Joe Torre

Earlier today I said that if you were to bet on the Dodgers, take them SU ( straight up ). For those of you who read this a listened I apologize. I figured the Dodgers wouldn't give up a game to a team doing far worse then them. With Derek Lowe pitching and the hits the Dodgers have been getting recently you would figure they would put some runs on the board. Wrong again, in the last 23 innings the Dodgers have scored 1 run while producing 34 hits. Thats ridiculous! 

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I’ve suffered through the indignation if watching Andruw Jones strike out more times than the “Star Wars kid” ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU) at Pure nightclub ( www.purethenightclub.com), and I resigned myself to the idea that he would rather pile ribs on home plate than swing a bat over it. I am completely comfortable with this idea. He’s earned every piece of hate that has rained upon his head. Then what does he do? He smokes a single to actually drive in a run! Miracles can happen! So of course, due to having the “attention span of a boiled potato”, myself as well as thousands of drunkards at Doyer Stadium told ourselves, “This is when he’ll break out of his zero for infinity slump”. Never mind that he looked just as terrible swinging at that slider as he has swinging at every other pitch this year (i.e. belly swings first and then the bat), and if that pitch was anywhere but accidentally right down the middle, his whiff would be at epic proportions to the likes of Casey ( http://ops.tamu.edu/x075bb/poems/casey.html). We had hopes. Andruw was up in the 9th inning. The Doyers down by one. Time for the slump to end. Here’s the pitch…High drive, deep to right field…Wait, I was watching Kirk Gibson’s homerun again. Of course Andruw struck out with a chance to do some damage, and of course the Doyers lost with a chance to tie Arizona for first place in what is the saddest race since Steven Hawking challenged Christopher Reeve to a 3 yard dash.

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Manager Joe Torre hoped Kuroda could be at least decent, and could get through a few innings to cover for the bullpen tired by the previous game’s 11-inning win. However, with Kuroda there’s been good and bad, and rarely anything in between. On Wednesday, Good Kuroda showed up.

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While injuries to starters typically can devastate a team, the injuries to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ outfield this season have, in fact, been helpful for the team’s future. Losing Andruw Jones and then Juan Pierre has meant more playing time for their young hotshots Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, something Torre was either unwilling or unable to do, perhaps because he was stuck by the same “play the most who you pay the most” philosophy that has plagued the Mariners.

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The mishaps of the Dodgers’ much-maligned offense have been chronicled in many a-place, including this site. Despite a pitching staff that is reliable at worst and brilliant at best, the Dodger bats frequently cost the team victories in all ways imaginable: not drawing walks, hitting into double plays, failing to produce a big inning, not hitting for power, and failing to come up with enough hits. Earlier this year they scored exactly one run in five of six games, and throughout the year they have been at the bottom of the pack in nearly every offensive category. Derek Lowe probably has it worst, as he has made a living of surrendering one run in seven innings and still getting saddled with the loss; in the last year and a half I think he has lost 240 games by scores of 1-0 or 2-1.

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An assist on the complete game surely goes to catcher Russell Martin, who convinced manager Joe Torre to give a gassed Stults the chance to finish off the White Sox. Stults retired all three batters he faced in the ninth to finish with 116 pitches. He also contributed with the bat, smacking a sacrifice fly in the Dodgers’ three-run fourth inning.  Telling sign: With no outs, the Dodgers had Angel Berroa bunt Blake DeWitt over to third so Stults – that is, the pitcher — bring him in. Good show of confidence in putting on the bunt for the everyday shortstop, who has zero RBIs, to bring up the pitcher who has a better batting average and more RBIs in two games.

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nbsp;    The game served as a match of contrasting managerial styles, with laid-back Joe Torre of the Dodgers going up against the controversial and mercurial Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox. Both managers have won World Series, but on this night it seemed that Torre could do no right. His lineup against the left-handed Buehrle included the right-handed Young and LaRoche instead of Andre Ethier and Blake DeWitt, and while Young did hit the homer, it seemed that the lineup made little difference. Torre also left Lowe out on the mound an inning too long; right after the jumbotron flashed “Lowe has retired 12 of the last 13 batters” the wheels came off. And bringing in Cory Wade, who allowed an RBI hits to DeWayne Wise and Alexei Ramirez, certainly didn’t help Torre any.

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Scott the Proctologist couldn’t escape more trouble, and so Joe Torre ultimately had to turn to his three bullpen stars in a save situation. Fortunately for the Dodgers, the trio didn’t disappoint, with Joe Beimel, Jonathan Broxton and Takashi Saito snuffing out the last Cincinnati rally.

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Unless the Avengers make the playoffs, that is.

2. Joe Torre
The Dodgers fired their last manager, Grady Little, after a late-season collapse that was in part due to something beyond his control (see below).  They brought in Torre, recently fired from the Yankees, to help get the team over the hump. But so far they’re stuck in neutral and drifting into reverse, with the Dodgers getting closer to San Francisco in third place than to Arizona in first. Yet Torre seems untouchable. Why? Part of it is because he appears so relaxed and collected; part of it is his reputation of being a winner; and part of it is that the Dodgers just signed him to a lucrative three-year deal. However, the bottom line is that people aren’t panicking about the Dodgers yet because they believe Torre has some magic up his sleeve that’ll fix everything. Let’s hope they’re right, even if I don’t think they are.

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p;          Oh, and one last group deserving of some blame: Joe Torre and the coaching staff. Yes, I know there have been significant losses, starting with Don Mattingly before the season and continuing on with Furcal, Garciaparra, Jason Schmidt, Tony Abreu, Yhency Brazoban and even Andruw Jones. But at some point, shouldn’t the coaching staff be responsible for this mess? The offensive numbers are misleading; while the Dodgers are around fifth in average and on-base percentage, they are 11th in walks, 12th in runs, 14th in sacrifice flies, last in homers and last in extra-base hits. Quite simply, they aren’t scoring enough runs to support a pitching staff that is usually respectable, and they almost never can dig themselves out of an early hole.

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1. Joe Torre – Okay, so I am biased! I can’t wait to see what he can do with my hometown Los Angeles Dodgers. There have been some important acquisitions with players also…

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n fire this season!

Lets see, what else would interest you to know?  How about the fact that Joe Torre (I still can't get used to saying that) is going to let Nomar and Andy LaRoche basically duke it out to see who will be our starting third baseman?  I seriously hope that Nomar wins the spot.  He needs to start hitting again, not to mention that he needs to be healthy.  I would love to see him play a full season without injury this year!!!

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But alas, a ray of hope! Joe Torre has arrived! Of course, my first instinct was cautious elation. What good would a manager do without a team? I felt bad for poor Grady Little as well – although he did not bring us a title, he didn’t exactly run the team into the ground either. At any rate, I could only hope that Torre’s arrival did not mean that Frank McCourt had figured that he opened up his wallet enough to appease the fans for now. Luckily, we did get a few more…Jeff Kent is staying and they have signed Andruw Jones. There is even rumor that they are looking to sign Japanese pitching star Hiroki Kuroda. Great! Let’s not stop there! Keep it coming Frank!

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