Dodgers, White Sox & The Battle Of Brotherly Love
by Eric Stephen on Jun 24, 2009 2:30 PM PDT
in Dodgers Game Previews
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PrintTonight's Dodgers / White Sox tilt on the South Side will have a Philly Phlavor.
From 1997 to 2001, the Philadephia Phillies drafted much of the core of their 2008 World Championship team -- Pat Burrell, Ryan Madson, Brett Myers, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard. They also drafted and signed some other major leaguers, including tonight's two starting pitchers at US Cellular Field.
Randy Wolf, drafted by the Phillies in the 2nd round in 1997 (their first round pick -- #2 overall -- didn't sign; a fellow by the name of J.D. Drew), will take his major league leading 10 no-decisions to the mound against the White Sox. Wolf has allowed zero or one earned run in eight of his 15 starts this season.
Gavin Floyd, drafted by the Phillies with the fourth overall pick in 2001, has been on fire of late. In his last six starts, Floyd is 2-1 with a 1.69 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 44.2 innings. He has allowed opposing batters to hit a feeble .169/.172/.231 over that span.
Regarding the offense, I thought I'd take a look at Predicted OPS, or prOPS for short, over at The Hardball Times. They describe prOPS as "a formula for predicting what a player's OPS is likely to be in the future based on his batted balls, strikeouts, home runs and walks." Here are the prOPS numbers for the Dodger regulars:
| Player | prBA | prOBP | prSLG | prOPS |
| Ethier | .279 | .376 | .481 | .857 |
| Blake | .280 | .350 | .483 | .833 |
| Kemp | .272 | .343 | .437 | .780 |
| Hudson | .289 | .366 | .413 | .779 |
| Loney | .291 | .353 | .418 | .771 |
| Martin | .274 | .387 | .357 | .745 |
| Pierre | .295 | .351 | .366 | .716 |
| Furcal | .263 | .336 | .363 | .699 |
Tonight's Manny Ramirez rehab game in Albuquerque starts at 6pm, and can be heard here.
Get your guesses in for "She Is Gone" here.
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White Sox lineup
courtesy of the Chicago Tribune:
Podsednik LF
Ramirez SS
Dye RF
Konerko DH
Pierzynski C
Anderson CF
Nix 2B
Beckham 3B
Fields 1B
Pierzynski batting fifth against Wolf
career .656 OPS against LHP
That is one of the weakest 5,6,7 trio I’ve seen this year. The struggling Beckham and Fields don’t do much to help at the bottom either. All in all that might be the weakest lineup we have faced.
You might be right
I was thinking of some of the Padres lineups too (even with Adrian Gonzalez), specifically this game (no Hairston):
Giles RF
Eckstein 2B
Gerut CF
A.Gonzalez 1B
Headley LF
E.Gonzalez 3B
Hundley C
L.Rodriguez SS
by Eric Stephen on Jun 24, 2009 3:18 PM PDT up reply actions
Nice
from the article:
“He is here as a result of excellent scouting,” Dodgers GM Ned Colletti said in an e-mail. “He is also here because he takes the ball all the time and has a power arm, a feel for pitching and a passion for what he does.”
and, even more piling on the overworked bullpen meme:
Belisario underwent Tommy John surgery earlier in his career, so time will tell how he holds up now that Joe Torre is giving him the Paul Quantrill-Scott Proctor treatment in L.A.
by Eric Stephen on Jun 24, 2009 3:35 PM PDT up reply actions
Some Dodger game notes
The Dodgers are the only team in baseball to have four players batting at least .300 on the season. Currently, Juan Pierre (.329), Matt Kemp (.314), Orlando Hudson (.309), and Casey Blake (.300) are all hitting at .300 or better.
On this date in 1955, a young left-hander from Brooklyn named Sandy Koufax made his Major League debut out of the bullpen in Milwaukee . After giving up a leadoff single to Johnny Logan in the fifth inning Koufax settled down and threw 2.0 scoreless innings, including a strikeout of Bobby Thomson, for his first big league whiff. Not exactly revenge for 1951, but significant nonetheless.
Mark Liptak of Chicago Now does not care for the platoon advantage:
I love Ozzie and as I’ve said before he should be the manager as long as he wants to, but he does some things that make me scratch my head.
One of them is his constant pairings of lefty vs. righty… be it a pitcher or a hitter.
Ozzie obviously was influenced heavily in his philosophy by Tony LaRussa the guy who inveted relief ‘specialists’ and played the percentages to the hilt.
That’s fine when you had the type of talent Tony usually had with the Sox, Oakland and St. Louis but Ozzie doesn’t have that,even when this edition of the White Sox is completely healthy.
Wouldn’t it be better to platoon when you don’t have good talent? Meaning if you don’t have hitters good enough to bat against pitchers of both hands, it seems you would be better off trying to get every advantage you can.
I don’t know the WhiteSox roster all that well. But perhaps the author is saying that with such an untalented roster, best to play the best hitter at all times. I don’t know what the scenario is over there, but it would be like Torre platooning Casey Blake with Blake Dewitt. Casey is a pretty good player (nothing too special really) but if you had a roster of Casey Blakes, and the platoon partner is a roster of Blake Dewitt’s, it would make no sense (IMO) to platoon. Best to let Casey Blake hit most often, even against right handers.
by Michael White on Jun 24, 2009 4:01 PM PDT up reply actions
That’s true, but what if it’s Chris Getz and Jayson Nix at 2B? :)
by Eric Stephen on Jun 24, 2009 4:15 PM PDT up reply actions
Kemp 9th again
Pierre LF
Furcal SS
Hudson 2B
Blake 3B
Ethier RF
Loretta DH
Loney 1B
Martin C
Kemp CF
Torre's thinking seems to be
Unless I’m playing a clearly lower-tier batter (Ausmus, Jones), and since I’m already committing to batting Kemp no higher than 6th, there isn’t much difference between the 6 through 9 holes, so I’ll bat Matt 9th and wrap the speed around.
I’m really getting annoyed with the Pierre, Furcal and Hudson as 1,2,3. If you feel you must have a “small/fast guy” leading off, pick one of either Pierre or Furcal and have Hudson 2 and go from there. Why those 2 guys need to be at the top of the order I simply don’t get.
by Michael White on Jun 24, 2009 4:34 PM PDT up reply actions
"Manny Ramirez Hate Plus 8"
I’m trademarking it now. :)
by silverwidow on Jun 24, 2009 4:40 PM PDT up reply actions 4 recs
Make it green!!!
2009 LA Kings Hockey: thanks to Joe Sakic's snowblower, WE'RE BETTER THAN THE AV'S!!!!
by DodgerBlueBalls on Jun 24, 2009 4:50 PM PDT up reply actions
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