June 3rd, 2013: Dodgers Win, Yasiel Puig Makes Debut

Hello,

LA opened up a 10 game home stand Monday with Game 1 in a 3 game series with the Padres. Yasiel Puig made his Dodgers debut, one of the most hyped Dodgers debut in years. He received a lot of love from MLBN last night and ESPN this morning. He looked good, getting a hit in his first at bat. He finished 2 for 4 and threw out a runner from deep right field on a game ending double play. Although that was a long accurate throw and a hell of play, to me it looked like the Padre runner was safe.

I just want to give a quick shout out to MLB Network again. The Heat-Pacers game was a bore last night, but I wanted to relax a bit. I flipped over to MLBN and watched it for about 20 minutes, just seeing some of the highlights and hearing about some of the great players in the league.

Stephen Fife stepped in on short notice and pitched a decent game for the Dodgers. He threw 5.1 innings, allowing 5 hits and 1 earned run. He also threw 5 strikeouts and lowered his ERA to 4.50.

Carl Crawford was placed on DL on Monday, it looks like he'll be out for about a couple of weeks. He joins Matt Kemp, A.J. Ellis and Chad Billingsley on the DL. Billingsley is out for the season, I hope they don't rush the other three players back. With the Dodgers not setting the MLB on fire, there's no reason to rush any of these players back. My suggestion: have them get fully healthy before allowing them to play again.  Hanley Ramirez may or may not have been rushed back and he went on DL a second time. I'm glad to see that it looks like Ramirez will be active for the Dodgers on Tuesday. The Dodgers desperately need his bat.

The Dodgers are 24-32 and still in last place in the NL West. Although a lot of people have buried the Dodgers, including myself, there still is 106 games left in the season. The Dodgers are only 7.5 games behind first place Arizona, who obviously aren't out of reach. Is there still hope for the Dodgers? If so the Dodgers have to make hay on this 10 game home stand.

Following the Dodgers 2 run explosion on Monday, they surge to 27th place in MLB for runs scored. They are now tied with the Nationals, who didn't play on Monday, with 197 runs. Could the Dodgers score at least 3 runs on Tuesday and break into the 200 runs level? They are 12 runs behind the 26th
place Phillies.

Tuesday is Game 2 of LA's home stand and Game 2 in their series with the Padres. Tonight's scheduled pitching matchup doesn't appear to be amazing. It's Ted Lilly (0-2, 4.26 ERA) vs. Clayton Richard (1-5, 7.86 ERA). Could this be the game the Dodgers offense finally gets on track. With the insertion of Puig and hopefully Ramirez tonight, hopefully things will go better for the Dodgers. Maybe they can eventually break into the Top 25 in MLB in runs scored. Wouldn't that be exciting?

Once the Dodgers get Kemp, Crawford and Ellis back, this lineup could be as explosive as most people predicted before the season started. Now if they could get their starting pitchers to be healthier, then maybe this team will start to live up to it's potential.

themusicaddict