Starting Lineup:

1. Furcal, SS
2. Pierre, LF
3. Kemp, CF
4. Loney, 1B
5. Martin, C
6. Ethier, RF
7. DeWitt, 3B
8. Hu, 2B
9. Lowe, P

No Jones

No Kent

No Problem!

Diamond Leung had this to report about LaRoche:

Asked of there were still a place on the team for Andy LaRoche, Manager Joe Torre said, “We’ll have to wait and see.” That speaks volumes about the job Blake DeWitt has done, and it appears the team has settled on getting him some more at-bats at Class AAA Las Vegas. Then again, LaRoche was scratched from the lineup last night and isn’t scheduled to be in today’s lineup either due to a decision by Las Vegas manager Lorenzo Bundy. LaRoche is healthy, but it was decided he needed a couple days off having played in 10 of 11 games, busting his tail trying to get healthy. Barring an injury he can’t be called up for another 10 days anyway. “He wanted to go in,” said trainer Stan Conte, saying LaRoche was healthy enough to play. LaRoche is also battling some turf toe, but it’s apparently not bad enough to keep him out.

Actually, he’s not new and he is only slightly improved. The improvement is that he is buying into Torre’s mantra of working the pitch count better. However, he is new and improved because he’s playing a position better suited to him and the hitters behind him are actually driving in runs!

Juan Pierre was a decent CF. His speed allowed him to run down some balls in the gaps and even though he didn’t always take the right routes to the ball, he was certainly in the top half of defensive centerfielders in baseball. The Marlins won a World Series with Juan Pierre in CF flanked by those speedsters - Jeff Conine and Miguel Cabrera. It was his arm that made him somewhat of a liability. Juan Pierre wasn’t thrilled that he had to move to LF, but he did. He wasn’t thrilled that he had to compete with Andre Ethier for playing time, but he worked hard at it, just like he does everything else. The first player on the field is usually Juan Pierre or Russ Martin. They share an unusual work ethic. Juan Pierre’s teammates respect him and opponents fear him, especially the guys who position themselves a little over 60 feet from the batters box. He drives them to distraction and ultimately…crazy.

The Dodgers have a slight problem in LF - Andre Ethier also deserves to be the starting LF. He hasn’t done Read the rest of this entry »