Furcal - Alex Gallardo - La Times

I have to admit that being born and raised on the West Coast, that when the Dodgers play the Mets, it just doesn’t have the same draw for me than say a West Coast team. I’m sure most fans are partial to division play, but I just don’t have a real draw to the Mets. I’d still much rather see the Yankees play than the Mets. Having said that, any time the Dodgers sweep any team, it’s a good thing.

The Dodgers just keep rolling. Their pitching is good enough and reclamation project Jeff Weaver is finding his way back to being a strong pitcher. Randy Wolf is lights out right now, so hopefully his body can hold up.

I had to laugh last nigth at the Dodger highlights.  At one point the lone highlight of the game on ESPN was Livan Hernandez striking out Juan Pierre. I wondered if Pierre was sliding back to normalcy. Ahh no. Pierre went two for four and scored the first of only two runs. He truly is on a roll right now.

Russell Martin still makes me scratch my head. He is obviosly great behind the plate with the pitchers, but something is off with his power stroke. He’s driving guys in when he needs to, but not quite with the power he used to. It makes you wonder if he was just hot when he came up, is finding it’s harder to sustain, and hasn’t found his true groove yet. Here’s hoping he can find it. He’s a solid catcher but really has the chance to be one of the Dodger greats.

Sports Illustrated recently did a cover story on what really went down with Manny. Here are two highlights:
1.  The things they really found in Manny are scary. If he was playing with female hormones to increase testosterone to combat previous steroid use…he’s really mucking up his body. Yikes. He’ll have his money, but given 20 more years, it will be real interesting to see what happens with all these athletes who took steriods.
2.  Also, Manny knew for almost 3 weeks that he could get suspended without even telling the Dodgers. Even more, he asked out of the game and quickly left the clubhouse hours before the Dodgers even found out. Shady. Real Shady.

Apparently owner Frank McCourt was furious about the whole incident. Manny may get his money this year and next, but I doubt McCourt will be real quick to sign him. Frank McCourt wanted a role model and class act for the fans and he now has a lot of mud on his face that isn’t going to go away. Manny needs to hit really well, and spend a lot of time helping kids to try and get back on McCourt’s good side.

But, ironically, there’s not a lot of need to keep talking about Manny. The Dodgers are doing fine and their “little engine that could Pierre” keeps running and scoring runs.

What do you think Manny should do to try and save face?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 8:10 am and is filed under 2009 Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.