Grand Blarney Stone Of Trade Bait - Boston Irish Red Sox

Happy St. Party - oops - I mean, Happy St. Patty's day, everybody,

Bringing the Irish vibe is the city of Boston...

Freddy Lynn in the cornah!

PEDRO !!

Rock those front choppahs, Rocket.

The Kid. 'Nuff said. 

Nooooo-Maaahhhhhh !!

Thanks for stopping by!

Trade Me (Almost) Anything - Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays swam into Dodger Stadium tonight for the FIRST TIME EVER - and the Boys welcomed them with a sweet come from behind, walk off victory !

I don't know much about the Rays, but now I know this guy is a heck of a pitcher...

We got him out of the way, chipped away away at a previous 4 -run deficit, and got some awesome  9th inning heroics from this guy....

El Jaguar strikes again!

But enough gushing about the FIRST PLACE DODGERS.  Let's get on to the rest of this fishy trade bait.  Here's the Rays...

A double shot of ex-Ray, present Dodgers hero, CC.

Finishing up with a couple of sweet horizontals - the way the Boys left the fish layin' tonight in Chavez Ravine. 

Dodgers Win!! YAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOO !!

Hey Mattingly! Magic! Anybody! Here's How I Would Fix The Dodgers...

An Open letter to Damn Mattingly,

Hey, skipper. So you were encouraged and feeling better about the Dodgers after being swept over the weekend by the evil ones in Frisco?  I guess that means you're absolutely giddy after opening at home last night and losing for the fifth time in a row.  This time getting stomped 9-2 by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

"I'm ecstatic the boys are in last place."

Skip, I know I've been after your hide in my blog and other places.  I've been on you about your learning of the managerial craft while using my beloved team to do it.  But most perplexing to me has been your ridiculous refusal to move Matt (I can't hit with RISP) Kemp far away from spots in the lineup that require him to hit with runners in scoring position.

"Next year I'll be a 60-60 player. You'll see!"

Kemp has hit like crap pretty consistently since the final third of last season up until now, and you've consistently continued to pencil him in to bat third, and on occasion, fourth.   These are prime spots in the batting order reserved for a team's best hitters, not "potentially" or "fondly remembered as best".  You've steadfastly kept Kemp within those "hero or the goat" spots, only to have him come up as a bellowing billy goat while the automatic outs piled up.  The result?  Your team fell short last season, and now it's opened up this one horrifically.

I can certainly understand the hope that our multi-million dollar, over-hyped star will eventually "break out".   Why, just the other day, our infamous batting coach, Mark McGwire, opined that Kemp and all of the other Dodger bats will magically begin spraying hits everywhere, or knocking outfield walls down with rocket-like line drives, or some other similar sounding post-steroid-delusional drivel.

"Home runs and Andro for everybody!"

Believe it or not, I feel just like McGwire and yourself, skipper.  I feel just like Kasden and the boys signing those huge Kemp paychecks, and I feel just like all the rest of the folks in the Dodger Nation waiting and praying that Kemp and the rest of the boys will break out any day now. 

However, as I write this, our team wallows in last place.  I said - LAST FRIGGING PLACE!! - in the N.L.West.  We certainly can't sink any lower than last, so I think it's about time for a new approach.  Maybe the Dodgers really will wake up from this sleepwalk, but I'm starting to get the feeling that it'll take something drastic to snap the team out of this bloody malaise.

It's a simple plan, really.  The Dodgers currently have two guys in the lineup mashing the ball and amassing hits with decent consistency.  Those two guys are Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez.  Heck, even though he practically batted with a neck brace last Sunday night, an injured Gonzalez pinch hit against the giants and immediately drove in two runs with a clean single.  This isn't rocket science, Mattingly.  Meet your new number 3 and 4 hitters.

You say Kemp is gonna break out any day now?  I hope so too.  So let's help him out and bat Kemp - get ready for this - Lead Off.

That's right.  Matt Kemp leading off.  At this point he pretty much only hits singles, so it's a natural fit.  For all the Kemp believers out there, batting first gets him more chances to come up.  And for all the Kemp realists, he gets less at-bats under high pressure (RISP) situations.

We really can't lose with this move. If Kemp makes an out, at least he's not killing rallies (and our pitcher's morale) with double play grounders twice a night.  Those do nothing but increase the pressure and frustration in Kemp's head.  Not good.  But if he gets a base hit, this opens a solid win-win situation.

I wish we still had Mark Ellis batting second, but we don't, so a little more creativity is needed here. For now, Nick Punto will do in that slot.  I'd be open to batting A.J. Ellis there as well. Let's go with whomever can lay down a better bunt. 

With Kemp on, the pitcher immediately has to deal with the threat of a pretty darn good base stealer.  With his speed, Kemp can steal, set up a buncha hit and run plays, and score from first on a whole slew of deep hits. What do you think that'll do for Kemp's and the team's confidence?  

Next, the Dodgers roll up with the heavy hitters, Crawford and Gonzalez.  Now, PEDs McGwire, the RBI's might start falling into place just like you said they would.  This gives Crawford's wicked bat a chance to clear the bases 2 or 3 times a game.  And if  Kemp and Punto yield two fast outs, as they will do on occasion, Crawford's power can still get us a lightning quick home run, as we know he can do on occasion.  There be your first four batters, skip:

 1. Matt Kemp
2. Nick Punto
3. Carl Crawford
4. Adrian Gonzalez.

Bat Ethier fifth and figure out the back end of the line up for yourself, skipper.  I can't do everything for you.

THANKS for reading, everybody!

Never Thought I Would See The Day...

It is now becoming one of the strangest Dodger's seasons I've ever seen - and I've seen plenty.

I've come to the bewildering conclusion that a "bases loaded" situation is the worst thing that can happen to this squad.  I'll say that once again, because I'm pretty sure on every other team in MLB, the opposite is true...

BASES LOADED IS THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO MY TEAM!  The season is officially upside down.

Before today's game, the Dodgers were 1 for 21 with the bases loaded.

On the bright side, these 2013 Dodgers have loaded the bases 21 times.   That's pretty good for an early season stat.  However, the Dodger batters have gotta DO SOMETHING with that.  Matt Kemp - who didn't even start in the final game against the Padres - came up TWICE with the bases juiced, and both times crapped out.

The situation arose yet again in today's game.  The newest Dodger, Ramon Hernandez, got his shot at a bases loaded situation.  Every batter wants that, right?  Ramon officially joined the boys when he fouled a pitch back into the catcher's mitt and the inning was over.  Now 1 for 22.

You're probably saying, "Don't gimme one stat and say these super talented, highly paid Dodgers are not the team we want them to be."  Fair enough.  I won't focus on one little tree, let's look at the forest.  With runners in scoring position, before today's game, the Boys in Blue are batting a ridiculous .171. Hell, they're not even batting MY weight!

Yes, I know it's early and anything can happen.  But the Casey Stengal inside of me fears nothing's gonna happen until something happens!

 Where to look for answers to what ails this team?  Matt Kemp is one target, for sure.

Yes, him.

The L.A. mainstream press has been verrrryy forgiving and patient of Kemp up to this point.  While they obligingly list his abysmal stats, most articles pointing fingers at the anemic Dodger hitting have let Kemp off easy.

Most Dodger fans say Kemp will come around...eventually.  As a Dodger fan myself, I certainly hope so.   There was a good sign as Kemp was credited with three hits in today's first game of a double-header with the Orioles.  Maybe he'll break out - starting today.  But did we really have to lose 3-5 games while Kemp kept killing rallies and innings in all those other games up to this point?

All that said, Kemp's just one guy.  Surely one big bat in a slump shouldn't sputter a club as much as this.  Especially when the club has other guys hitting pretty well.   Guys like Adrian Gonzalez,

 Carl Crawford,

 and almost-hitting-pretty-well Andre Ethier.

Don't look at me. I hit a home run today. 

So why isn't this club winning more games?  Why do Dodger pitchers have to work harder than necessary, more often than necessary?

When a stable of starting pitchers or a bullpen is not doing well, the press will occasionally look up the pitching coach.  Well, since we're not hearing from the bats he's supposedly coaching, why aren't we hearing something from this guy?  

simply 'roid up and swing fer the fences!  Right?

 When word first hit the wires that Cheater Mcgwire was hired to be the Dodger's new batting coach, I asked if we were going to hire a cheater, why the heck didn't we hire Pete Rose, the Hit King?  That debate aside, McGwire's the man, and he's MIA in more ways than one.



I've come to the conclusion this guy isn't a very good manager.

He's certainly not a World Series caliber manager.  This team was assembled to be a World Series caliber tam.  We've got a Formula Series race car with a Manhattan cabbie for a driver.

In a basic test of managerial capabilities - Mattingly has shown he simply won't tweak a batting order to capitalize on hot hitters (see Luis Cruz in his moment of brilliance last season), nor is he willing to drop an inning-killing liability out of a prime hitting spot (see Matt Kemp end of 2012 and start of 2013).

But it's more than that. The team is starting to not believe in itself.  It's one thing for fans at home to change the channel when the Dodgers are down by 2 in the 6th.  It's another when you get the feeling the team isn't so sure it can come back also. 

A manager's job is to give his team the best chance of winning on any given day.  That means intelligently managing a line-up and a bullpen, and handling the unique psychology of a clubhouse full of major league egos.  Mattingly can't do those things and chew gum at the same time just yet.

It's time to consider the possibility that he learn his craft elsewhere.