I previously complimented (sorta) Ned Colletti for potentially taking a sabermetric stance on the issue of Andre Ethier hitting against lefties, but after reading the rest of the interview with Barry Bloom of MLB.com, perhaps I spoke too soon.

MLB.com: Do you think there has been enough time for all these parts to fit together?

Colletti: What guys have been through as a group is always going to be a factor. The guys who are together the beginning of camp are different than those who come on Aug. 25. At the same time, you also have expectations. There was so much fanfare around that trade. It’s natural for players to come in and press and want to do well. Sometimes the harder you try, the tougher it gets. Still, in Adrian’s case you’re talking about 20 RBIs in a month. I’ll take that. I’ll take that the rest of his Dodger career. The deals we made were to really give us a chance to win this year, but [also] to fortify ourselves going forward. When we made these trades, we thought that these players were going to be with us for a while.

You know, I understand that this was basically just a public relations interview. I know I shouldn’t read into it too much, but if he didn’t believe in some of this crap, there’s no reason he had to say it the way he does.

He could easily say, “I just think Adrian Gonzalez needs time to adjust, and if you look at his recent performance, he’s having better at-bats.”

That would be logical and understandable, and it’s a position many are taking.

Instead, what does he do? He cites RBI in a month and says that what A-Gon’s done for the Dodgers to this point is what he’ll take for the rest of the contract.

Um … but with the Dodgers so far, A-Gon has a .276/.326/.425/.751 line. So no, I’d rather not just “take that”.

MLB.com: Do you feel this team has underachieved?

Colletti: I think it’s tough to tell, because we’ve made so many changes and so many different things happened. Whenever you have injuries to key players, it changes your dynamic. When a guy like Matt Kemp comes back after missing 51 games, it’s tough to play yourself back into shape. You don’t have six weeks of Spring Training that you can inject into a season. It’s so much more compact and so much shorter. When you have an injury as serious as he had, it really changed the whole context of the season.

So to say that we underachieved as a team, to grade that, you almost have to have a full complement all year. If Matt Kemp had played 162 games, if everybody had played the full year and we didn’t make trades we made and all the adjustments that they entailed, it might be a different dynamic. We might have as many DL days as any team in baseball. It’s unfair to characterize it as underachieving, because we fought through so many things.

Who thought this was a good idea? Is this supposed to appease fans? Nobody is gonna feel sorry for the Dodgers anymore, and the expectations are now much higher.

Why not just explain that there were a lot of injuries this year and then acknowledge that the team struggled after the trade, but add that he expects them to be fine for next year with an offseason of stability? You can admit something was disappointing and still subtly deny that it was your fault.

Maybe straight up making excuses worked when everybody felt sorry for the staff while under Frank McCourt, but the baby gloves type of handling simply won’t happen anymore. And it shouldn’t.

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.

MLB.com: What was the message?

Colletti: Were you invited?

MLB.com: No, but I wish I was.

Colletti: It was just a bit of an evaluation.

Two hours later, T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times released similar information through an article of his own.

The other night after the Dodgers lost to the Padres, while the media met with Manager Don Mattingly, screaming could be heard from the nearby coaches’ dressing room.

“Passionate” screaming? General Manager Ned Colletti says with a smirk when asked if it was he.

“Yes, I had a passionate discussion with the staff, and then I had another one with a [softer] voice with Donnie. I think every once in a while you just need to recalibrate.”

Say what you want about Colletti (and I have), but he’s never given the impression of being a screaming madman type. Quite the opposite, really. So for this to happen and for these reports to go public, something really must have set him off on that particular day after the game.

While us fans probably shouldn’t overreact to it and jump to the conclusion that there’s some type of breakdown in the front office and/or clubhouse, I do feel it’s okay to wonder what exactly triggered this.

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In the top of the ninth in that game, a sequence occurred that ultimately led to the Dodgers losing by a run despite trailing by a one score with nobody out and a runner on second. When the game got to that point, Dee Gordon pinch-ran for A.J. Ellis on second, and everybody knows that Dee has enough speed to make that base represent scoring position on almost any hit. Despite that move, Mattingly opted to pinch-hit with Nick Punto and bunt Dee over to third. After Mark Ellis walked to put runners on first and third, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp went down to end the game.

Mattingly’s decision to bunt Gordon to third increased the chances of the Dodgers scoring in that inning, but decreased their chances of winning by 3-5%. So was that the reason for the blowup? Maybe, but I doubt it. Mattingly makes moves like that all the time, so if it was going to be an issue, one would think this would have come up way sooner than September. Honestly, it’s considered more of a sin by us saber-oriented fans and bloggers than to the front office.

As such, perhaps it was just the culmination of a frustrating season? The team is having general struggles, and that was the day they fell 4.5 games back in the race for the final playoff spot. Odds are that it was probably related to those difficulties, just because I don’t think the GM goes down to rant to the field staff based on single game decisions with any type of regularity.

Then again, maybe it had something to do with how Andre Ethier was used. In the top of the eighth inning, Ethier was allowed to hit against a lefty. Not a big deal, right? Happens all the time. I didn’t think much of it either, but a recent story on the Dodgers official site basically gets the team to admit that the people in charge are having internal discussions about sitting him against lefties.

Another season is almost in the books and the Dodgers are once again mystified by outfielder Andre Ethier’s inability to hit left-handed pitching anywhere near as successfully as he does against right-handers.

“It’s something we seriously have to look at as far as how we approach it. I think he can hit left-handers. The numbers say maybe he can’t and we have to go a different route. Me believing a guy can do something and him doing it are two different things.”

Nothing concrete there to say it was the reason, but you have to read between the lines a little. The issue has obviously been an internal discussion for a while and, perhaps when combined with the status of the team in the standings, it just finally boiled over. In this case, given Mattingly’s consistent stance that Ethier can indeed hit lefties, Colletti might have even be taking the sabermetric position on this one.

Ned Colletti? Statistics over guts? What is this madness?! Look at what Don Mattingly has driven our precious GM to.

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Naturally, this is all speculation, but given the justifiably raised expectations of the team and their inability to perform despite the numerous acquisitions, one would think journalists would have made more of an effort to shed light on the situation than to just allow Colletti to get off with dodging the question.

That’s especially true given that the front office and ownership has spent all September telling fans that there’s always next year, yet their actions in handling players and making transactions have told a very different tale.

Seems to me that this would warrant further investigation than to be a throw-in question during a media session. Given that people covering the Dodgers documented and opined about every single little thing Matt Kemp did wrong in 2010 (to give an example), one would think the GM and coaches blowing up at each other as the team collapses in September would be worthy of an investigation.

I know I’d like to hear more about what transpired.