking across town to see how the Angels tend to deal with the DL. If so, the lesson took and makes perfect sense in the case of Furcal. Much as we talked about recently with Chone Figgins, the Dodgers gave Furcal time to heal up in hopes he could come back in less than 15 days. Instead, when the back didn't free up, they found a mild strain in his sacroiliac joint. Furcal had a cortisone injection into the area in hopes that it would help. This injury is substantially similar to the one he had at the end of last season, so as a recurrence, he's likely to take a bit longer to come back, and will have a higher risk of another episode in the future. Now that it has been diagnosed, he'll be getting consistent maintenance work, and I don't think it will be a significant drag on him once the acute pain and tightness clears.

Howie Kendrick (15 DXL)
Getting injury information from some teams is like asking the NSA for Osama bin Laden's phone records, but others are getting to the point where it's almost as transparent as the NFL draft. The Angels trend more towards transparency, except recently in Kendrick's case. At least it seems that way, though I'm beginning to think that the Angels are like me and try not to say anything when there's nothing new to add. Out since mid-April with a hamstring strain, Kendrick continues to have problems. The last report had Kendrick tearing loose some scar tissue, though this is normal with a chronically strained hamstring rather than the acute strain Kendrick suffered. He continues treatment and physical therapy with the hope of loosening it up and getting him back on a rehab assignment. We'll have to treat Kendrick's hammies as a chronic problem going forward. Kendrick is well past his DXL here and there's no timetable on his return.

How Furcal Had Such A Hot Start

Using the Baseball Info Solutions swing data available at Fangraphs, we can see that Furcal is laying off of more pitches outside of the strike zone than last year; however, he is making contact more often. From 2006 to 2007 he increased his swing frequency at pitches out of the strike zone from 19 percent to 26 percent; the amount of pitches seen in the strike zone drastically decreased from 51.8 percent to 40.1 percent. The likely reason for seeing fewer pitches in the zone deals with his increased tendency to swing out of the zone. Consider the proposition from the pitcher's perspective: Why throw something in the zone that could potentially hurt you if the batter has shown a lack of recent plate discipline?

Labels: angels, dodgers, injuries

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