To the surprise of many, the Brewers have the second best record in the NL with 63 wins, compared to the Dodgers leading 66 wins. The Brewers came out of the gates fast, but have cooled off considerably since June, posting a 12 – 19 record since the end of June.
It is not surprising that the team can score runs, any team with Braun / Gomez / A Ramirez should be able to score some runs. What is surprising is that the bona-fide MVP candidate is none of those three but catcher Jonathan Lucroy. The offense is loaded with six different position players posting an OPS+ north of 110 with LuCroy leading the way at 140.
1st Base – Mark Reynolds and Lyle Overbay are an interesting platoon. Reynolds is doing exactly what he’s always done, hit home runs and nothing else. Overbay on the other hand is an offensive drag every time he’s in the lineup with a .330 slug% from a 1st baseman. It did not have to be like this. The Brewers had Juan Francisco to do the Overbay part but inexplicably released him where he was grabbed by the BlueJays to be their left-handed platoon guy. Mark Reynolds has hit 19 home runs. Francisco for the Blue Jays has hit 16 home runs. Between that could have been 30 bombs from the first base slot, but instead the Brewers went with old and bad.
2nd Base – Scooter Gennett is named appropriately for his gig as the starting second baseman for the Brewers. He took over the job last year when Richie Weeks went into one of his patented prolonged slumps but never came out of. Scooter did solid work last year, but has stepped it up another gear this year with an OPS+ of 127 which puts him on the top of the OPS+ leader-board for NL second baseman. Weeks gets plenty of at bats against LHP and has done decent work this year after his horrible 2013.
SS – Jean Segura is having a tough sophomore season after a scintillating two months in 2013. His power is gone, his average is gone, and worst of all, he lost a child during the season. I was not sold on Segura last year, I felt he had probably the best two months he will have in his career, for him it just happened at the start of his career. I had this comment about Jean Segura back in March. If any listened to me they should be thankful.
Buyer Beware
Player A ROY, age 24, 649 plate appearances , 29/6/1 = 36 xba, .290 / .352 / . 349 , OPS+ of 99, 54 stolen bases, Brewer SS
The spring of 1993, this player was the cats meow in fantasy drafts. Player A never saw 400 at bats again, and was out of baseball by age 29. Leg injuries killed his career.Player B First Full Season age 23, 623 at bats, 20 /10 / 12 = 42 xba, 294 /.329 / .423, OPS+ of 103, 44 stolen bases, Brewer SS
Player B is going in the fourth round of NFBC drafts. Every projection has him as a top 10 SS, some top 5.
Don’t draft Jean Segura, spend the extra money on Ian Desmond
Jean Segura has been the worst offensive SS in the NL. Granted Ian Desmond has not been blockbusters but at least he has not been an anchor on the roto team.
3rd Base – Aramis Ramirez is old but still a potent offensive force. Hard to quantify without doing lots of work, but ex teammate after ex teammate talk about how Aramis hits the good pitchers. We shall see how he handles Grienke and Kershaw:) Aramis has the most hits by a 3rd baseman in the 21st century with 2007. For context only nine 3rd baseman in history have had at least 2000 hits.
C – Jonathan LuCroy – a real contender for the MVP award. He has been the Brewers best hitter, he is the best hitting catcher in the NL with over 100 games played, and he’s will probably set a double mark that has stood the test of time. With 38 doubles he could become the first catcher to ever lead the league in doubles. Goldy has 39, but is lost for the year so here is his competition:
Player 2B G OPS Paul Goldschmidt 39 109 .938 Jonathan Lucroy 38 107 .867 Andrew McCutchen 32 109 .947 Daniel Murphy 32 111 .789 Yasiel Puig 31 106 .940 Anthony Rendon 31 109 .797 Starlin Castro 30 113 .757 Freddie Freeman 30 114 .842 Denard Span 30 104 .755
Provided by <a href=”http://www.sports-reference.com/sharing.shtml?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=Share&utm_campaign=ShareTool”>Baseball-Reference.com</a>: <a href=”http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/season_finder.cgi?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=Share&utm_campaign=ShareTool”>View Play Index Tool Used</a><br>Generated 8/8/2014.
RF – Ryan Braun moved from LF to RF this year without a hitch. A non PED Braun is still a potent offensive force but no longer even the best player on his team
CF – Carlos Gomez – the brilliant CF has really come into his own the past few years. After the Twins traded him to the Brewers for JJ Hardy, Carlos has increased his OPS+ every single year while performing gold glove caliber work in CF. His OPS+ trend – 76, 82, 101, 129, 134
RF – Khris Davis with a K is having a better season the Chris Davis with a C. Still relatively unknown to casual fans, Davis has 18 bombs, and a solid 115 OPS+ for his first full time season.
AJ Ellis is crossing into historical territory with his homerless streak now approaching 214 plate appearances (208 in 2014). No Los Angeles Dodger catcher has ever come to the plate over 200 times in a single year, and not hit at least two home runs. Granted this is all very premature as AJ still has over seven weeks to rectify the matter but I still find it fascinating.
Probably because the first and only time I’ve ever spoken to AJ Ellis he had just been called up to the Dodgers on June 16th, 2009 right in the middle of a homerless streak that would become epic. It is very hard not to hit a home run while playing for the Isotopes but AJ managed to go 176 plate appearances for the Isotopes without a home run. Interesting enough in 2009, while AJ was having problems going deep, the Dodgers starting catcher Russell Martin had also yet to hit a home run in 235 plate appearances. Which means that on the day AJ Ellis was promoted to the Dodgers, neither the starting catcher for the Dodgers, nor the starting catcher for the AAA team had yet to go deep in over 411 plate appearances.
This struck me as odd so while most of the press crew were hanging around Mitch Jones who had also been promoted that day, I ambled over to AJ Ellis to congratulate him on his promotion, and to ask him if the and Russell were having a friendly wager on who would go deep first. He smiled and disarmingly talked about how his game wasn’t about power but getting on base. I don’t remember much more of the conversation, but it would be the last time I interviewed a major league player, and I’ll be glad it was AJ Ellis.
We talked about his OBP and he laughed when I mentioned that he and Russell have yet to homer this year. Said his game to work the count and either get the pitch to hit he wants or take a walk. He’ll the leave the power game to Mitch Jones.
It was a little strange, the person interviewing him before me basically just asked him about Mitch Jones and what a great story he was, while seeming to ignore the fact that AJ Ellis has a had tough climb to the major leagues himself.
In 2009 AJ Ellis would not hit a home run. For anyone. Not for the Isotopes in 360 plate appearances, not for the Dodgers in his minimal 10 plate appearances. AJ Ellis would also not hit a home run for the Dodgers in 2010 in 128 plate appearances. We just assumed AJ Ellis was not going to hit home runs. Yet, in 2012 he hit 13. Followed that up with 10 in 2013.
Okay, back to his prior homerless streak. Now that baseball reference has game logs, we can go back and figure out how long his 2008 – 2011 homerless streak ran.
2008 – he last hit a home run on Aug 26th, 2008 for the Las Vegas 51’s (the team would move to Albuquerque the following year)
2008 – 14 AAA plate appearances , 3 major league appearances – total 17 plate appearances
2009 – 360 AAA plate appearances, 10 major league appearances – total 370 plate appearances
2010 – 76 AAA plate appearances, 128 major league appearances – total 203 plate appearances
2011 – 215 AAA plate appearances and 56 major league plate appearances before hitting his 1st home run on July 22nd in the fourth inning
The final talley was 14+3+360+10+76+128+215+56= 871 plate appearances without a home run between 2008 – 2011.
Doing the research for the piece I had no idea his homerless streak involved parts of four seasons.
I also put out a challenge to find me a major league baseball player who has hit double digits home runs in a single season that ever went over 500 professional at bats without a home run who was NOT a middle infielder.
I didn’t do this piece to pick or rag on AJ Ellis. He is and has been one of my favorite Dodgers, but Dodger fans can’t ignore his offensive futility in 2014. Or can they? Maybe when you are the catcher of the greatest left hander of the 21st century, you can ignore just about anything.
Oh, and Russell Martin would finally hit his first home run of 2009 on June 20th.
Matty did just enough last night to keep this thread going. While he did not hit any home runs, all in all a very productive night as he got on base three times.
Headed into July 29th, Matt Kemp had eight home runs, thirty-eight runs scored, and forty runs batted in with a slug % of .432 in ninety-five games
Today Matt Kemp has fourteen home runs, forty-eight runs scored, and fifty-one runs batted in, with a slug % of .472 in 104 games
For most of this streak Donny inexplicably continued to bat Kemp behind Carl Crawford thus reducing his RBI opportunities and at bats.
Here is a an atbat by atbat break down of this streak
Game One – home run, single, out, home run
Game Two – single, home run, ground out,single
Game Three – walk, strikeout (first K in 22 PA) , flyball to CF – Only three at bats in the game
Game Four – fly-ball, strikeout, fly-ball – Carl Crawford batting in front of Kemp made the last out of the game, and made the last out three times that game.
Game Five – Batting cleanup – strikeout, home run, ground out, fly-ball, ground out
Game Six – back to fifth but a head of Andre’s rare start – ground out, single, home run, strike out
Wins Player of the week
Game Seven – now batting fifth in front of Crawford – walk, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout
Game Eight – single, line-out, E5, strikeout – this was the game he got on via E5, stole 2nd, advanced to 3rd on Error, scored key run
Game Nine – home run, strikeout, line-out, ground out
Game Ten – single, sacrifice fly, walk (scored), walk, strikeout
Ned did what he could to bolster the Dodger starting pitcher depth by acquiring Roberto Hernandez who once went by the moniker of Fausto Carmona until 2011. The price won’t be known for a while as it involved two players to be named later, which was appropriate for someone who used an assumed name for most of his professional career.
Roberto has been pitching well since the all-star break according to ERA and Wins, but his K/BB ratio of 5/4 says something different. That is not a misprint, in his last three starts, Roberto has totaled five strikeouts.
Five
Ok, I’m sure that will play
Headed into July 29th, Matt Kemp had eight home runs, thirty-eight runs scored, and forty runs batted in with a slug % of .432 in ninety-five games
Today Matt Kemp has fourteen home runs, forty-seven runs scored, and fifty runs batted in, with a slug % of .472 in 104 games
For most of this streak Donny inexplicably continued to bat Kemp behind Carl Crawford thus reducing his RBI opportunities and at bats.
Here is a an atbat by atbat break down of this streak
Game One – home run, single, out, home run
Game Two – single, home run, ground out,single
Game Three – walk, strikeout (first K in 22 PA) , flyball to CF – Only three at bats in the game
Game Four – fly-ball, strikeout, fly-ball – Carl Crawford batting in front of Kemp made the last out of the game, and made the last out three times that game.
Game Five – Batting cleanup – strikeout, home run, ground out, fly-ball, ground out
Game Six – back to fifth but a head of Andre’s rare start – ground out, single, home run, strike out
Wins Player of the week
Game Seven – now batting fifth in front of Crawford – walk, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout
Game Eight – single, line-out, E5, strikeout – this was the game he got on via E5, stole 2nd, advanced to 3rd on Error, scored key run
Game Nine – home run, strikeout, line-out, ground out
Six home runs in nine games from a player who had eight home runs in ninety five game.
Maybe next time I’ll take a look at what RF Matt Kemp has done compared to LF Matt Kemp and CF Matt Kemp.
Yesterday we set the stage as we try to catch up on Matt Kemp week.
Now that I was firmly invested in the game, and by myself, I looked around for candidates for high five moments. Luckily for me, a family of ten had taken residence in front of me, all wearing jerseys of their favorite Dodger outfielder. We had an Andre, a Puig, and a Kemp. Was it simply luck that the prettiest member of the family was wearing a Kemp jersey?
The first inning was very uneventful compared to what would follow in the 2nd inning. In between the top of the 2nd and the bottom of the second Alanna Rizzo broke some Dodgers news, and for the second time that day, tears dropped. I had been warned by Craig Minami that this was around the time that Vinny had announced he was coming back last year, but I was not ready for the announcement. It may have been a hokum way for the Dodgers to do it, but man did it play well at the stadium.
Anyone who is a Dodger fan has already seen the video but just in case you want to see it again, here is Eric Stephen from www.truebluela.com with the Vin Scully is returning announcement.
What gets me every time with Vinny, is his complete humbleness about the adoration. Young and old, every economic strata, every language, all Dodger fans love him. It has been that way since my grandmother in 1958 first heard him, and it is that way now when the little Dodger chika first hears him. We all understands he makes mistakes now, and if you care, shame on you. Roll with it, just as you would roll with your grandfather, and be glad your grandfather was so awesome. He can still describe a double play that would leave Charlie Steiner tongue-tied.
I large part of me died when Chick passed away, and stopped doing Laker games. No Dodger fan is ready for when Vinny will hang them up. It sure would be nice if the Dodgers, and other distributors of content could come to some sort of an agreement. Dodger fans know that every game that Vin Scully broadcasts could be his last, all Dodger fans should be allowed to listen/see them.
Anyway, the crowd was beyond amped after that announcement so it was ready for some action being down 1 – 0. Carl Crawford unexpectedly got on base, and even stole second while Matt Kemp was up. So with the crowd still swaying with emotion, Matt Kemp decided to bring it up a notch with the first home run at Dodger Stadium in a July moon. Matt thought he got all of it, but it was a wall scraper, just making it out.
Either way it was a Dodger Stadium home run, and it was a Matt Kemp home run, both very hard to come by in July.
The lead was short-lived as Josh Beckett gave it right back for a 4 – 2 Atlanta lead headed into the bottom of the fifth.
As the Dodger fifth inning unfolded this looked like Puig’s night, when he tripled, giving him a single / double / triple in his first three at bats. Puig had become a triple machine, and everything he hit was a line drive rocket, the only difference between his single and triple was the gap it found. All were lasers. Nothing quite excites me at a baseball game as an in order cycle, and all Puig had left to do was hit a dinger. By the time the fifth had ended, the Dodgers had tied it up at 4 – 4, with Matt Kemp making the last out. It was nice that Matt had hit a home run, but I wanted more.
Moving to the bottom of the 7th the score was still tied with Puig leading off. I fully expected the home run to complete the in order cycle, but he could only manage a single. Four hits in a game is nice, but I wanted more. Adrian banged out a single and eventually a ground out by Crawford produced the go a head run.
Which brought up Matt Kemp. And I yelled something silly about hitting another home run. Which made the girl in the Kemp jersey turn and high five me with my silly grin. It got a lot sillier a few seconds later when Matty finally did what we had all been waiting for. A patented Kemp moon shot deep into the left field pavilion.
Oh My, was Matty back?
Hell yeah he was back, Tuesday night was just the beginning of his onslaught for the week, winning his first player of the week since owning the award at the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012.
And of course, more tears dropped. Because sometimes it is nice to want things, and actually have them happen. Welcome back Matty, we missed you, and to be honest I didn’t really think I’d ever see you again.
If Dodger fans were aghast that the greatest left hand pitcher of the 21st century was getting banged around by the Angels for the first three innings imagine what his teammates were feeling.
Scott Van Slyke let us know in such a way that my belly laugh brought my wife running in to see what was so funny. I doubt the Angel broadcast was looking into the Dodger dugout after Clayton had been pinch hit for so 70% of Dodger fans missed the simple gesture that initiated my guttural laugh so let me paint the picture for you.
Clayton was on the bench with his left arm wrapped in his towel, player after player came by to give him a hug or handshake, it was very Godfather like. SVS was to his left watching all this with a blank expression. Once the last Dodger had given Clayton his congratulations, you could see Clayton look to his left right at SVS. At that point SVS raised his left hand and did the little expression which stands for “meh”. Wasn’t great, wasn’t bad. Plus he dead panned it.
Maybe it was just me. My wife did not laugh, but it killed me.
And the game:
Kershaw was more than meh, after getting banged around he settled down to dominate and give his team a chance for the win
Uribebear just crushed his three run bomb to get them back into game
Kemp put on running show that I doubt anyone thought they would see again in 2014. Beat out an error, stole second, took 3rd using his GPS because his helmet looked to be covering his eyes, and scored on a sacrifice fly.
Kenley Jansen beasting through the 9th
AJ Ellis with the rocket single that was an eyelash of becoming a rally killing double play, but instead basically won the game.
Oh, and SVS made a nice running haul of what might have become a triple. Must be nice to be 6’5 because he needed all of it.
Life be funny. While on TrueblueLA a few weeks back I lamented about the fact that Disney had only released a limited number of DVD’s for their three part Wonderful World of Disney show called “The Scarecrow of Romney March”. I was but a wee lad when it first showed up on Disney, and it is pretty much my first recollection of anything on TV other than black and white images of the Packers / Bears. My family like many families in the early 60’s would sit down and watch the WWOD every Sunday Night. I could look it up but my guess was that it was on at either 07:00 or 08:00 at night. We watched many shows, but only two have stuck in my old brain. The Scarecrow and The Sword in the Stone.
Commentator Little Blue Bicycle (one Kenneth Noe of Auburn, Alabama) heard my lament and told me that he had recorded the show from the Disney channel back in the 1990’s and that he would try to find the tape. I could go on ebay and buy the DVD but it was now a collector item so was a tad pricey. I thanked Ken for thinking of me and figured that was that.
Lo and behold, those Alabamians are true to their word. Last week a package arrived with an old VHS tape containing some old-time gold. It had not only the full three parts (commercials were edited out), but also the 1995 HOF Football game, and son of a gun, Cal Ripkin’s 2131 record-breaking game. I don’t have a VHS that works anymore so my wife graciously took the old tape to my friendly DVD person, and had them make me three DVD’s. This was small business at it’s finest. The work was done on Friday, and he was closed on Saturday, but he agreed to meet me at a Starbucks on a Saturday if I brought 20 bucks with me. He would wear a purple shirt so I could recognize him. We did the meeting, all along I was looking around for DEA agents, but there he was in a purple shirt with my merchandize. We exchanged money for goods, and then he said that Cal Ripken was something wasn’t he? I laughed and said all I wanted was the Scarecrow part, but later I would realize, that was not the case.
So with much fanfare we setup Sunday Night just like the original night to watch a show I had not seen in 50 years. All I could remember was this cool song, and a cool hero. The opening credits did not disappoint, the song was inspired, and the laugh at the end was what probably cemented this show into my memory banks. I could imagine every elementary boy singing
“When the great Scarecrow
Would ride from the jaws of hell
And laugh (Ahahahahaha!)
With a fiendish yell!”
with a hellish yell at the end
The quality of course was tattered much like the Scarecrow clothing, but it was still a fun three hour romp down memory lane. Here is the song on Youtube
and below are the original lyrics.
Scarecrow!
Scarecrow!
The soldiers of the King feared his name
Scarecrow…
On the southern coast of England
There’s a legend people tell
Of days long ago
When the great Scarecrow
Would ride from the jaws of hell
And laugh (Ahahahahaha!)
With a fiendish yell!With his clothes all torn and tattered
Through the black of night he’d ride
From the marsh to the coast
Like a demon ghost
He’d show his face then hide
And he’d laugh (Yeeheeheehahahaha!)
‘Til he’d split his side!So the King told all his soldiers,
“Hang him high or hang him low!
But never return
‘Til the day I learn
He’s gone in flames below–
Or you’ll hang
With the great Scarecrow!”Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
The soldiers of the King feared his name
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
The country folk all loved him just the same
Scarecrow!He would always help the farmer
When there was no gold to bring
He’d find a way
For the poor to pay
The taxes of the King
“Scarecrow!”
Ev’ry man would singScarecrow! (Scarecrow)
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
The soldiers of the King feared his name
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
Scarecrow! (Scarecrow)
The country folk all loved him just the same
Scarecrow!
Scarecrow!
Scarecrow!(Aahahahahahahaha!)
Since I kind of promised that every column would have at least one iota of Dodger related stuff, here it is. In between the Scarecrow and the start of the Cal’s record breaking game, was some old fashioned ESPN Sportscenter with Charlie Steiner at the helm. The only memory I have of Charlie and ESPN was his infamous commercial “follow me to freedom” , I have zero memory of Charlie actually doing ESPN Sportscenter.
With nothing else to do I decided to watch the record breaking game and even though it was 20 years ago, I had already forgotten so many things. Joe Dimaggio was still alive and there. Many other baseball icons inhabited Camden Yards (can you believe Camden yards is 22 year sold already?). The Orioles were playing the Angels, and man, were the Angels loaded. This game was in early Sept of 1995 (Sept 6, 1995 to be precise) and the Angels already had 30 home runs by Edmunds and Salmon. Chili was the clean up hitter, Garrett Anderson was a .329 hitting rookie, JT Snow was on his way to blasting 24 dingers of his own. Even the wonder dog Rex Hudler was here. That team must have won the Western Division going away right?
Oops
11 game lead on August 9th with a 60 – 36 record. Breezing they were.
They ended the season on Oct 2nd with 78 wins. From August 9th – Oct 2nd the Angels went 18 – 29. and finished in 2nd place.
I had forgotten but I’m sure hard core Angel fans had not forgotten one of the all time great collapses in Southern California. Of course the Dodgers had Jack Clark waiting for them so not like they were prone to give Angel fans any sympathy.
Two brilliant teams, both denied greatness.
Oh, and Cal hit a home run in his big game.
Of course he did
One final note. I believe Kenneth is a history teacher. At the end of the tape is a history teacher, teaching about the Georgia parishes during the Continental Congress. He’s doing a great job in explaining that of the twelve parishes only five appeared to give a shit. He’s got my attention, and then the tape ends. I’ll never know what the whigs did. I hope that was Kenneth.
Last Tuesday (July 29th) I made my way to Chavez Ravine for the first time in 2014. I’d been selling or giving away tickets most of the year but given all the trade talk about Matt Kemp, and the Vin Scully trinket, I felt that this game should be my first game. I’ll be brutally honest, I mainly follow the team out of habit, some habits are hard to kick. I had little emotional connection with this billion dollar conglomerate of awful contracts, but the manic Puig, the brilliance of Kershaw, and of course Vinny keeps me around the fringes of blue. It didn’t help any that my favorite Dodger was a shell of himself as I drove to the game.
Matt Kemp and Dodger Thoughts came hand in hand for me. I started with Jon Weisman’s Dodger Thoughts in Aug of 2004. Matt Kemp had been drafted by the Dodgers in the sixth round of the 2003 draft, thus 2004 was his first real professional work. As the 2005 Dodgers turned to dust, many of us at Dodger Thoughts turned to the minor leagues for comfort. Most of them stopped at the Jacksonville Five, but I kept going, and Matt Kemp caught my eye with his home run prowess for Columbia in the Sally league.
From that point on, I watched everything he did with interest. I followed him to the Arizona Fall League, and while everyone was watching James Loney and Andy LaRoche, it was the 21-year-old Matt Kemp who put on a home run display from batting practice till the end of the season, culminating in a home run in the season finale.
When Matt Kemp made an unexpected appearance at the Ravine in 2006, and hit home runs every which way before being schooled, I was at Dodger Thoughts when Bob Timmermann first hung the moniker of Bison on him. If my memory serves me correct someone said he looked like a Buffalo, but Bob doing what he always did, corrected the poster, and declared that the Bison is the correct term. During the Matt Kemp 2006 June run from June 1st – June 14th, Matt hit seven home runs in eight starts.
It took a while for Matt Kemp to meet his potential. In between his Puig like debut to his MVP 2011 season, he was constantly harangued for base running miscues, mental mistakes, and simply not being Jay Bruce. The skills were there, but no one expected 2011. Very few hitters have ever had a non PED season like 2011. Ryan Braun sure hasn’t.
For some fans all they saw was the remains of what was once the Dodgers franchise player. A player who at the peak of his career, was the best hitter in the game, and who signed a long-term team friendly contract extension. He had been removed from CF, planted in LF, and seemed moribund. He started to hit, but it just a group of singles, it was not Matt Kemp.
Rumors led by his agent Dave Stewart seemed to suggest Matt would be happy elsewhere. Normally these rumors would be cast aside but Dave Stewart couldn’t keep his mouth shut, so what seemed like a pipe dream started to take on reality. As the trade deadline got closer the more you heard his name being mentioned.
BUT
Yasiel Puig is the man who keeps on giving. In this case, Puig got hurt. Matt Kemp moved to RF, and from the moment the Bison hit his familiar turf, he seemed like a different ballplayer. As each game in RF field went by he looked more and more like Matt Kemp. Still no power, and still no signal from Donny boy what he was going to do when Puig returned. Would the light bulb that had gone off in many fans heads actually go off for Donny? I’m not going to go into detail about how pathetic it was that it took an injury to Puig for management to figure out what the solution to their outfield problems were, I’ll save that for another day.
Luckily, they made the right decision, and the new configuration of Matt Kemp in RF, Puig in CF, whoever in LF, became the defacto lineup starting with the Giants. The Dodgers won, and won, and won.
Still the rumors abounded when I hit the Ravine Tuesday night. I had to go, it might be the last time I ever got to see Matt Kemp. As I took my seat I was detached and wondered if I could make it for nine innings. With barely any interest I watched the pre – game ceremonies unfold. Eventually the team took the field, and the little girl ran out to Matt Kemp. For some reason the cameraman who had nine different players to choose from decided to stay on Matt Kemp. Kemp was smiling, joked with the girl, signed his autograph for her, and did I mention his smile. I had forgotten just how great a smile Matt Kemp had.
Tears poked their way out. This was my guy. My era. I realized quite suddenly how I didn’t want this to end yet. This team needed Matt Kemp. I needed Matt Kemp.
The game had yet to start, and what a game we had coming our way.
Part Two – Matt Kemp gets his groove on
With the promotion today of Javier Baez by the Cubs, the team has taken the rebuilding process out of 2nd gear, and moved it into 3rd gear.
By this time next year the process should be in fifth gear with multiple 1st and 2nd year players, interacting with Rizzo / Castro to give Cub fans their first taste of sugar since Jame Loney fed them coal six years ago.
The Cubs brought up the versatile 22 year old Arismendy Alcantara several weeks ago. Vin Scully couldn’t get over how much range Alcantara was showing at second base, but going forward Vinny is going to have to enjoy him in CF. Javier Baez will be playing second base going forward. Soon, Jorge Solar should be playing RF. By April of 2015, 3rd base will belong to Kris Bryant.
Where does that leave SS Addison Russell the prize of the Jeff Samardzija trade? Theo will find something. They could move Starlin Castro for much needed pitching.
1st – Rizzo
2nd – Baez
SS – Castro
3rd – Bryant
RF – Soler
CF – Alcantara
LF – Lake
Which of these highly touted prospects can beat the odds and become a star only time will tell, but for Cub fans, this roller coaster ride might have finally reached the bottom, as they begin chugging back to the place they were before James Loney so rudely interrupted their ride.
Phil Gurnee
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 