Yoni Bain's Los Angeles Dodgers fan blog

The Dodgers’ roster is assembled to win a certain type of ballgame. With power hitters and RBI machines nowhere in sight, the Dodgers know that to win they’ll need solid starting pitching, lockdown relief and opportunistic hitting. A typical Dodger game plan, for example, would have the starter going five to seven innings, the offense chipping in around three to five runs, and the bullpen passing the baton until the game is over.

The best of all game plans, it would seem for the Dodgers these days, would be to play the Cincinnati Reds as much as possible. They followed their game plan to a tee today, posting a 6-1 over the Reds and improving the Dodgers’ record against Cincinnati to 6-1 on the season.

Continue reading "Red Means Go for Dodgers; Loney Drives L.A. to Second Straight Win"

You can’t say there are many teams the Dodgers have enjoyed playing this season.  The team is inconsistent to the point that consecutive wins are hard to come by, and winning streaks , other than an eight-game stretch B.F.I. (Before Furcal’s Injury), are few and far between.

Yet nothing is as welcome to the Dodgers’ eyes as a series with the Cincinnati Reds. The Dodgers haven’t lost to the Reds at home since August 27, 2005, and overall are 19-5 against the Reds since the start of the 2005 season.  Tuesday night was another addition to the win column, with the 3-1 Dodgers victory snapping a five-game losing skid and, incredibly, moving them a game closer to Arizona, which was routed 15-1 by Oakland.

Chad Billingsley threw 6⅓ superb innings, surrendering one run and improving to 5-7 on the season. Billingsley’s fifth win puts him into a tie with Brad Penny for the team lead; Penny has lost his last seven decisions, and no Dodger starter has a winning record. Additionally, Billingsley’s position as Dodger ace may have been solidified with Penny going to the disabled list yesterday, with Eric Stults to replace him Thursday against these same Reds. Then again, the way Penny has been pitching lately, he may have been the worst of the Dodger starters.

Continue reading "Win Some, Lose Some: Dodgers Win Game but Lose Penny to DL"

In news obscured by the thrilling conclusion to the U.S. Open and sandwiched between the hype that is the NBA Finals, Bill Bavasi got fired for his failure to produce winners as the general manager of the Seattle Mariners. Bavasi assembled a Mariners team that is falling well short of expectations, as many picked Seattle to win the AL West, and is underperforming in many facets of the game. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise; since becoming GM in 2004, Bavasi has produced one team over .500, last year’s 88-74, and no playoff berths.

At the time of his firing, Bavasi’s Mariners were 24-46 and 17½ games behind the division-leading Angels. Both their record and divisional deficit are major league worsts, besting such doormats as Kansas City (28-42, 10½ GB), Washington (29-42, 12½ GB) and Baltimore (34-34, only 7½ GB).  Seattle’s awful record, combined with its whopping $116.9 million payroll, meant someone needed to take a hit. And with it being unwise to fire expensive busts such Adrian Beltre, Richie Sexson and Erik Bedard, Bavasi lost his job.

Continue reading "Jobless in Seattle: Bavasi Gets the Ax"

When Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti acquired Royals shortstop Angel Berroa from the Kansas City Royals for a prospect last week, the move was heralded as a risk at best, a boneheaded move at worst.  In his week wearing Dodger blue, Berroa has lived up (or down) to his expectations: Considered a replacement over the offensively challenged Chin-Lung Hu, Berroa is hitting a scorching .167 with two singles, a double, a walk and four strikeouts, with no RBIs. And, a bonus: it was acknowledged that acquiring Berroa’s, um, “offense,” the Dodgers would sacrifice defense at a premium infield position. Once again, Berroa did not disappoint, committing an error that led to three unearned runs. Hu, in case you were wondering, has yet to make an error in 22 games at shortstop.

Continue reading "The GM's Ten Commandments"

Last winter the Florida Marlins put the slugging third baseman Miguel Cabrera on the market, fearing they wouldn’t be able to afford him when it came time to show him the money. In return for such talent, the Marlins demanded top prospects or young big-leaguers. The Dodgers, among other teams, balked at the prospect of giving up players such as Matt Kemp, James Loney or Clayton Kershaw. The Detroit Tigers, however, did not, acquiring Cabrera and pitcher Dontrelle Willis for five prospects, including Cameron Maybin, Burke Badenhop and Andrew Miller.

                This weekend the Dodgers and Tigers meet for an interleague series at Comerica Park, their destinies intersecting at the corner of caution and daring. Neither the Dodgers or Tigers, however, are any the better for trading or not trading for Cabrera; the Dodger offense has experienced the growing pains of their young hitters, and the supposedly vaunted Detroit lineup has failed to live up to expectations. If anything, the Marlins made out the best in the deal, with the prospects contributing to a team in the thick of the NL East chase while Cabrera and Willis have forgettable seasons.

Continue reading "Dodgers Lose to Tigers, Make Yesterday's Five Hits Look Like an Explosion"

                The Dodgers won three games in Petco Park in 2006 and three in 2007, and after recording their third win this season in San Diego on Tuesday, the Dodger offense didn’t seem that eager to extend their winning ways.

                Los Angeles recorded its second straight lackadaisical effort, allowing Padres ace Jake Peavy to make a successful return in a 9-0 Padres rout.

                After last night’s 4-1 loss, the Dodgers once again showed minimal offensive effort, once again recording a scant five hits. The Dodgers sat Andy LaRoche, who provided the only scoring last night with a solo homer in his first game of the season, and instead trotted out what might be called “infield lite.” It was Blake DeWitt, Angel Berroa, Luis Maza and James Loney around the horn, with preferred starters Nomar Garciaparra, Rafael Furcal and Jeff Kent out because of injury or old age. While Loney continues to show flashes of his potential with two hits in four at-bats, the other three combined to go 1-for-9 with two strikeouts.

Continue reading "Peavy Earns Win in Rehab Start over AAAA Dodgers"

              On May 9th the Padres released Jim Edmonds, whom they’d signed from the Cardinals over the winter to play centerfield in place of the departed Mike Cameron.  While the Padres’ release of 37-year-old Edmonds freed them of his sub-Mendoza .179 average, they also lost an outstanding defensive outfielder. Edmonds signed with the Cubs five days later, and has shown some signs of rejuvenation batting behind the Cubs’ formidable lineup of Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Kosuke Fukudome.

The Dodgers saw Edmonds’ present and past teams their last two series, hosting a four-game series with the Cubs and opening a three-game set in San Diego yesterday. While Edmonds played an excellent centerfield (and even contributed with the bat) in Chicago’s series split, his defensive prowess and influence were noticeably lacking in the Padres’ 7-2 loss to the Dodgers.

Continue reading "Martin, Padres Outfielders Help Dodgers Prevail"

The difference between attending the Dodgers game against the Cubs yesterday and against the Rockies on Wednesday was just about the difference of night and day. The difference was literal, as the finale against Colorado was a getaway game at noon, and the opener with Chicago started just after seven. But there were other differences, too. The Dodgers showed the resolve to recovering from an early deficit, and received solid relief pitching after a mediocre start by Chad Billingsley. They got run production from the bottom of the lineup, two meaningful homeruns from Jeff Kent, and a relatively raucous crowd urging them on after a slow start.  Yet for all the differences there was one haunting constant, the agony of defeat the Dodgers have come to know in the past two weeks, this time a crushing 5-4 defeat.

Continue reading "Saito Bobbles Ninth as Cubs Edge Dodgers"

In the last of the three-game set with the Dodgers, Rockies starter Aaron Cook took a page out of the cookbook of the previous night’s starter, Jeff Francis. Following the recipe and then some, Cook put up goose eggs for seven of his eight innings pitched, cracking a lone egg in the sixth inning to lead the Colorado to a 2-1 win on an overcast day at Dodger Stadium. Jeff Baker knocked the stuffing out some high cheese from Clayton Kershaw for a two-run homer to back Cook, and that will be the last kitchen pun I will make in this article.

I was in attendance to see the Dodgers continue their inept and wasteful ways. The Dodgers’ single run came when Chin-Lung Hu broke his hitless streak with an infield hit, advanced to third on a sacrifice and a groundout, and scored on Matt Kemp’s infield hit. The heart of the Dodger lineup remains in need of defibrillation, going 1-for-11. The offense managed only six hits, with a whopping four of them of the infield variety. They failed to work the count, drawing only one walk despite multiple three-ball counts, and hit into two double plays.

Continue reading "Dodgers Sautéed by Cook, Baker"

The night began with the promise of success: The Dodgers had won their previous contest with an offensive explosion, Brad Penny was pitching against one of his favorite opponents in Colorado, and Juan Pierre had doubled to lead off the game.

For the rest of the night, though, failure was all the Dodgers knew.

Most of it came from the left hand of Jeff Francis, who kept the Dodgers off-balance all night in the 3-0 Colorado victory. Francis (2-5) picked Pierre off second base, preventing a run from scoring on Jeff Kent's subsequent single. For the next six innings, Francis and his slow curve kept the Dodgers off the scoreboard, getting all the run support he needed in a two-run third inning that featured a sacrifice fly to Pierre's wimpy arm in leftfield and an RBI single from Todd Helton.

Continue reading "Frustration is as Frustration Does; Dodgers Stumble"