MVN - Most Valuable Network

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Who’s on first? What’s in Left? Angel Berroa is at Short????

Wow. Welcome back…

I was out of the country for 47 days, what a journey. It was 38 games I missed, a 21-17 record, and the last Dodger game I saw before tonight’s was a 4-3 Dodger victory against Cleveland on June 22^nd when Casey Blake went 0-4 with 3 LOBs…for the Indians.

With one simple no-brainer trade on the day of the deadline, the Dodgers gave themselves new life acquiring the most prolific Home Run hitter to ever put on a Dodger uniform. And Manny’s already got more Dodger Home Runs than Andruw Jones. What a way to come back…

Under-the-radar-yet-not-so-under-the-radar-Casey-Blake is hitting .341 in his 44 At Bats in Blue, and he hit his second Home Run tonight.

Danny Ardoin started his second straight game behind the dish and hit his first Home Run in three years, and with what seems like is going to be a normal occurrence, the Dodgers finished the game with AL Central vets Angel Berroa and Pablo Ozuna going up the middle.

Nomar returned and played some Shortstop, then returned to his normal position on the DL. Brad Penny returned tonight to get his first win after seven weeks on the shelf, and Clay Kershaw got the win yesterday, moving to 2-0 in his last three starts with an ERA under one.

These days everyone in the clubhouse is wearing nametags, but whatever is going on is working, the DBacks lost again tonight, and we’re only ½ a game out. Wow.

I don’t need to sit and explain my emotions about having the privilege of watching Manny Ramirez swing a bat for the Dodgers, because I know we’re all feeling it. After watching the Dodgers lose out on ARod, Vlad, Carlos Lee, Soriano, CC, Johan, or whoever else has crossed through the pages of the LA Times over the years, I honestly never thought the day would come that a player like Manny Ramirez would be swinging a bat for us.

Can somebody please tell me why him potentially cutting his hair is getting this much attention right now? Who cares, he’s hitting bombs, and we’re having fun.

I watched this whole “Manny being Manny” circus from afar over the last few years. I scoffed at the fact that he was actually really that crazy, and I still don’t understand how a player that did so much for one beleaguered franchise could end up being shipped out without any fanfare as his old team struggles to catch the Tampa Bay Rays.

I don’t understand the negativity, but I’m certainly starting to get why they called him crazy. He’s fun though, a good crazy that a stuck-up team like the Dodgers really needed. Jeff Kent’s the team leader, Nomar’s the other one on the DL, and veterans Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones are stuck in the most miserable seasons of their lives. Jones can’t hit, and I’m actually starting to question whether Juan Pierre wants to win another title or rot away in some place like Kansas City. At this point, he probably chooses the latter.

Russ takes the game way too seriously, although we love him for it, I’m still yet to see Loney smile, and Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier have been told from day one that enjoyment is not a part of this game. Manny is starting to remind them that it is.

We’re loosening up, enjoying ourselves, and we now have a legitimate bat in the middle of our lineup that we’ve been searching for since the Beltre season.

I’ve never seen one player do more for a team in one week than Manny has. No matter what, I will forever be grateful to him for that.

That being said, I wanna win a title, and I don’t think that’s too fanatical anymore. Sure, our record isn’t the best in the Bigs, but if Raffy comes back our lineup actually might be. Our bullpen is formidable, and you don’t need five starters to be a scary playoff team. We’ve had the staff for the past five years, we just never had the offense. We never had a bat in the middle of the lineup that made other teams scared. We never forced them to throw to our other guys, and we never ever, ever, ever cashed in with RISP. We can do all that now.

And Casey Blake can swing a bat from the hot corner too. When was the last time we got any serious production from there?

Sweeney’s back for some clutch ABs off the bench, and another thing Manny does is send some combination of Ethier/Pierre/Jones to the bench and leave us with a few pretty good options for late in the game.

Ozuna can fill in at any position (and also help keep Kent fresh), and even without Takashi, the no-name bullpen has been pretty close to fantastic…and Proctor’s coming back.

I’ve been gone for quite some time so you’ll have to excuse my energy, but the National League is wide open, and after Albert Pujols, Manny might be the best hitter in the league, and he’s on our side.

It feels good to be back, and it feels really good to be able to sit down and watch this team play instead of some of the other garbage combinations we’ve thrown on the field this year.

Good luck Andy LaRoche.

Tomorrow we take over first place. Go Team USA. Sorry for the absence

Our Apologies

Hey guys, Aaron and I are really sorry we’ve been MIA lately. We’re traveling the world right now, but we’ll be back for a hopeful playoff chase (the division is so bad I don’t think a chase is unrealistic). We miss you and just want you to know that even on the other side of the world we’re still bleeding Dodger Blue. Oh yeah, and you can bet that Sapiro is psyched about Jason Repko back in the Bigs.

Dodgers Battle Back Against Tribe, And…

Man, that one was really disappointing.

We absolutely played like crap, got some breaks, got some drops, scored four runs and tied it in the ninth.

And then we went ahead and blew it…And Takashi blew it too.

Oh goodness, that was frustrating.

I yelled. I wasn’t happy.

Maybe we shouldn’t have put Takashi in for the 9^th, or maybe we should have never come back against a Cleveland bullpen after getting completely dominated by Cliff Lee all game. Man, is he good…he smoked us.

That dude threw his first pitch for a strike to pretty much everyone, and we knew it. We knew he was going to throw the first pitch for a strike every time, dead red fastball, and we still couldn’t hit it.

And that’s why he kept his pitch count down the entire game, because we fell behind in the count right after the first pitch. Every time, couldn’t hit it. He was good.

He threw 76 of his 104 pitches for a strike. But there was a point that he had thrown 49 of 71 for a strike, that’s unbelievable.

In contrast, rookie phenom, Clayton Kershaw, threw 85 total pitches, and threw 47 for a strike.

That’s 28 balls in total for Lee, and 38 balls in total for Kershaw. Cliff Lee threw 10 fewer balls while throwing 19 more pitches. That’s why Cliff Lee is 10-1 (should be 11-1 with a 0.00 added to his ERA), and Clayton Kershaw is a Dodger.

Just another example of something this team does that is unbelievably inexplicable. I have never seen a more misbehaved group of Major Leaguers in my life. They’re like seven year olds.

Matt Kemp is leading the team in RBIs with 42, and Loney is the closest after with 35. Matt Kemp is leading the team in Strikeouts with 69. The player with the closest to that has 45. It’s Andruw Jones still…

It’s the inconsistent play of this team that is ultimately going to be its demise. We don’t play smart, and that’s just not going to win base ball games. We can’t find ways to put the ball into play in important circumstances (Except for that one ball Pierre hit off the pitcher in the 9^th). Juan Pierre is playing decent baseball by the way, he’s doing a good job, but we need Raffy back.

One thing that’s really been missing in our lineup is a two-hole hitter. It’s been missing all year. It would be Pierre if Furcal were playing, but he’s not. We’ve tried Russell, Kemp, Ethier and Blakie-D, nobody has any idea how to hit in the two-hole, it’s the weirdest thing.

I used to love hitting in the two-hole. The two-hole is gritty. The two-hole says I’ll do whatever it takes to help this team win. I’ll take pitches and make a pitcher work; I’ll take more pitches so my runner can move. I’ll Sac Bunt, Hit and Run, hit the ball to the right side, do whatever you need coach. The two-hole is important, it sets the tone. 

I say we either let somebody else lead off and hit Pierre second, or send LaRoche back down and bring up Jason Repko.

We could possibly play Repko in Center if we wanted, and take some of the burden off Kemp and hide him in Right for a while. We could move Andre back to his normal position in Left, but sometimes he would have to sit as well, and so would Kemp, sometimes we’d be way better off without Kemp.

I know that Repko’s not even on the 40-man roster right now, but screw it, he should be, especially with Andruw Jones playing nonexistent.

Delwyn Young can swing it every once in a while, but he might be burning a hole in the bench when we could really be using that roster spot for a very reliable, sure handed, gutsy outfielder who can run the bases and has decent power.

He’s only hitting .263 in AAA, but truthfully, that’s not that bad for a player that fits into his category. He’s got 6 Home Runs on the year, which would be killin’ it on the Dodgers, and his OBP is a solid .359. He’s had 259 ABs already, which would be second on the Dodgers, so he’s proved that he can be relied upon to not run straight through a wall again.

More importantly, he’s got heart, and that’s what’s really missing in the middle of this lineup. Sometimes Kemp and Dre are too cool to show raw emotion, and Loney just doesn’t have the intensity built into him just yet I guess.

Russ had it for a second tonight, and then we all got it ripped out of our chest in the 10th.

Repko could provide that spunk at the top of the lineup. He’s got 12 Stolen Bases too. Repko would play, we could really use him.

On a side note, Jeff Kent is sixth on the team in At Bats, and his .419 SLG is on-pace to be the worst in his career since his rookie season in ’92 with the New York Mets.

Good luck in hell Willie Randolph, it’s been real. 

Bad Baseball

I just don’t really know how to explain my frustrations with this baseball team right now.

I’ve given everything to the Dodgers, and I love them to death, but right now, this is one of the worst baseball teams I have ever seen in my entire life.

That’s not to say that they can’t turn it around. When I say that they’re one of the worst teams I’ve ever seen, it’s not because they lacking in talent at every position, it’s because there is talent on the roster, and there is actually room for this team to make a run for the World Series. Who’s to say we can’t?

I’m frustrated by them because it honestly seems like they don’t care. Hold on a second. It’s not like they’re taking the field with no intensity, don’t run out ground balls, or don’t throw as hard as they can.

They have the talent. For some reason though, they refuse to throw strikes, they refuse to get clutch hits in key situations. They refuse to close down games, and they refuse to have positive first innings.  Takashi hasn’t had a Save in six outings!

Our bullpen is awesome in 7-2 games, but where the hell are they when it’s 3-2?

Our guys are knocking ‘em out of the park when there’s nobody on, but can somebody please tell me when was the last time we hit a ball out of the park with a runner on?

We certainly are capable of doing certain things, but for some reason we can’t do it when the pressure is on or when it really matters.

We scored one run AGAIN tonight, I’m so sick of it.

We got a win last night. Sure, a big one I guess, we won 7-2, but we scored the go-ahead runs on a seeing-eye single that Russell hit through the right side of the infield with his eyes closed…and the next run we scored on a infield single. We won, but it was lucky, not pretty.

Jake Peavy pitches tomorrow, and we’re going to lose.

I’ve googled it, I can’t find a stat, but I don’t think we’ve ever beat Jake Peavy. If I only watched Dodger games, I would honestly tell you that Jake Peavy is the greatest pitcher of all-time, because we’ve never done a thing against him.

Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.

I haven’t completely lost faith in them yet. You know, I still watch every single game, and every loss still hurts me just as much.

Furcal’s been out for 32 games now, and that’s what the real problem is.

It’s not scary to face our lineup when Angel Berroa is hitting eighth (or Chin-Lung Hu, or Luis Maza). It’s scary to face our lineup when Furcal is at the top and Pierre is after him, with DeWitt, or Ethier, or even Delwyn Young hitting eighth.

I can’t even believe how frustrating it’s been to watch Dodger baseball without our best player, and that leads us to a serious dilemma…

Rafael Furcal is our best player, and this is his contract year. I want nothing more than for him to be a loyal Dodger until he retires, but at $13 Million a year, is it worth bringing him back when he’s just going to be injured every single season? He’s three-for-three so far; he’s never really been healthy.

I love Raffy forever and ever, but it hurts us to invest our franchise in him, and just have him come up with another BS injury every year. Serious problem, but not as serious as our absent offense.

A few things, including Furcal…

At least three more weeks before Raffy comes back, I’m sick of it, let me know when he’s in the starting lineup.

By now you’ve seen Angel Berroa occupying Furcal’s former spot on the diamond. It’s always a funny thing when guys you used to watch on another squad just show up in a Dodger uniform and take the field. Berroa will be fine for a little, at least he’s a bit of a step up offensively from Chin-Lung Hu, who by-the-way got sent down to AAA for… 

ANDY LAROCHE!!!!

After all that Nomar-Andy-Andy-Nomar talk in Spring Training, LaRoche finally makes his 2008 debut 64 games into the season at First Base believe it or not.

And…he hit a Home Run in only his second At Bat of the year. A solo. Obviously…

Also, on a side note, I think Andy needs to keep his hair long; it looks better that way.

Nomar is headed towards a rehab assignment, and word is Torre wants him working out back at Shortstop. Andruw Jones took some BP and shagged some Fly Balls in the outfield; he may be only weeks away, and who would have thought that we’d need him this much. I’ll welcome his bat back into the lineup as soon as he’s ready.

I also want to congratulate everyone’s favorite Dodger, Blake DeWitt, on receiving May’s NL Rookie of Month honors. What a cool thing for a dude that wasn’t even on the map in Spring Training. He hit .322 in May with 5 Home Runs and 18 RBIs. I love him, and I love Russell, everybody else better figure it out. Especially Matt Kemp, he’s 6^th in the NL in Strikeouts, he had three tonight, I’m sick of it…