Hello,
On Friday night the Dodgers opened a 3 game series against one of the best teams in MLB, the 30-16 St. Louis Cardinals. Indeed the Cardinals are the best team in MLB, at least record wise. Entering tonight's game the Cardinals were first place in the NL Central. They led both the Pirates and Reds by 1.5 games, both of those teams are having fantastic seasons as well.
Following the Dodgers feasting of Brewers pitching to the score of 9 runs on Wednesday, LA's offense crashed back to reality Friday night. The Dodgers were so excited to get home, they celebrated with a grand total of 3 hits. Carl Crawford had a single, but later got caught stealing. Juan Uribe had both an extra base hit and a walk, however his teammates were unable to drive him in. In the 8th inning the virtually invisible Skip Schumaker got the third Dodgers hit of the game. Fittingly it was an infield single, Schumaker is now hitting .222 on the season.
Lance Lynn was brilliant in this game, but the Dodgers offense has made many pitchers look great. Lynn pitched 6 innings, only giving up two hits and no runs. He also struck out 9 Dodgers. My initial comment isn't a slight towards Lynn, but it definitely is a slight to the Dodgers offense. Lynn is now 7-1 with a 2.95 ERA. If Lynn keeps on pitching like this, surely he'll receive an invite to the All-Star game.
For the Dodgers Chris Capuano really struggled. I know he's doing his best, but he's really been put in a bad position. He have up 6 hits, 6 runs (5 of which were earned) and 3 runs in 5 innings. Capuano drops to 1-3, with a 5.60 ERA. He wasn't helped by the errors of Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Punto.
Tonight the Marlins offense exploded for 3 runs, which brings them 3 runs closer to the Dodgers for the most inept offense in MLB. The Marlins have scored 125 runs in 47 games, for an average of 2.66 runs a game. The Dodgers have scored 156 runs in 46 games, an average of 3.39 a game. Once the Dodgers score 60 more runs, they'll no longer be paying over $1,000,000 per run.
The Dodgers now fall to 19-27 on the season and will send the uninspiring Ted Lilly to the mound on Saturday.
Dodgers President Stan Kasten, the man who built many of those great 90's Braves teams, said that Don Mattingly's job is safe for now. I'm wondering if Kasten's job is safe? How about GM Ned Coletti, his signing Brandon League for about $22,000,000 seems almost indefensible now. Aren't those two of the key people who okayed the gigantic 2012 trade with Boston? Aren't they also responsible for many of the other signings of the Dodgers? Could Don Mattingly have done better? Probably. But if he gets fired now, it seems he's just the scapegoat. I don't see how that will solve the Dodgers main problem, which is a lack of runs. I don't know how much better Mattingly could do with a team that has such an inept offense, this isn't the '27 Yankees!
themusicaddict
No comments:
Post a Comment