The Dodgers started the season with a batting champ, a stolen base king and a national anthem performer on the disabled list but a song in their hearts. Call it progress for a club that last summer was best known for sore limbs and soreheads.
The new mood was visible on the face of first-year general manager Ned Colletti as he perched on a dugout bench hours before the first pitch of the Dodgers’ season. He was discussing the club’s latest injuries, perhaps wishing the dark clouds over Dodger Stadium would grant his undermanned team a reprieve.
“It’s starting to drizzle,” said someone who was standing beyond the protection of the dugout roof.
Colletti broke into a grin.
“Things are looking up,” he said, slapping his palms together in celebration of his joke. At least the Dodgers could laugh at their troubles, a sign that sunny optimism had returned to Chavez Ravine.
When the rain went away and the team finally opened the season against the Braves — minus first baseman Nomar Garciaparra (ribcage), center fielder Kenny Lofton (calf) and singer Kristin Chenoweth (laryngitis) — it marked the end of an offseason that was tumultuous yet suggested the front office again has a plan.
After surprisingly winning a National League West title in 2004, the Dodgers suffered a series of injuries in 2005 and stumbled to only their second 90-loss season in 61 years. The dog days were marked by a squabble between second baseman Jeff Kent and center fielder Milton Bradley.
Owner Frank McCourt, dissatisfied with the leadership of G.M. Paul DePodesta and manager Jim Tracy during the Kent-Bradley showdown, fired both after the season. Colletti was hired away from the Giants, where he was the No. 2 man to G.M. Brian Sabean, and in less than two months he remade the roster and coaching staff. Along the way, he got rid of Bradley and first baseman Hee Seop Choi, players who fit DePodesta’s preference for power-and-walks hitters. Colletti also pushed aside shortstop Cesar Izturis, a Tracy favorite who is recovering from elbow surgery, in favor of free agent Rafael Furcal.
Colletti’s moves struck a delicate balance between the need to immediately restore respect to the club and the need to begin the transition to a future built on highly rated prospects such as righthanded pitcher Chad Billingsley, third baseman Andy LaRoche and shortstop-turned-left fielder Joel Guzman.
After overpaying for Furcal, Colletti signed the remaining veterans to moderate- and short-term contracts, making them seatholders for the kids who are due to arrive in Los Angeles in the next few years.
Fans, who in general were happy to be rid of the uncommunicative DePodesta, responded by pushing ticket sales to 2.5 million sooner than in any offseason in more than a decade.
Spring training began with a new manager, former Red Sox skipper Grady Little, and a lineup that relied on decorated, if over-the-hill, free agents Garciaparra, Lofton and third baseman Bill Mueller.
The new arrivals certainly have star quality: Garciaparra and Mueller won American League batting championships, Lofton has won stolen base titles, and Garciaparra and Furcal were rookies of the year.
They certainly have playoff experience: Mueller, Lofton and backup catcher Sandy Alomar have played in the World Series, and Garciaparra and new starting pitcher Brett Tomko have played in the League Championship Series.
Clearly, they are hungry: Only Mueller has been on a World Series winner, with the Red Sox in 2004.
Add in Kent and you have a team filled with players who have come up just short, put together by a G.M. who saw a World Series slip away with the Giants in 2002 and led by a manager who famously let a pennant get away while leading the Red Sox in 2003.
“We’re coming from a lot of different places,” Little says, “but we’ve got a common goal: To play in the last game of the season.”
Anywhere else, that sort of statement after a fourth-place season might be greeted with guffaws. And Dodgers fans, hardened by the franchise’s rapid turnover and missteps in the past decade, certainly are not making World Series plans. But optimism comes cheaper in Los Angeles than most sports towns — definitely cheaper than in Colletti’s old stomping grounds in San Francisco, where Giants fans see failure around every corner, and in Little’s former home in Boston, where Red Sox fans look for catastrophe under every bed.
In Los Angeles, fans see a contender at the end of every freeway ramp. Beginning with the Dodgers’ World Series victory in 1959, there has been only one period longer than one calendar year in which no major team in Los Angeles or Orange County — including USC’s football team and UCLA’s basketball team — played in a championship game or series. That drought began after UCLA’s most recent hoops title in 1995 and lasted until the Lakers’ three-peat started in the 1999-2000 season.
Much of this season’s optimism surrounding the Dodgers rests on the fact they play in the National League West, which was a combined 76 games under .500 in 2005. L.A.’s main rivals, San Francisco and San Diego, are remarkably unimproved. Last year’s Dodgers logged 1,366 days on the disabled list, so how can things get worse?
“If we can keep the players on the field, we like our chances,” Little says. “My No. 1 area of concern is what goes on in that training room.”
But as the Giants come to L.A. this weekend for the season’s first showdown between the clubs, the Dodgers are just beginning to sort out 2006’s mysteries:
How effectively can closer Eric Gagne pitch this season? Gagne reported no unusual pain during spring training, but before he appeared in a regular-season game he had surgery on the same nerve in his right elbow that was surgically repaired last June. Even when he returns in a couple of months — and that’s not a certainty — he can’t be expected to show the form that made him the game’s most dominant closer just two seasons ago.
How will Danys Baez handle the pressure of closing for someone besides the Devil Rays? With Gagne out, the January trade that sent pitchers Edwin Jackson and Chuck Tiffany to Tampa Bay for Baez and reliever Lance Carter looks like the most important move during Colletti’s first 100 days on the job.
Can Garciaparra avoid injuries long enough to become a first-rate first baseman after spending his career on the left side of the infield?”It’s a work in progress,” Garciaparra says of the new position.
Little says: “He’s going to keep a lot of balls out of the right field corner.”
What will happen when Izturis, the Gold Glove shortstop, returns from surgery? Offseason talk had Izturis moving to second base, Kent to first and Garciaparra to left field, where Jose Cruz opened the season. Now the Dodgers are asking Izturis to learn the outfield, which has left him fearful of becoming a utilityman at 26.
Will L.A. see the best of opening day starter Derek Lowe and right fielder J.D. Drew? Two of DePodesta’s biggest free-agent signings struggled in 2005. Lowe, a 21-game winner for Little in Boston in 2002, was distracted by a divorce; Drew again was limited by injuries. This season, Lowe got off on the wrong foot by allowing eight runs in five innings during an 11-10 loss to the Braves.
Ultimately, when will those kids at Class AAA Las Vegas be ready? It might have to be soon if the veterans don’t pan out.”We’ve got a pretty good lineup when Kenny is healthy, and Nomar,” says Furcal, who believes the club can survive their absences in the short term. “We’ve got a lot of good pitching here; we’ve got a good bullpen and solid defense.”
Garciaparra went on the D.L. before the second game of the season, which marked the third consecutive April he has been sidelined. His replacement, 21-year-old James Loney, was called up before playing a game at Class AAA Las Vegas.
It would be too much to ask the Dodgers’ farm system to begin a seamless transition similar to what the Braves enjoyed last season, but that doesn’t mean Los Angeles should be shy about testing its top prospects.
“If there’s talent,” Braves G.M. John Schuerholz says, “sometimes the best thing you can offer them is on-the-job experience (and) responsibility.”
Colletti’s first set of moves packed the roster with familiar names and bought time for the kids. That strategy has the team — and the city — expecting great things. But considering the already mounting injury reports, L.A.’s optimism could be tested sooner than expected.
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