LADodgerTalk.com – Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Vin Scully, Andre Ethier and the Dodgers

Here’s what I see with our offense for next season: Furcal  SS -  Raffy rebounds (it is an “even” year) and has his career year with a .303 BA, .381 OB% and 126 Runs Scored, even though he only steels 26 bases Martin C- Perfect #2 hitter rebounds with a .279 BA to go with [...]

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I am sick of talking about the divorce proceedings, so you won’t find much about it here – you know where to look.  However, I do want to address the Free Pass Baseball Fans are giving Arte Moreno while castigating Frank McCourt.   The Angels lost two of their most important free agents – Figgins and [...]

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It’s no secret that the McCourts are in the midst of a messy divorce, but would things be any different if Frank and Jamie were still together? Would that have caused the Dodgers to offer arbitration to Randy Wolf and/or Orlando Hudson?  Would that have caused the Dodgers to sign Wolf?  Well, no one can [...]

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Answer:  One is a bottom-dwelling garbage-eater and the other is a fish! Get used to it.  The Dodgers are now officially bottom-dwelling, garbage-eaters.  They love to eat up cheap, journeyman-like players who may not have much upside but are cheap, cheap, cheap.  Warm bodies to stock AAA… and maybe, if a Randy Wolf or Adrian [...]

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Just in case you haven’t figured it out, attendance at Dodger Stadium is not the only source of income for the Dodgers.  While their have attendance has been stellar,  most other teams  have seen substantial declines in attendance, which means that the Dodgers get a smaller cut of the gate and concessions.  It is not clear [...]

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If you have a home which is worth $400,000 or $400,000,000 and you are served divorce papers by your spouse,  what do you do?  It’s obvious that a great part of the parties’ net worth is that asset.  Some people are idiots about this – some have even burned-down the house rather than split the [...]

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 Even if I were currently writing this blog every day, I would refuse to cover the McCourt saga.  It’s boring, sickening and just plain sick.   Sure, Frank is probably no saint, but Jamie is a total idiot!  I am not even going to get into it, and this is my final word on the subject until [...]

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 This team is far from needing rebuilding, but any good team needs to ”retool” every year.  Last year, the Phillies won the World Series with Pat Burrell in LF.  They evidently decided  that he wasn’t the answer this year, so they signed a guy even older who ended up having his career year.   The Phillies may yet be [...]

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Look, several (many) players let us down, but that’s the nature of playoff baseball.  Look at A-Rod, and how he failed his first few years in the playoffs.  Players handle the situation differently.  Some step up (Loney, Martin) and others struggle (Kemp, Ethier), while some vets disapear (Blake, Furcal), which is very, very disappointing.  Casey [...]

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No matter how bleak it looks, and being down 3-1 is bleak, especially after a loss was snatched from the jaws of victory, we have to hope for a miracle.  It’s a big blow, but the Dodgers have to recover and realize that victory is still attainable.  Therefore, I will be watching every pitch in game [...]

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Blame it all on Joe Torre if you want, but when we score ZERO runs, the likelihood of losing is pretty high.  Blame it on Kuroda if you want.  Blame it on Billingsley or the fact that  we left Jon Garland and Jeff Weaver off the playoff roster.  But, the reality of the situation is [...]

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In the celebration last night, I sensed that the boys still know this is only one step to get where they want to be.  They have traveled this path before only to have their dreams shattered by a team they might have to play again.  I sensed that, while happy, they will really celebrate when [...]

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Joe Torre Has Spoken:   Pitchers (11) Ronald Belisario, RHP                         Chad Billingsley,RHP                           Jonathan Broxton, RHP                        Jon Garland, RHP                                Clayton Kershaw, LHP                        Hong-Chih Kuo, LHP                          Vicente Padilla. RHP                           George Sherrill, LHP                            Ramon Troncoso, RHP Jeff Weaver, RHP Randy Wolf, LHP Infielders (8): Ronnie Belliard Casey Blake Juan Castro Rafael Furcal  (S) Orlando Hudson (S) James Loney  [...]

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I have read extensive analysis of which match-ups are the best for the Dodgers in the NLDS, which is a lot like all the baseball pre-season predictions.  I read all those magazines (and save them, which shows how stupid I am) and then go back and see how the prognosticators fared.  A monkey throwing darts [...]

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It was a story that the Dodgers scored some runs, let alone 5 (count ‘em 5) runs in one inning.  It was a story that gimpy Casey Blake made plays at 3B no one else would have made, and got key hits and doubled in the clutch.  It was a story that Juan Pierre starts [...]

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This is it!  These last three games determine home-field advantage as well as the division championship.  I say “Captain Insano Shows No Mercy!”  We have beat the Rockies like rented mules all year.  No reason to show mercy now.  Just beat them down!  Ubaldo Jimenez is 0-3 with a 7.77 earned-run average in four starts [...]

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Just when we need to step up and win some games, we don’t get any effort.   The Dodgers are human and I think they are so focused on the playoffs they have forgotten about the last 7 games.  They are looking ahead and plan to make up for last year, but they need to finish [...]

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Now that we have clinched a playoff spot and are within two games of  clinching the NL West Championship, I think it is time to shift the emphasis from our starters, namely Russell Martin, James Loney, Orlando Hudson, Rafael Furcal, Casey Blake, Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, and recognize the Stuntmen.  Actually, this [...]

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It’s a rare and shameful occurrence when the Jolly Roger is hoisted at PNC Park, especially when it is hoisted on the NL West Division Leading Dodgers.  That should be the last we see the skull and crossbones all weekend.  Let’s make sure of it!  I think last night was just a simple case of the young [...]

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It turns out that Chad Billingsley’s pitching problems are the fault of the guys who work on his car.  Mr. GoodWrench is at fault!  Boy, that really makes me mad and I know that he’s bent  out of shape about it as well.   Joe Torre informed us of the situation and Ken Gurnick of Dodgers.com [...]

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