The Dodgers have fallen out of first place in the West and perhaps that has woken up Ned Colleti to make some changes in the team and Grady Little to make some changes in the line up.
We're watching the Sunday game against the Toronto Blue Jays and any ray of hope we had about Jason Schmidt after pitching well against San Diego earlier in the week is now just about gone. Against San Diego, in his first start in about seven weeks, Schmidt was constantly throwing his fast ball in the 89-92mph range, had good command and only have up one hit. It may be he was simply well-rested. Today he's getting hit fairly hard and the top speed on ( two badly thrown high fastballs) has been 87mph. Mostly he's been about 79-83mph with everything and poor placement. He gave up the second and third career hits to Roy Halladay both on 81mph fastballs.
Schmidt was also hurt by horrible defense in the outfield in the person of Juan Pierre. Pierre had one error on a throw that he bounced to the cutoff, even though Furcall was probably 40 feet into the outfield to relay the throw. Another easy fly ball landed for a double when Pierre didn't call off Gonzales and then pulled up when Gonzales was about 20 feet from him.
The Dodgers have just not been hitting and playing some sloppy defense (mainly Pierre, who continues to give up extra bases and runs by his poor throwing).
Coletti has begun to make some moves. Matt Kemp was recalled and played yesterday, except that he played right and Ethier sat, instead of both of them playing with Kemp in center. But there is hope. Little just made a double switch to get Schmidt out of the game and put Kemp into center and pulled Pierre (who has been batting 8th the last couple of games). Unfortunately, the pitcher coming in was Mark Hendrickson who has proceeded to give up four rmore runs.
Tony Abreau has been up and playing and hitting extrememly well. And finally today, James Loney was recalled and started at first (and Brady Clark was designated for assignment). Now I doubt that Garciaparra is on his way to the bench, however, Nomar has not been the same hitter as last year. He's hitting about .270 and about .400 with RISP, but only 1 home run. He's been mostly a singles hitter this year.
On the good side for the Dodgers, they are only 2 games out of first place and unlike all of the other teams in the west, they have yet to really go on a long winning streak and with their starting pitching it isn't likely that they will go into a prolonged losing streak. It's also early in the year and so things are not out of control. Hopefully they will begin to field a team that includes Kemp in center and Pierre on the bench.
Posted by Narnia3 at June 10, 2007 2:17 PM | TrackBack