Hello,
For those that stumble on this blog randomly I cheer for 5 MLB teams, although the team that I've been cheering for the longest is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I've been cheering for them since the days of Cey Lopes, Garvey and Russell. My goal is to write a Dodgers Daily every Dodgers game day. I also cheer for the Cubs (no matter how painful that is), Red Sox, Braves and Pirates. I'll occasionally write about those other 4 teams as well.
Today I'm going to shove two Dodgers Dailies into one blog. I will write about the Monday night game against Milwaukee later on Monday night. On Tuesday I'm setting aside time as I'll be writing about the third anniversary of my divorce. Don't worry I won't write much about my actual divorce. I'll mainly be adding Youtube videos to my blog from what some call the ultimate divorce album. I'll give you a hint:
On to the Dodgers. On Sunday they finished being swept in a 3 game series by the Braves. The same thing that's hobbled LA all season, hobbled them again yesterday afternoon. That being the ineptness of the Dodgers offense is. Yesterday they only managed 3 hits and 2 runs. The Dodgers were also awful on defense as they had 3 errors. Things are getting so bad for starting Dodgers pitching, after the big 3, that I was glad that Josh Beckett was injured and couldn't pitch yesterday. I'd much rather have Matt Magill pitch for the Dodgers than Beckett.
The Dodgers are now 17-25, last place in the NL West. They are 2.5 games behind the 4th place Padres and 7 games behind first place Arizona. LA also has lost 3 games in a row, only won 4 of their last 10 and only have a 3.1% chance of making the playoffs.
On Monday the Dodgers start a three game series against the also not very good Brewers. In fact the Brewers and the Dodgers have the exact same record. Milwaukee is last place in the NL Central, they are even behind the terrible Cubs. Milwaukee has a 4.3% chance of making the playoffs. I'm guessing ticket sales are going to be soft with these two crappy teams playing each other.
Tonight's pitching matchup is Clayton "Killer" Kershaw (4-2, 1.40 ERA) vs. the Brewers Yovani Gallardo (3-3, 4.50). The Dodgers anemic offense isn't as problematic when the great Kershaw is pitching.
Some people are calling for the head of Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, which I think is ridiculous. People are holding the Dodgers high cost payroll and slow start against Mattingly. I don't care how much money the Dodgers payroll is this season, because the team's performance isn't even close to their payroll. The Dodgers payroll should be much closer to the Brewers $91million for the performance that LA is getting. LA could have paid about $117 million less for the same record. Plus the Brewers aren't locked in a lot of high price contracts for the next few years.
The most obvious example of a Dodger that is extremely overpaid is Beckett. He's paid $17 million dollars for a record of 0-5 and an ERA of 5.19. Why is he being paid that much money? Because of his past success, especially in the playoffs. Beckett was an extraordinary pitcher in the playoffs earlier in his career. The Red Sox overpaid to keep him, before being able to dump him on the deep pocketed and win now Dodgers.
Now the Dodgers are vastly overpaying Beckett by at least $16 million dollars. I don't even think that Beckett belongs in the MLB any more. He's $17 million of the about $216 million 2013 Dodgers payroll. Is that contract the fault of Mattingly? No, but the Dodgers are hoping for Mattingly to make gold out of hay. But that ain't going to happen, as soon as the Dodgers don't have to pay Beckett any more then they won't.
Other things not Mattingly's fault include:
- The injuries that are plaguing the Dodgers this season. That includes "Rocky" Greinke's ($21 million) stupid brawl that knocked him out for five weeks. Also injuries have hit other starting pitchers Ted Lilly ($13,166 667), Beckett and out for the season Chad Billingsley ($11 million). Add in Hanley Ramirez (15,500,000), who's only played 4 games. That's a bit above $56,000,000 for about 10 games played. Who knows how effective Beckett and Lilly will be, even if healthy. It looks like Ramirez should be back in June. Will he be able to avoid injury, he's already missed time due to 2 separate injuries?
- Matt Kemp's ($20,250,000) relatively slow start. He was only 1 for 4 on Sunday and is hitting .265 on the season. He only has 1 home run and 15 RBIs in 162 at bats. Kemp is in 267th place in all of the MLB in home runs. (Thanks to ESPN LA's Mark Saxon.)
- Brandon League ($5,500,000) as Dodgers closer. League has a 5.51 ERA and only 8 strikeouts this season. League and Kenley Jansen combined to give up 3 hits and 4 runs in 1 1/3rd innings on Sunday.
- The overpaid, under performing Andre Ethier. Ethier is being paid $13,500,000 for hitting .255, 3 home runs and 13 RBIs. That's yet another player the Dodgers overpaid for.
- The Dodgers pathetic offense, 29th of 30 MLB teams in runs scored. The Dodgers had only 3 hits against the Braves.
- The Dodgers have a ridiculously high payroll, but honestly it's a poorly constructed roster. LA needs to be able to dump some of these overpaid, past their prime players before we can get a clear picture of Mattingly's managerial ability. The Dodgers aren't going to be relevant this season. Right now the only races the Dodgers are in is a battle for 4th place with the Padres in the NL West and who finishes 29th place in runs scored. They are "battling" with the Marlins in the runs scored statistic. Neither one of those races excite anybody, LA needs to look forward and prepare for 2014 now.
On Monday night the Dodgers offense remained low scoring, but were still able to win 3-1. Perhaps the best pitcher in MLB right now is pitching for the Dodgers, of course I'm speaking of Clayton Kershaw. Which nickname do you prefer the most? Clayton The Amazing, The Amazing Clayton or Clayton "Killer" Kershaw? Whatever you prefer it doesn't matter, just as long as Kershaw was outstanding again.
Kershaw pitched a complete game, which meant he didn't have to put his and the Dodgers fate in the unsure hands of Brandon League. (See above.) Kershaw pitched all 9 innings, scattered 3 singles and gave up only 1 run. He lowered his ERA to 1.35, added 5 strikeouts and improved to 5-2. If Kershaw continues pitching like this, he may win his second Cy Young award. ESPN points out that Kershaw has now pitched 22 straight starts where he's given up 3 runs or less.
When I wrote this blog earlier today, two things I wrote about were the less than impressive seasons of Kemp and Ethier. (See above.) Tonight Matt Kemp hit his second home run of the season. Now he's hit 2 home runs that puts him in the Top 200 for homers right? Kemp also drew a walk, which is a stat the Dodgers are better at than I expected. Surprisingly the Dodgers are 12th place in MLB in walks. I expected them to be much lower in that stat with how few runs they score. I was glad to see Ethier also respond with a home run. I still think he's vastly overpaid, just a little bit less so now. Ethier was 2 for 4 and had two RBIs.
I'm always glad when the Dodgers win, but in the grand scheme of things this is a meaningless victory in a meaningless season. In spite of winning the Dodgers still only scored 3 runs, which brings them to 142 runs this season. The even more punchless Miami Marlins scored 5 runs tonight and now have 117 runs this season. They closed the gap on the Dodgers in terms of runs. LA is 34 runs below the NL team average for runs.
themusicaddict
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