Hanley Ramirez Hanley Ramirez was once a stud shortstop (based solely on his bat, of course), a young player a franchise could build around. Fast forward to 2012 and Han-Ram was just a struggling player acquired by the Dodgers in an effort to upgrade at a position of need and make a run at 2012. Acquired for Nate Eovaldi and ... Read More »
A.J. Ellis After toiling in the minors for parts of nine seasons with just a couple cups of coffee to show for it, all the while watching the Dodgers treat the catcher position like it was wholly unimportant (trading Carlos Santana, allowing Joe Torre to run Russell Martin into the ground, and Rod Barajas not only being on the team ... Read More »
A.J. Ellis underwent knee surgery for a torn meniscus in his left knee. The information, as far as I can tell, was broken on Twitter by his wife. Surgery went well Friday. Recovering and flying home Tuesday! #pregnantwith3babies #ipadteddybear twitter.com/Cindyluellis/s… — Cindy Ellis (@Cindyluellis) October 8, 2012 The necessity of this surgery could probably explain a few of his late-season ... Read More »
As everybody knew going into the game, it was literally a must-win contest for the Dodgers, as the magic number of the Cardinals was one for the final playoff spot in the National League. —– Buster Posey started the scoring in the top of second inning with a homer off Chris Capuano. A Luis Cruz RBI groundout knotted the game ... Read More »
Barry Bloom of MLB.com revealed through an interview that Ned Colletti and the Dodger coaching staff got into a bit of an argument after Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to the Padres. MLB.com: So there was a little blowup in the clubhouse after Tuesday night’s loss here. We heard that was you. Colletti: I had a passionate exchange in the coach’s room. ... Read More »
Clayton Kershaw pitched and labored through five innings with an injured left hip, but he managed to limit the Reds to a lone run. Adrian Gonzalez homered twice to emphatically break out of his slump, and he helped power the offense to a win. But perhaps the biggest surprise goes to Juan Uribe, who managed to … uh … get ... Read More »
Since the execution of The Trade on August 25th, the Dodgers have gone from scoring 4.0 runs per game to 3.1 runs per game. What was already a mediocre offense in the bottom third of the league has scored the second fewest runs in all of baseball since the start of September. Adrian Gonzalez was supposed to be the impact ... Read More »
Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness: Mike Petriello asks whether we should start worrying about Andre Ethier. Go over and read the whole thing, but he brings up points I wanted to address: The obvious answer is that it’s yet another injury, but I’m not sure it’s that simple. Yes, he strained his oblique in San Francisco at the end of June ... Read More »
The quote found in the title basically sums up Don Mattingly‘s logic when he was asked about Andre Ethier‘s struggles against lefties, as reported by Eric Stephen of True Blue LA. Part of the struggles for Ethier have been against left-handed pitchers, against whom Ethier is hitting .218/.282/.315 this season. But don’t expect Mattingly to pinch hit for Ethier in ... Read More »
In case you missed it last night, this is how the Dodgers lost, and it’s … failtacular. That’s the only way I can describe it. There’s so much to observe in that one GIF/play that it was hard to absorb at the time. Dodgers fans were left asking themselves “What the fuck just happened?” even hours after the game was ... Read More »
Episodes five and six of “Between Two Palm Trees” deal with Clayton Kershaw‘s Justin Bieber heartthrob status and A.J. Ellis trying to solicit a ticket to the All-Star Game. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. A.J. needs to jump out of the chair and try to strangle Clayton or something, just so I can ... Read More »
Yahoo! Sports: Jeff Passan writes about MLB‘s ridiculous blackout policy. I wrote about my issues with it here. —– FanGraphs: Dave Cameron‘s “Stat Nerd NL All-Star Roster” includes A.J. Ellis and Clayton Kershaw, but Andre Ethier just misses. —– Baseball Prospectus: Doug Thorburn dissects the slide step and doesn’t think it’s worth implementing. It is my contention that most pitchers ... Read More »
Apparently this was posted a few days ago but I missed it, and given that I covered episodes one and two, I figured I should continue the trend by drawing attention to episodes three and four. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Read More »
Beyond The Box Score: Glenn DuPaul takes a look at the most valuable players of April and May. A.J. Ellis tops the hitter’s list, while former Dodger James McDonald tops the pitcher’s list. The New Yorker: Scientifically, what makes players choke? So far, so obvious: the extra money led people to get more excited about the potential rewards, which led ... Read More »
The debut episode of “Between Two Palm Trees” provided a GIFable moment, but this one took awkward to the next level. Your browser does not support iframes. The best thing? I didn’t know this was a series of videos, I thought it was a one-off. Read More »
Chad Moriyama Dodgers, Sabermetrics, Scouting