BOOMER - AFTER BEATING OUT “THE BUNT”

Of all people, Shea Hillenbrand is stepping up and saying what needs to happen.  That being,  the Dodgers need to sweep the Padres.  The Phillies needed to sweep the Mets the past 3 games and they did.   We are on a hot streak and there’s no reason we can’t do the same.

David Wells has another shot at a win tonight (and we do need that win), but most of all, he keeps the guys loose!  “I think he’s a good fit,” adds Mets coach Rickey Henderson. “They’ll get a kick out of him. He might loosen up some of the guys that need to be loosened up and create that different atmosphere [rather] than put too much pressure on baseball.

“If you put too much pressure on yourself, you’re not going to have fun out there and you’re not going to do your job.”

I believe that more than anything, Wells brings the looseness we need.  Confident, yet loose.  The opposite of Jeff Kent who is a stoic, quiet leader.  Gonzo may have been the most effusive personality in the clubhouse before Boomer.

I believe we will see 5 callups by September 3, the first being Meloan, Young, LaRoche, Abreu and Hull.  Jacksonville could send us Kershaw, McDonald and Miller after the playoffs, however, I don’t think there will be many more than that.  Maybe Houlton.

I have said it before and I’ll repeat it again, we need just about everyone to step up in the Dog Days.  Shea Hillenbrand has been a nice acquisition for us.  He’s not setting the world on fire, but he has played a very adequate, even good 3B, and has some timely hits.  However, his reputation as a clubhouse poison has not reared it’s ugly head as yet.  Nomar will be back at some point (allegedly) and LaRoche will certainly be recalled, as will Abreu.  We will have a logjam at 3B again - now we will see how Shea responds.  Will he be the good soldier and accept his role as a pinch-hitter or will he make waves.  If he makes waves, rest assured, he will be waived quicker than Barry Bonds applies the “Clear.”  LaRoche has a .950 OPS and 16 HR in 240 AB”s at Vegas.  I think he’ll get a quick look at 3B.  Not much time for an audition.

I like Kemp in the #3 spot.  If Pierre and Furcal get on he sees the fastball and he can hit the BeJesuses out of it.  Ethier, Gonzo and Loney need to step it up - Loney appears to have done that in the last game and Kent just needs to get on one of his hot streaks.  If Jeff Kent can hit 8 HR and 28 RBI in September, we will be in the playoffs.  Nomar is the wild card.  Can he get healthy?  Can he regain his stroke?  Can he be a supersub?  Can he be a super pinch hitter?   Lots of questions…. answers to follow!

A Q & A  with Ned from Andrew (right) and Brian Kamenetzky of the LA Times Dodgers Blog:

Ned Colletti met with the media Wednesday to discuss the signing of Esteban Loaiza.  Interesting stuff on a couple levels, in that he not only does he explain the motivations for bringing him in, but some of the big picture stuff shows his perspective on the current climate for player acquisitions, and hints at what we might look for this summer. 

Q: How much can (Loaiza) contribute after only two starts this year?

Ned Colletti: Well, he’s made another four in the minor leagues.  So we watched him in the rehab starts and we watched him in the last two starts.  He threw over a hundred pitches both times, he got out of the seventh innings both times, against Toronto (on August 22 and 27, respectively).  He’s also signed for next year, and looking at the free agent market, or what looks like the free agent market, the guys that are potentially free agents, it’s a really thin group in our minds.  Hopefully he’ll be better than going out and looking for somebody else. 

Q: How difficult is it to find pitching at this time of year?

NC: I think it’s incredibly difficult.  Maybe two or three starters were traded at the deadline and a handful of relief pitchers.  But when you look around at the rosters and you look at the rotations, it’s obviously a part of a team that the season takes it toll.  There’s a lot of clubs that are scrambling to find five starters.  Including us, for a while.   

Q: Is there a risk here?

NC: There’s a risk in anything you do.  We’ll see how it goes.

Q: What does Loaiza bring to the table?

NC: He’s pitched a lot in the big leagues.  He knows how to pitch.  He’s not a power guy, he’s more of a pitcher than he is a power pitcher.  I think he gives us some depth.  We’re obviously thin right now.  He gives us some depth, and he’s pitched in big games.  He’s pitched a lot of time in the big leagues with a winning record.

Q: Since it was a waiver claim, did you have access to any medical information regarding his health?

NC: We did.  We talked for the last day or so about potential trades, and the guys that they wanted back we weren’t going to move in a situation like this because we thought we could get him on a claim if we waited long enough.  But the doctors spoke.  Our doctors and their doctors have all spoken. 

Q: A million dollars is quite a lot for five or six starts.  Did you pick up the rest of his salary?

NC: He’s got a million dollars- a million and change- plus $6.5 next year. 

Q: Were you more interested in what he could do this year or the fact he was locked in next year as well?

NC: A little bit of both.  We obviously need as much pitching as we can get at this time of the year, and going back to the potential free agent market, last year was thin, this year in my mind is thinner.  Most of those free agents don’t sign for a year.  Most are looking for two, three, or four year deals.  So if you believe it to be thin and you believe it’s going to take more than one year to sign somebody, you’re better off sometimes taking the one year deal that we did rather than waiting for November, December, or January to come around and being tied to somebody for three or four years that you’re lukewarm on.

Q: Does this have any impact on the potential for picking up Randy Wolf’s option for next year?

NC:  It’s too early to tell.  That’s a good question, though. He still hasn’t been able to overcome what he’s fighting shoulder-wise.  We don’t know if we’re going to get him back this year or not.   Couple that with the free agent market, couple that with our need in September for another arm, that’s part of the thought process.  That doesn’t mean we’re not going to think about it, and we’re look into (picking up the option) and we’re not going to try and figure something out, but we just don’t have enough to go on to say we’re going to go do that. 

Q: And you’re assuming good health from Schmidt going into spring training?

NC: There’s still a long ways to go.  I think we’ve all seen that pitching in the big leagues is thinner and thinner and less and less.  If you looked at everyone’s rotation maybe two weeks ago, where they started the season and where they are now, there’s very few that have any resemblance to where they began.  Some, but very few.  And there’s a lot of pitchers pitching today that show you how thin it is. 

Q: Do you worry that, given how thin pitching is around the league, why Oakland would let a guy go without getting anything back.  Why would you let a good arm go?

NC: They are getting something back.  You’ll have to talk to them for their thought process.  That (salary) is probably the reason that they did it, because they’ll have $6.5 million next year to spend some other place.  They’ve got some young pitching.  I don’t know for sure.  I’m not going to run Billy’s (A’s GM Billy Beane) team for him. 

Q: Sure.  But does it make you pause that a team is willing to give up an arm in a thin market just to save six million bucks?

NC: Not really.  They’re in a different place and time than we are now. 

Tony Jackson reports that Jack Cassel will be recalled from Portland and start tonight for the Pods.

MINOR LEAGUE REPORT:

According to Dodgers. Scout.com, Clayton Kershaw was named the Top Prospect of the Midwest League.

LAS VEGAS 51’s - Won 10-9 - LaRoche was 2-3 with 2 BB - Houlton was pulled after pitching 3.1 innings and K’ing 3.  Maybe he’ll be recalled tomorrow?

BOX

JACKSONVILLE SUNS - No Game Scheduled

INLAND EMPIRE 66′ers - Lost 9-8 - Bell was 2-5

BOX

GREAT LAKES LOONS - Lost 4-2 - Mattingly was 0-3, Josh Wall pitched 5 scoreless innings.

BOX

KENT IS CONGRATULATED AFTER SCORING WINNING RUN!

With yesterday’s win, we are officially back in the race(s).  We are 3.5 games back in both the Division and Wild Card Races.   Yesterday’s win was unusual, in that Furcal and Pierre were 1-12 and neither one scored a run, yet we won.  Kemp hit the ball hard and supplied a HR, but Kent, Martin, Loney & Hillenbrand supplied the RBI power.  Penny was simply horrible.  Let’s hope that was an anomaly, but his Post-All Star ERA is up to 3.20 after being 2.39 Pre-All Star.  Hendrickson had his 1st bad outing out of the pen, but Beimel, Broxton and Saito were nails.  No way we win that game with the grit of Scott Proctor, however.  He provided 3 innings of shutout ball and got his 3rd win as a Dodger.  Martin is on track for .297/21 HR/36 Doubles/26 SB - we can’t ask much more from him.

Before yesterday’s game Ned acquired Esteban Loaiza in a waiver deal where no players were involved.  We just get the privilege of paying him about $8 million.  It’s a risk, but there wasn’t much out there to choose from and it’s good to see that he is flat-out loathe to trade the youngsters and that Dodger Brass still believe we can win - this year!  Beyond this year, this deal signals the end of Randy Wolf’s Dodger career, unless he wants to become a relief specialist for a whole lot less money.  You can never have too many starters are we have seen this year.   With Clayton Kershaw a good bet to make the team at some point next year, we should have the following pitchers available for the rotation:  Jason Schmidt, Esteban Loaiza, Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and even James McDonald and Scott Elbert.    I like our future, but would like it even more if we had signed Hochevar and Blair!  I still say those were bonehead moves.

Yesterday, I read a well-argued blog that said Ned was not a risk-taker and that we wouldn’t win as long as he was unwilling to take risks.  Part of his argument was based upon the “year” Jason Werth had last week.  Werth has always been hut and likely always will be, yet he thinks Ned was scared to pay him a few hundred thousand dollars.  That is flat-out crazy!  It was well-argued and flat-out flawed in it’s thinking.  The same writer who would criticize him for failure to pull off trades is the same writer who would flog him for trading away the farm.  Unless you have ran a company it is difficult to understand how deals go down.  Many fans have said that Ned should have gotten more for players, based upon what they think that player is worth, but there is a lot we don’t know.  What we do know is that whenever a GM from another team is approached by Ned for a trade, they are always asking for one or multiple Top Prospects, whereas they might ask for less from another team.  Ned has taken risks.  He signed Nomar, Schmidt, Wolf, Gonzo and Kent - all players who were injury prone or getting up in age, or both.  He got Tomko and Hendrickson and many other role players without trading away our core of young talent.  He got Ethier and Betemit whom he traded for Proctor (the jury is out), and Saito, Seanez, Tsao, Hillenbrand, Pierre, Sweeney and Martinez - some of which have been busts, BUT HE DIDN’T TRADE OUR CORE!  So, anyone who presents a well articulated blog about how he’s no risk taker is just devoid of reason or don’t want to be confused with the facts because their mind is already made up.

The upcoming series with the Padres that begins on Friday and is FLAT-OUT the biggest series of the year for us.  In fact, we need to sweep it to really be in a good position.  I predict that Milton Bradley will double in his first at-bat and that he will mouth off to Jeff Kent, who will kick his ass on the field.  This will catapult to Dodgers into a hitting frenzy and lead to the Series Sweep!

REQUIRED READING:

1.  Loaiza Acquired;  More; Ditto

2.  Game Recap; More; Again

3.  Jeff Kent

4.  Depth Chart

5.  Rosenthal on Loaiza

MINOR LEAGUE REPORT:

LAS VEGAS 51’s - Won 6-3 - Abreu 2-4; LaRoche 1-4; Hu -1-4; Young 2-3

BOX

JACKSONVILLE SUNS - Won 8-6 - Raglani ht his 21st HR, a Grand Salami;  Greg Miller Started- 4 IP/2 ER/6 H/3 BB/7 K’s

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INLAND EMPIRE 66′ers - Won 2-1 - May with his 22nd Double

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GREAT LAKES LOONS - Won 7-5 - Figueroa got the win with 3.2 IP/5 BB/7 K’s - Mattingly 3-5 (.218)

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Shea Hillenbarnd did his part by driving in 2 runs with this single.

As the LA TIMES says, “it wasn’t pretty, but they’ll take it.”

McCourt is making $70 million worth of upgrades at Dodger Stadium according to the TIMES.  So much for those who thought McCourt just wanted to drain the franchise dry…  The same artilce talks about Kemps recent baserunning blunders and how the coaches are approaching it.

Remember, we are only 4.5 games out of first and 3.5 out of the Wild Card - Yes, that’s plenty with a month to go, but we play the teams ahead of us 11 times and they play each other 5 times.  If we can hit a hot streak, and I am suggesting that they have already had their hot streak, then we have a good chance at either the Division or the Wild Card.  However, it’s going to take a total team effort.  Loney and Ethier have to step it up as do Furcal and Gonzo.  Nomar needs to be a real factor down the stretch.

Minor League Report

LAS VEGAS 51’s - Lost 8-5 - LaRoche 0-4, Abreu was 3-6, Meloan 2 IP, 0 R, 3 K, 1.69 ERA

BOX

JACKSONVILLE SUNS - Lost 4-0 - Nothing happened

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INLAND EMPIRE 66′ers - Won 6-5 - Only 8 hits

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GREAT LAKES LOONS - Won 2-1 - Mattingly 2-5 (he has been leading off for about a week), Chris Malone who sucked as a starter was tried in the closers spot last night and was perfect.

BOX

Don Sutton Threw Out the First Pitch.  Hummm!!

Lowe struggled, but kept us in the game.  Hendy and Proctor (his arm can’t be too tired-he hit 96 on the gun) did their jobs and Saito slammed the door.  Hendrickson is great out of the pen.  Ethier, Martin and Pierre all got 2 hits and are stepping it up.   We scored 5 runs on 10 singles.  There were no extra base hits.  BOXSCORE

Gonzo isn’t happy about playing sparingly.  Too bad, but Ethier is better.  Gonzo just needs to accept his role as the #4 OF and lead by example.  That’s why Ned got him!

Wells was named the pitcher Friday against the Padres.

LA TIMES GAME RECAP

TONY JACKSON’S BLOG

JASON ADDCOX on last night’s game.

KEN GURNICK - Dodger Mailbag  - Better without Nomar?  Supersub next year?

MIKE BAUMAN says Boomer has what the Dodgers need: Fire in the Belly!

    From Baseball America

MINOR LEAGUE REPORT

1.  Clayton Kershaw allowed a .203 BAA in Low A Great Lakes. He now has allowed a.153 BAA through 21.1 IP at AA Jacksonville.  I have little doubt that he’ll be ready next Spring.