Dodgers 5, Cardinals 3: And That’s Why You Want Adrian Gonzalez

gonzalez_fields_2013-05-25Ted Lilly was actually pretty good tonight, allowing only two hits and an earned run (two total) in 5.1 innings — and I cannot believe that I actually saw people complaining that Don Mattingly was too quick with the hook there — but the story of the night was of course Adrian Gonzalez. The Dodger first baseman got on base five times, coming up only a triple short of the cycle while walking twice, driving in three, and making the fantastic defensive play you see above. Nick Punto got on base four times while making a wonderful diving play of his own, while Juan Uribe drove in a run with a pinch-hit double, even Brandon League managed a relatively straight-forward save and…

…ah, who the hell am I kidding. I’m publishing this about 30 seconds after the final pitch, so I haven’t seen any other stories yet, but we all know what we’re going to be reading about. We’re not going to be reading about a much-needed win or any of the contributions that went into it, we’re going to be reading about how Mattingly double-switched Matt Kemp out of the game when Kenley Jansen entered in the seventh.

Kemp was seen clearly unhappy in the dugout — which, good, because why would we want him to be happy about that? — and I’m anticipating a ton of game stories about whether Mattingly is starting a whole situation here.

To be honest, I don’t care. While I believe that Kemp has very valid reasons for not producing, this team is in last place. If Mattingly has to make some moves that may not be seen as popular, well, get over it. I imagine this is going to be nothing, because again Kemp is a competitor and never should want to come out of the game. But I’m really not looking forward to endless rounds of hand-wringing over what’s probably a non-story entirely, especially when there really was a lot of good that happened tonight.

Anyway, don’t miss tomorrow: Clayton Kershaw vs Shelby Miller. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Cardinals @ Dodgers May 25, 2013: Oh Good, Ted Lilly’s Back

dodger_stadium_openingday2013It’s been nearly a month since we last saw Ted Lilly in a Dodger uniform, back to when he lasted only three miserable innings against Colorado in a game that we all hoped would mark the end of his Dodger career. We later found out that he was dealing with soreness in his rib cage as well as his neck & back — issues that were not disclosed to Don Mattingly before he took the mound — though I’m having a hard time thinking that his terrible outing was related entirely to that. So now he’s back in the rotation rather than Matt Magill because… well, I don’t really have a great answer to that. We can hold out hope that Lilly looks more like he did in his surprisingly decent debut against the Mets, but I’ve been done with him for more than a year at this point. Expectations, especially against one of the best teams in baseball, are low.

Cardinals
Dodgers
2B
Carpenter
3B
Punto
RF
Beltran
2B
M.Ellis
LF
Holliday
1B
Gonzalez
1B
Craig
CF
Kemp
C
Molina
RF
Ethier
3B
Freese
LF
Van Slyke
CF
Jay
C
A.Ellis
SS
Kozma
SS
Gordon
P
Gast
P
Lilly

Regardless of what Lilly does, there are roster moves coming, however, because there just about has to be. Jerry Hairston‘s Twitter feed indicates that he will see his Dodger teammates tomorrow, and while doesn’t necessarily guarantee he’ll be activated — it’s not like he couldn’t just pop in to say hi from Rancho — he doesn’t sound more than a few days away at the most. Scott Elbert shouldn’t be far behind him, and Hanley Ramirez could be seen in the first week of June.

Who goes to make room? Assuming Scott Van Slyke‘s impressive display so far has earned him some time — he’s starting for Carl Crawford today — then it’s difficult to see any other way to make room for Hairston & Ramirez than to finally be free of Luis Cruz & Dee Gordon. (Assuming no other injuries pop up first.) My guess is that it would be in that order, since Gordon isn’t likely to go until Ramirez is ready, and so we may finally be down to the last few days of the Cruz era. I know I’ve said that a few times before, but as the injured slowly return to health, there seem to be few other options than to cut loose a player that Don Mattingly clearly has no patience for. Hell, if Hairston really did mean he’d be coming back tomorrow, tonight might be actually the last day for Cruz in Los Angeles, and while that won’t save a season that is quickly circling the drain, it’ll be nice to get minor leaguers back to the minors where they belong.

That’s an issue for another time, however, because the Dodgers have lost five of seven and really, really need to figure out a way to solve St. Louis rookie lefty John Gast today. (With Joe Buck & Tim McCarver calling the action, which, uh, wonderful.). We all know that the Dodgers often have trouble with pitchers they haven’t seen before; then again, this year’s Dodgers seem to have trouble with all pitchers these days.

Sun 5/19Mon 5/20Tues 5/21Wed 5/22Thurs 5/23Fri 5/24Sat 5/25
RR. Belisario15-1019-12
RJ.Guerra-11-
RM. Guerrier-30-28
LJ.P. Howell19--23
RK. Jansen14--27
RB. League19-10-11
LP. Rodriguez2--1510

Cardinals 7, Dodgers 0: Yeah, That’ll Happen

capuano_2013-05-24Chris Capuano gave up a couple of dingers, a solid-but-hardly-elite pitcher — Lance Lynn, in this case — shut down the constantly-struggling Dodger offense with ease, Matt Guerrier was lousy, and the Los Angeles defense made some fielding mistakes.

Congratulations, you’ve just seen the Dodger game to describe pretty much every other Dodger game.

Seriously though, it’s somehow worse than that. A.J. Ellis, when he wasn’t going 0-3 with two strikeouts, got steamrolled by Jon Jay on a play at the plate in the second inning. Matt Kemp, the subject of a wonderfully in-depth examination by Chad Moriyama today, also went 0-3 with two whiffs. Dee Gordon didn’t get a hit in either of his times up, extending a hitless streak of 27 plate appearances dating back to May 13. (He does have two walks and a hit by pitch in that time.) Adrian Gonzalez is on a streak nearly as bad, with his 0-3 giving him four singles and three walks in his last 36 times up.

Really, the only Dodger starter who can look back at tonight without some sort of shame is… you guessed it, Juan Uribe, who had a walk and a double. I think that really sums up the night pretty well right there.

Back at it tomorrow with Ted Lilly… sigh. I guess.

Cardinals @ Dodgers May 24, 2013: Back to Baseball

dodger_stadium_openingday2013So long, Dee Gordon? I had planned to focus on just how badly he’s been struggling in three or four days when he had received roughly the same number of plate appearances that Justin Sellers had, but considering that tonight is now the second game in a row — and third time in the last five games — that Nick Punto gets the start at shortstop, perhaps it’s going to take a little longer than that. I can’t say I ever thought I’d be happy to see Punto getting this much time at shortstop, but with the way Gordon has been playing, I also can’t really argue with this call whatsoever. We’ll get into that whole situation more in the coming days, however; it might not matter because Hanley Ramirez is already trying to convince the team to let him back on the field.

Cardinals
Dodgers
2B
Carpenter
LF
Crawford
RF
Beltran
2B
M.Ellis
LF
Holliday
1B
Gonzalez
1B
Craig
CF
Kemp
C
Molina
RF
Ethier
CF
Jay
C
A.Ellis
3B
Freese
SS
Punto
SS
Kozma
3B
Uribe
P
Lynn
P
Capuano

More importantly, Don Mattingly remains on the bench, as I think we all knew he would once yesterday came and went without a move. The noise from the front office over the last few days has been completely supportive, with little to indicate that Ned Colletti or Stan Kasten are unhappy about Mattingly’s surprising remarks in Milwaukee. That doesn’t mean it’s the same behind closed doors, but I’m fine with that — there was really little in what Mattingly said that I didn’t agree with, it was just surprising to see a manager be that blunt publicly.

Unsurprisingly, Andre Ethier is back in the lineup, batting fifth and playing right field. Regardless of what really went on with him in Milwaukee, he had to be back in the lineup tonight. The point was made, and you probably risk losing him entirely if he was out of the lineup again. I actually like this lineup pretty well given the options available, and considering I’m saying that despite the fact that the left side is comprised of Punto & Juan Uribe should tell you a whole lot about how little I think of Gordon & Luis Cruz these days.

The bullpen, as you can see below, should be fully rested after yesterday’s day off and some good starting pitching over the last few days. J.P. Howell, Kenley Jansen, & Paco Rodriguez haven’t been seen since last Sunday’s disaster in Atlanta. Will Chris Capuano kick off the homestand by not forcing the ‘pen to kick in five innings? I sure hope so.

Sun 5/19Mon 5/20Tues 5/21Wed 5/22Thurs 5/23Fri 5/24Sat 5/25
RR. Belisario15-1019-12
RJ.Guerra-11-
RM. Guerrier-30-28
LJ.P. Howell19--23
RK. Jansen14--27
RB. League19-10-11
LP. Rodriguez2--1510

Why Is Brandon League Awful Now?

league_newyork_2013-04-24While it’s all a whole lot of fun to try and figure out if Don Mattingly has truly gone off the deep end on us or if he’ll even be managing this team tomorrow — Dylan Hernandez says yes, but we’ll see, and I am terrified about publishing on another topic right now — it only masks the fact that is a team with some serious, actual problems. There’s about eight different directions I could go with after a lead like that, but today we’ll start with “so… just what is Brandon League‘s deal?”

Let’s be clear: few, if any, thought the extravagant three-year deal bestowed upon him by Ned Colletti last winter would actually be worth it. We all know that Colletti’s multiyear deals for non-elite relievers never work out, and so far this one looks worse than any other.

But to be completely fair, I don’t think anyone really expected this, either. League’s 5.19 ERA is close to what a 5.40 FIP says he ought to have; whether you’re using standard stats or advanced metrics, he’s been garbage. That’s surprising, because we all remember his outright dominance last August & September after a mechanical change implemented by Ken Howell & Rick Honeycutt. If not enough to make the contract worthwhile, it did seem to be a viable reason to expect some return on that investment, and gave us all ammunition to strike back at those who just looked at his 2012 as a whole.

Through nearly two months of the season, League has been a complete mess, striking out an atrocious 4.15 per nine. This isn’t due to bad luck that should even out — a .279 BABIP isn’t that far off average — it’s quite simply that he’s not missing bats. Well, that, and that he’s giving up homers at a pace like he’s never done before.

At first I thought, well, okay, perhaps he’s just failing to stick with the mechanical changes and is going back to the old way that cost him his job in Seattle. But in looking through the video, nothing stands out as being obviously different, and as we can see from Brooks Baseball, the change that happened near the end of last year in his vertical release point looks to have stuck so far in 2013:

league_verticalrelease_2013-05-12

If charts aren’t your thing, take a look for yourself at two pitches chosen at random over the two seasons. At left, a pitch that struck out Joaquin Arias last October against San Francisco; at right, giving up a double to Miami’s Adeiny Hechavarria on Mother’s Day. Other than the high socks and pink Mother’s Day shoes, do you see much of a difference in his mechanics? I can’t say I do, nor does it seem that he’s moved his position on the rubber.

So he’s throwing it the same way, from the same position. That doesn’t seem to be the problem.

How about his pitches. Are they flat? Are they simply not not moving? While he’s lost some horizontal movement on his pitches, he’s increased the vertical movement at the same time:

league_horizontal-vertical

Here’s where we get into the weeds where I fully and completely admit that I am not a pitching coach, because if you were to ask me, “well, is one movement better than the other,” I’d say “sure, why not”; the truth is, I don’t have a good answer to that.

But you don’t need to be a pitching coach to know that this next part is a problem. While League has slowly been throwing his sinker less over the years — he used to get grounder rates in the 60-73% range, down to 56.1% this year — his splitter seems less effective because his velocity has been on a steady downturn as well.

league_velocity_pitchpercentages

That seems damning, but I’m hesitant to put this all on reduced velocity, because it’s not like he was throwing 99 last September and he was doing just fine. But it’s a bad trend, isn’t it? Last September, League got swings on half of his splitters, half of which were missed, resulting in a 27.1% swing-and-miss rate. This year that’s down to 20% misses; his sliders are down from 27% to 13% misses.

Across the board, he’s just not generating missed bats, and it’s difficult to know exactly why. Though I can’t really quantify this in an effective way, it surely seems that while he’s not become suddenly wild — his walk rate is down from last year — he’s not hitting his spots. That is, when he’s getting the strike zone, he’s getting all of the strike zone, and that leads to a lot of solid contact

To be honest, the smartest thinking on the subject might have come in less than 140 characters…

Lowered velocity, lousy command, and fewer swing-and-misses? Something has to be behind all this, and nothing seems clear from a mechanical point of view. An injury would make as much sense as anything else, but until we hear anything on that front, we’ll continue to be grasping at straws — expensive, long-term straws.