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Fred-dee, Fred-dee, Fred-dee

This game had everything.  Superb starting pitching, both p*** poor relief pitching and some good relief pitching, clutch hitting, smart base running, some excellent defensive plays, and the unveiling of the next Andruw Jones (defensively anyway).  This was a thoroughly entertaining baseball game.  Here’s some nice defense:

 

The broadcast?  Not so entertaining.  I think the broadcast crew was discussing the Freddie Freeman in Atlanta drama waaaaaay too often.  I understand the newsworthy story line, but don’t beat it to death.

The Dodgers went in to Atlanta with what looked like two evenly matched teams; but seemingly going in different directions.  Atlanta was 18-3 coming into the weekend, and the Dodgers were 10-9.  The Dodgers were fresh off a thorough thrashing of the Cincinnati Reds, and the Braves took 3 out of 4 from the Giants, two in walk off fashion.

The two teams split the first two games, and it came down to the third game to see which team would take the series.  The Dodgers took the series in LA, could they duplicate that in Atlanta.  For 8.2 innings, it looked like Atlanta was going to shutout the Dodgers and take the series.

Kenley Jansen was on for the second consecutive game for the save.  He struck out the side in Saturday’s game, and struck out the first two batters he faced in the 9th.  On a 3-2 pitch, Gavin Lux gets a line drive single.  Chris Taylor, who had a pinch hit single for Eddy Alvarez in the 7th, stroked a single into left field.  With Lux running, he easily made it to third.  On the first pitch to Trayce Thompson, CT3 stole 2nd.  With runners in scoring position, that has been a big problem for the Dodgers of late.  But not on this AB.  Trayce lines a pitch off the top of the glove of Matt Olson to plate 2 and tie the score.

Trea Turner lines a 2-1 pitch into CF that was dropping quickly, but not quick enough for Michael Harris II.  No other Braves OF makes that play.

Reyes Moronta is showing the SF closer ability once again, entered the 9th for his 2nd inning.  He retired the side in order, striking out two, including Dansby Swanson.

The Dodgers were entering dangerous waters, AKA extra innings.  The Dodgers were o-fer in extra innings.  But this time, the drama was building.  Will Smith was pitching for Atlanta.  Trea Turner was the ghost runner at 2nd, and Freddie Freeman was at the plate.  Freddie lines a double to score Turner and give LAD a 3-2 lead.

Will Smith hit a deep fly into RF and Freddie moved to 3B.  Muncy with one out, only needed fly ball to score Freeman.  Instead he kills the pitch but on a line right at Olson.  Yes, it was hit hard.  But I am sorry, take a little off the swing to get a fly ball.  Needless to say, Freeman was stranded at 3B.

Enter Craig Kimbrel.  Matt Olson was the first hitter to face Kimbrel, and he hit an RBI single.  Having blown his 2nd save, the Braves were smelling another walk off win.  But Kimbrel was equal to the challenge, but not before William Contreras hit a fly ball to the deepest part of the park, and Belli was able to catch up to it as he backed into the wall.

Okay, on to the 11th.  The Dodgers have not played into the 11th this year.  With the speedy Cody Bellinger the ghost runner, Gavin Lux hit a long fly into right center that Michael Harris II ran down.  He ran 104 feet to make that play.  Again, no other Braves OF makes that play.  But it was deep enough to get Belli to 3rd.

 

The hitting star for the Dodgers, CT3 hit a double off the glove of 3B Austin Riley, and Belli walks home.  But more importantly, an insurance run is in scoring position.  With two out, Trea Turner came to the plate with an 0-5 night with 3 Ks.  Odds are he is going to get a hit, right?  Yep!  Single into CF and Taylor easily scores.

Bottom of 11, and Brusdar Graterol is in for a redemption game.  A ground ball out, gets the ghost runner to 3rd.  With the infield in, Harris III hit a hard ground ball but right at Muncy who holds the runner at 3rd and gets out #2 at 1B.  The Bazooka struck out Dansby Swanson on a 101.9 sinker, and gets his first save of 2022.  Dodgers win their first extra inning game and take the series.

 

There were a lot of heroes on this night.  Tony Gonsolin pitched a fantastic 5.2 innings, but was just outpitched on this night, by the moustache…Spencer Strider.  Down 2-0 with 2 outs in the 9th, and it looked like the Catman was going to lose his 1st game of the season.  Gavin Lux clutches up and gets the two out single.  CT3 and Trayce Thompson clutched up to get into extra innings.  Freddie in his last official AB in Atlanta in the 2022 regular season, gets a key double.  Trea Turner gets a big hit after having a miserable night at the plate.  CT3 with three hits including a clutch double.  And Brusdar Graterol coming back from a disastrous game 2 outing, seizes the moment and shut down the Braves.

The Dodgers were 4-18 WRISP, but the Braves were worse with 2-16.

Not to be lost in the sweetness of the victory, the Dodgers picked up a game against the Padres, Giants, and Mets.  Overall, it was a great Sunday, beating a good Atlanta team.

 

 

On to Colorado.  Game 1…Tyler Anderson vs Chad Kuhl.

 

 

 

 

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Sam Oyed

Typical Dodger game:

9th, Jansen blows the save
10th, long fly ball, caught at the wall
11th, couldn’t score 1 let alone 2runs

wait, that was the Braves. Never mind.

Marcus

I get down on Taylor and all of his Ks, but he was a stud last night, kind of lost in all the Freddie noise. Will we have to watch Muncy continue to start and hit in the middle of the line up all year? We have three guys that were at one time huge contributors all clearly failing miserably to produce much of anything. Dodgers will not make their goal of a WS with all three of these guys in the line-up daily. Dodgers need a RH bat/3B or OF bad. Trading away AJ looking more suspect all the time. He wasn’t an all-star but a competent hitter/fielder who could be producing more than any of the futile three are. Not sure we even got a decent closer out of that trade.

Bluto

Stay positive Marcus! It’s only the best team in the NL Wesst and one-one thousandths off the best team in the NL. And that’s with the under-performing of key players.

They’ll be fine. The closer’s fine. The needs are minimal.

Badger

So you ADMIT there are needs?

Care to elaborate?

Bluto

Players moving to their career means is first and foremost. Maybe an acquisition if there is reason to believe some won’t?

Badger

Career means?

OK, we know what is meant by that, but obviously have no idea how to determine where that actually might fall, and replacing .830 OPS’s, which is career averages of the three we are talking about, is not possible. One maybe, but not 3.

Gonsolin and Anderson are both on pace to be 20-0 with 200+ innings pitched. I got the under. Urias is on pace for the same 200+ innings but he won’t be 20-0. Must be run support, right? I got the under on that too. How to give those guys time off? White and Pepiot? Good plan.

So if none of our hitters return to form, and 3 of our starters throw 200+ innings, what are our post season chances? And if we decide acquisitions are needed… for all 3 hitters and maybe a couple of starters to give our 20-0 guys a breather, what’s the plan?

Bluto

joke or serious?

if serious, there’s that old adage: “hope for the best expect the worst.”

I’m sure there’s a plan for the scenario you imagine. I’m not that worried about trying to engineer it.

I am sure there are even worse case plans. Freeman and Mookie out for the season, as well. But, again,I’m not gonna waste my time trying to imagine what it is.

I think it’s most likely that 2 of the 3 start to play to the “back of their baseball card” as Friedman recently quipped. JT probably doesn’t, age may be impacting him. Sure Gonsolin and Anderson revert back. But Buehler and/or May will contribute.

so. I guess a RH bat and maybe a starter or relief pitcher with limited term (short, very short term rental)

maybe 1 pitcher called up from AA, but I doubt it. Friedman doesn’t like to do that, and the roster crunch is real.

I’ll be very wrong.

Last edited 2 years ago by Bluto
Bluto

It would have been a shame if all of that wasn’t posted.

im sure we will both be wrong

Bluto

As with Badger, I’m not sure if you are serious or joking.

Apart from Badger, I think you are joking. Obviously your reply is full of stuff I didn’t write and weird false binaries.

Bluto

I didn’t cherry pick. To me, the biggest need is for Muncy, JT and Bellinger to play more “normally”. That’s what Badger asked of me. Not any of the silliness you went into.

If you want to create a hypothetical of every player taking a turn for the worse, go right ahead.

Again, “Hope for the best, expect the worst”.

Of course Gonsolin and Anderson and Lux could trend down! I hope they don’t, but of course they could. So could Austin Barnes/Hanser/Andre Jackson trend back way up beyond imagination! Or Chris Taylor start missing fewer pitches.

It’s as much of a waste of time, trying to project how every player is going to do in the 2nd half as it is to try and create counterfactuals for everyone who has impressed. I like being impressed, I’d rather not diminish it by imagining it didn’t happen.

To me the future upside of the team primarily relies on what I said it does. Why can’t we leave it there?

Last edited 2 years ago by Bluto
Singing the Blue

Totally agree, Jeff. The Dodgers always underestimate the time a player will be out of action.

I was shocked that they admitted Hudson was done for the year.

I’m sure they don’t believe the stuff they put out to the public, so they can plan accordingly, but we need to stop believing the press releases.

May actually seems to be making progress so we’ll hopefully see him no later than early August. They don’t dare keep Fergie away any longer than this weekend or he’ll tell the world that he’s absolutely fine and the league office should look into it.

As far as Buehler, Duffy, Treinen, Kahnle, Vgon and Mookie, “we expect them all to be as good as new by Spring Training.”

Badger

Well said Jeff. Twice in fact.

Bluto – point taken. We can hope those three return to earlier form, but I don’t expect it. As I said earlier, I believe Bellinger will put up 3 WAR and that is good enough. Muncy? He has hinted that it might take months to heal, maybe not until next year. I think Turner will be hot and cold the rest of the way but this is it for him. His bat looks slow.

I would not be surprised if Buehler doesn’t pitch again this year. I won’t be surprised if Kershaw takes more time off. Mookie cracked rib? Those are difficult injuries and often take months. Urias, Gonsolin and Anderson will all need a break. Treinen, Duffy, Kahnle? I’ll believe it when I see it.

I still believe we are good enough to win the West, But we must be prepared for contingencies moving forward. I’d like to see a reliable innings eater, another late inning reliever and if possible an improvement in our utility production. There will be trades. There might be more off the wall pick-ups (like Trayce) I also believe it’s soon going to be time to see what our top prospects have to offer.

And I too might be wrong about all of this. But I don’t think I am.

Bluto

I know I’m wrong about most things and I emphatically agree there have to be contingencies by people who know more than we do.

The season is many months long to what Muncy’s hinted, if he needs 60% of a season to recover that’s not an awful price to pay. Same with Mookie. Take a month!

All those worries you have are well founded, but at the end of the day. The Dodgers are really good if not great. If past is any prologue, they’ll overcome all those things (except Buehler, I’m pretty sure he’ll be back) win 100+ games and have as good a chance as any of winning it all.

Yeah, there will be trades. I just don’t see a slew of them.

Bumsrap

Remember the story about two guy going backpacking and one is putting track shoes in his backpack? The other asks why in the world would you pack those track shoes and gets the response of because we might be attacked by a bear. But you can’t outrun a bear says the onlooker. I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you.

The Dodgers have weaknesses and strengths. All they have to do is outrun the other teams to survive the season and get to the playoffs.

They need to entertain me as well. Run Trea. Run Lux. Run Bellinger. Run Taylor.

Singing the Blue

It’s not easy to keep up with the Royals.
After all, they’re royalty and we’re only trolley dodgers.

Badger

Yeah. Kansas City. Royalty. Almost synonymous.

I agree with the point about playoff appearances vs championships. This team is put together yearly with championships as the goal. With the way the business of baseball is being run, there are only a few franchises where that’s true. There are outlier franchises that have little money but make the playoffs, but how many actually win it? Well, Kansas City did. Who’s the next small market team that will do it? Milwaukee? Minnesota? Wanna bet?

Bluto

Isn’t this the issue? That Castillo pitcher. How much would his addition increase the chances of the Dodgers winning the World Series vs. topping out with the NLCS? 2%

is that really worth it?

Badger

Good question. I want a guy like him to give opportunity for our 1-3 starters to get a day off now and then down the stretch. If he ends up being one of the 1-3, great. What’s that worth?

Muncy looks like he’s trying to hit a whiffle ball with a broomstick, Turner is late and Bellinger continues to chase. Team is 1 for 15 after 5. Wake up guys.

Last edited 2 years ago by Badger

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