04.23.05
Can we talk?
When the Dodgers started their roll I vowed I wouldn’t write a thing until they lost two in a row. I would have been content to not write about them all year.
If you believe you’re playing well because you’re (doing the laundry), or because you’re not (doing the laundry), or because you wear women’s underwear, then you are! — Crash Davis in Bull Durham (Family-unfriendly material replaced by different euphemism.)
Since the Dodgers have been doing so well everyone has been talking about them, except for when they’re talking about the White Sox. My hope is the Dodgers take the next two games in Colorado to begin the winning thing again. But you just can’t take personally a loss in Colorado. Playing in Denver is like asking an arena football team to go to New England and beat the Patriots. It helps that the Rockies are more like last year’s 49ers, but still.
Specifically for the Dodgers, Adrian Beltre is hitting .242 for the Seattle Mariners with one home run and J.D. Drew is hitting .232 with two homers for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles. The difference is Beltre started well and faded, where Drew waited forever to get his first hit, but has since flourished. Beltre had some key singles early in the season. He started 8 for 21 (.381), but is 8 for his last 45 (.178). Drew started 0 for 25 (point zero zero zero) and has since hit 13 for 31 (.419) with some key hits of his own.
No Eric Gagne, no Jayson Werth and the Dodgers are still 12-4. Jeff Kent, Milton Bradley and Odalis Perez are the Dodger studs. Derek Lowe has a 1.27 ERA and only a 1-1 record to show for it. Duaner Sanchez has been good. Yhency Brazoban gave up three runs in a third of an inning against San Francisco on April 6 and has given up one earned run since. Olmedo Saenz is 8 for 16, by the way, a fine first-base substitute (replacement) for the .211-hitting Hee Seop Choi. Catcher Jason Phillips, a career .262 hitter is batting .326 so far this year. Excellent! The better he does the longer the Dodgers can wait until bringing up Dioner Navarro, who is hitting .265 in AAA Las Vegas.
Also in Vegas Willy Aybar, who was supposed to be the next Dodger 2nd-baseman after Alex Cora (but then there’s the whole Jeff Kent thing) is learning to play 3rd base and is hitting .364. Outfielder Chin-Feng Chen is hitting .353 with three home runs. He’s had 20 homers in each of the past three seasons. If the Dodgers play in October Aybar, Chen and Navarro are good bets to at least be on the roster.
Out-of-town Dodger fans (for example, me) would be wise to hold off on the October hotel reservations (unless you’re sure you find something else to do in Los Angeles in October) until we find out how the Giants will fare during Bonds’ absence and once we find out a timeline for his return. Granted, even if the Giants go on a tear the Dodgers are on pace to easily earn a wild-card spot, but I still think the Dodgers will only win 90-92 games this year. The one thing that might change that is what kind of moves DePodesta makes for the last two months of the season. Assuming the Dodgers are still in contention, count on some movement. If they’re not in contention, count on some movement. This is now the Dodger way. Get used to it. It could be worse. You could be a Mariners fan from 1999-2002 and watch the team do nothing to improve its playoff chances.
Final note: I can’t be the first to notice that Spanish-speaking fans would call the Angels “Los Angeles de Los Angeles (de Anaheim).”