Bengie Molina - Frederic Larson - SF Chronicle

It’s never fun to read the annual winners and losers columns from the winter meetings and see the Dodgers in the losing column. John Heyman with Sports Illustrated put them there (Link Here), and I do have to agree with him. This divorce has put a cloud over the Dodgers and they now have even more pitching needs.

After thinking about it more though, the Dodgers didn’t do that bad.  Actually they did quite well from the perspective of the Dodgers/Giants rivalry.  This week it was confirmed that Bengie Molina, Brad Penny and Juan Uribe would not be returning to the Giants.  Although none of them are high all-stars, they were very important to the Giants. 

Bengie Molina was their second big bat with Pablo Sandoval.  Brad Penny gave them a late surge of pitching and Juan Uribe won the hearts of the fans by having numerous late game heroics.  Losing Bengie will hurt them the most.  He was solid behind the plate and always clutch with the bat.  The fans felt he was too slow, the but the real issue is that he was expected to be the #4 hitter on a team when he should have been the #7 hitter.  He also didn’t like it when they started using a different catcher with Barry Zito, and wanted a long term contract, so I guess he didn’t feel truly wanted back.

Bottom line though, those three guys were Dodger Killers and losing them will definitely help the Dodgers.  Bengie didn’t have a great average against the Dodgers, but he had clutch RBI’s to beat them multiple times.  Juan Uribe hit  .340 against the Dodgers last year, so he definitely had their number.  Brad Penny got beat up by the Dodgers in a key game down the stretch last year, but otherwise he pitched pretty good against them and definitely had the motiviation to beat them.

Now, on the flip side Randy Wolf was a stud against the Giants last year with a 1.35 ERA, so that will definitely hurt the Dodgers.  He ate up a lot of innings, so the Dodgers definitely have a big hole to fill.

Now if only the Giants get rid of Randy Winn, then the Dodgers will really be in good shape.    All in all, not a great week, but against the Giants it wasn’t that bad.

By the way, special welcome to all of you who have visited the site through Twitter.  You can catch out my tweets through this site, or by looking up SFDodgerfan.  Go Blue.

It’s a good thing I’m not a real betting man. I would have lost a lot of money this weekend. I thought the Giants would take 2 of 3 and thought the Dodgers would win the first game.

The exact opposite happened. It’s all good for the Dodgers, but obviously my hunches were better when they played in SF, rather than L.A.

I watched most of the game and was very impressed with the boys in blue.  Randy Wolf looked shaky at first, but then hit a groove.  What impressed me though was that the Dodgers just took apart Tim Lincecum.  He is the reigning Cy Young winner and they just were patient and found the holes.  It was just good baseball and the better team won.

I was thinking about the decisions the Dodgers have made it the last few years to “wait on the kids.”  There is a general question of “how long do you wait for players to develop?”

There was a lot of pressure to wait for Kemp, Ethier, Loney and Martin to produce, but pressure to dump some of them too (especially Kemp).  The Dodgers are now reaping the fruit of their waiting.  Kemp and Ethier will both have over 100 RBI’s by the end of the season and are pulling the team, even over Manny.  The Dodgers should have a solid core for a few years to come, and the fans will really come to expect and enjoy it.

If the Dodgers can keep going strong, they should make a long run into the playoffs.  The pitching will be the gamble…but it’s been that way all year, and look where they are.  Go Blue.  Thanks for beating the Giants good this year.

The season seems to take so long, but then the end gets here quickly. After a long good year, the Dodgers and Giants play their last scheduled match up against each other. They may see each other in the playoffs, but this is the last regularly scheduled match.

It’s amazing what a week of baseball brought. The Dodgers gained 2 games on the Rockies and the Giants are still 3.5 games behind them. I like where the Dodgers stand.

I was talking to a Giants fan last night who said, “The Dodgers are in real good shape.” They know they did what they had to do against the Pirates and now if they can play well this weekend, they should definitely go to the playoffs.

Here are the pitching matchups and my take on who has the advantage.

Friday: Vicente Padilla, RHP (11-6, 4.42)  vs. Jonathan Sanchez, LHP (6-12, 4.16)

Advantage Dodgers.  He’s just pitching well right now, and the Dodgers seemed to have Sanchez’s number last weekend.

Saturday: Jon Garland, RHP (10-11, 4.19) vs Brad Penny, RHP (10-8, 5.04)

Having seen Penny first hand on Sunday, definitely advantage Giants.  He wants to win against the Dodgers.  Period.

Sunday: Randy Wolf, LHP (10-6, 3.24)  vs. Tim Lincecum, RHP (14-5, 2.30)

Wow.  Wolf is sharp right now, but Lincecum is still Cy Young level.  Advantage Giants.  If the Dodgers can get to him late, they have a chance, but that should be a great game.

Well – hopefully we can take 2 of 3 and keep the lead we have.  We’ll see.  Then again the bats seemed to jump out last weekend, so hopefully it will be the same this weekend.  At least if we lose 2 of 3 we can go back to playing the Pirates.  Go Blue.

Hiroki Kuroda - Fox Sports.com

Writing as I watch the game:

Great game so far.  As of right now, it’s the 6th and the Dodgers have a 4 to 1 lead.  I’m very glad to see the Dodgers offense starting to come around again.  After Manny hurt his hand, he seems to have slowed offensively, but he’s still getting on base, so hopefully he will come around soon.

Special thanks to all of you who checked in on the site as the Dodgers played the Giants.  It was obvious to me that more people are reading this week.  I’m in the process of looking for guest writers for SF Dodgerfan.com.  If you are passionate about the Dodgers/Giants and love to write (and ideally live in the Bay Area), shoot me an e-mail at scott@sfdodgerfan.com.

Here’s a few notables from the game:

Obviously Joe is still tweeking the lineup to manufacture runs.  Putting Russell Martin second, is different, but it worked tonight, so I’m sure he’ll keep it for a bit longer.

• Great to see Matt Kemp get the key hit.  He really is driving in the runs this year, and can’t be avoided.
• I had to agree with the announcers up here that the 1st base umpire really missed the calls at 1st base.  Twice he favored the Dodgers on the call.  Not that I mind, but he definitely got those wrong.
• Perhaps it was because the cameras only showed the lower fans, but there didn’t seem to be as many Dodger fans at this game.  I know there are always more up high, but perhaps it was just perspective.
• My hero so far in this game is Hiroki Kuroda.  In a game where Jason Schmidt was supposed to make his return to SF, Kuroda stepped right in where the Dodgers needed.  The thing I liked most was that he was hitting his spots…

Interruption——–

The Giants are again chanting “Beat LA.”  If I haven’t made it clear in previous posts, that has got to be the WORST sound on the face of the planet.  It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.  Arrggghhh.

Interruption ended———————

Kuroda just really has kept them off track and is going deep into the game.  If he is truly back and can be consistent, he is what the Dodgers need with Wolf to get into the Playoffs.  Time will tell if not getting Halladay was a mistake, but a healthy Kuroda definitely will help the Dodgers win the West.

We’ll see how this game ends up.  There’s still hope for Giants fans if Jonathan Broxton gets into the game.  He always makes it close for the Giants.  If he can finally beat the Giants strong – he has come a long way….otherwise, Torre should use Sherrill this series.  Go Blue.

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?