Consequences of Penny/Kuroda on the DL

I actually thought about this for a little bit. Factoring out Penny’s -4.5 VORP and Kuroda’s 8.5 (so that’s a combined 4 VORP for those who can’t add/subtract) and throwing in Kershaw’s 4.5 VORP back into the rotation and whatever Stultz throws up (hopefully positive), plus whatever extra innings Kuo’s 17.8 VORP is going to receive from the subtracted innings you lose per start from Penny/Kuroda, the team should do better.

I didn’t get a chance to see Stults, but from his line, looks like he pitched well.  6 IP, 3 R, 1 ER.  Dude isn’t all that talented, but he did well with what he had.

Like I said, whatever Stults isn’t throwing should be made up by Kuo.  Kuo has been absolutely dominant, and to use him in long relief situations when the game isn’t close is counterintuitive.  If he spells Kershaw after five innings, that could be a lot of fun to watch.

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About the Reds, this is absolutely ridiculous. Every time in the past few weeks, the Dodgers lose two or three games a week by scores of 5-1 or 3-1.  Only against the Reds is that switched, where a third or two-thirds of the games are the Dodgers with multiple runs and the Reds are limited to one.

We’re now 6-1 against the Reds this year and we’ve shut them down.  Runs scored: 41.  Runs allowed: 24.   Take out that one loss, It’s 40-16.  Ridiculous.

Not only that, but the pitching looked awesome.  In a huge hitters park, no less.  I don’t know why that is, but holy heck, please, let’s play them more often.

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As sort of an off-the-cuff thing, if any of you watch the This American Life series on Showtime, I hope you caught this past week’s episode.  They chronicled the lives of seven different people named John Smith, each at a different stage of life.  A baby, a child, an early-20s, a mid-30s, a late-40s, and two geriatrics, one of whom is still working and functioning and one of whom is in a nursing home with what looks like advanced stages of dimentia.

And g*ddamn it, it was beautiful. Each story was connected, it was like watching a story of one man’s life, through the years.  It was funny, cute, imaginative, tearful, sad and ultimately deeply fascinating, as the show tends to be.

My favorite was eight-year-old John.  He talked to goats like they were people and dressed up as the Empire state building with a King Kong plush toy attached to his shoulder.  He also wrote stories and read them to his mother, just like me.

If you get the opportunity, watch this immediately.

Surprise surprise: Furcal out ’til all-star break

Furcal’s likely out until the all-star break, over/under is end of July, do I have any takers?  Any takers? Anybody at all?

Dodgers 3, Reds 1; Dodgers still beating Reds somehow

Seems like every time I turn on the TV, the Dodgers are beating the Reds.

Dodgers are now 4-1 against the Reds though the Dodgers have a few more losses than the Reds.  Not important by a great deal, but it does seem like the Dodgers play better against the Reds.

I’ll try to write more about that tomorrow … deadlines and everything … tough day.

Good to see a win, though.  Winning is better than losing.

Ruh-Roh: Penny on 15-day, Kuroda in LA

Penny just went on the 15-day DL earlier today.

Kuroda flew back to LA to get his shoulder examined.

Eric Stultz was called up and will start …

Things are not good.

Penny’s missing Friday’s start

Penny won’t start this Friday against the Indians (7:40 p.m. PST start time) because of a shoulder problem.

I can never really tell if he’s ever actually injured, because the dude’s kinda quiet. Doesn’t complain, doesn’t make excuses. It’s one of his best qualities, but it’s also a flaw, so I’m curious if he’s actually injured or if this is one of those “I need a day to chill” things, like Jones.

Don’t think we’ll ever know, but whatever, it’s cool.

Penny’s VORP is -4.5, so it’s not a huge loss. Kershaw should replace him (unless I misinterpreted Torre’s words). Kuo/Park may make a few spot starts as fifth starters if this turns out to be a longer ordeal than thought.

New header image

Now we have a non-copyrighted image!

Thanks to Wes Smith, who was generous enough to donate five photos, including this one of Terry Tiffee and Luis Maza sharing an awkward stare at each other (I wonder what they were talking about).

There are about four or five additional photos, I’ll probably interchange them as I please.

Off day.

I spent most of the day covering the California Amateur Championships at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, Calif., today, but even when I was there, everyone was in the pro shop, watching Tiger and Rocco battle it out.

Absolutely amazing. I can’t believe Tiger even tied it on the 18th — I mean, I can, but it was an incredible moment. And then for him to win it on the 19th, astonishing.

That’s enough adjectives.

Tomorrow the Dodgers play at Cincinnati, game time 4:10 p.m. PST. The Dodgers will fly home Thursday night and play Cleveland over the weekend, with a Friday night (7:40 p.m. PST) game.

Yesterday, I pointed out how good Bills has been, and yesterday Joe Torre was quoted by Ken Gurnick as being a potential team leader.

With his determination, his stuff, he has leadership qualities, one of these days, he’ll be top dog on the staff. I base that on his personality on the field. There’s a lot inside this kid that’s very positive. He has very good makeup. The only thing he really needs to improve on is that he gets rushy. He wants to hurry up and pitch.

Torre actually pointed out something important in those last two sentences. If you’ve ever watched Bills pitch, it’s a little weird. He looks a little fidgety and, for some reason, walks toward the catcher and gets to the base of the mound to receive the ball after a pitch. I’m sure it makes him a little more tired, especially his legs, in the course of a full game and probably a full season.

I hope that this is something Torre wants to work on with Bills. And I hope it’s something Bills wants to work on. It seems like something that could help him in his career and his longevity.

Happy Father’s Day.

I gave my father a signed Russell Martin ball and he seemed to like it.  Turkey beat Czech Republic, Dodgers lost, Lakers won and Tiger was awesome in the US Open today.  Looking forward to the 18-hole playoff tomorrow.

Stat of determinancy; Dodgers 4, Tigers 5

Determinancy isn’t a word, but let’s go with it.

Frustrating loss for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the loss culminated a sweep at the hands of the Tigers, who, frankly, aren’t all that good (hitting is great, but awful, awful pitching). Clayton Kershaw pitched a great four innings before a 45-minute rain delay. Kershaw didn’t come back in (good decision) and Chan Ho Park replaced him (not bad decision) and gave up five earned runs in 1.1 innings.

Most importantly, though, here was the stat of determinancy:

Runs scored in the three-game series: Dodgers 11, Tigers 23.

Though the Dodgers managed four runs in today’s game, they failed to get any runs off of Nate Robertson. Robertson came into the game with a 5.88 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP. He gave up four hits, no walks and no earned runs on five innings–that is, he pitched a great four innings before the rain delay and a solid two innings after.

I know the folly of this team is the lack of home runs. The Dodgers are filled with line drive hitters with solid-to-high batting averages with pretty low ISODs (above-average number of base hits, below average number of walks). The thought in the off-season was to bring in a home run hitter that can drive in these line drive hitters with low walk rates and that has failed miserably. The team is basically back to where it was last year, only slightly worse.

There’s a chance that no one will have double digit home runs by the all-star break. Jeff Kent would need two more, but he’s been such a detractor on offense and defense that he’s a 0.2 VORP. Seriously, he’s 0.2 better than a waiver-wire scrub. (Just FYI, Martin’s been the most valuable player since Furcal’s injury, 19.1 VORP, with Kemp, Loney and Ethier being around 10. Everyone else is hovering around 0-5.)

It’s kind of depressing to see a team filled with talent struggle. Their record is now 31-38, with their pythagorian win-loss at 34-35 (292 runs scored, 297 allowed), so there’s an added dimension of unfairness within the numbers, but there’s a problem that runs a little deeper: was the lineup with Furcal actually stronger or was this collapse going to happen with/without him in the line up?

Now granted, the SS position has been a hole since his disappearance and the replacement at the top of the order is like replacing a Lawry’s steak with Jennie O’s ground turkey. But the problem remains with the heart of the order: Kent is old, Martin is carrying the team and Jones has been atrocious. If Furcal was still in the lineup, that’d be another guy capable of hitting above average, with some walks, some power and a solid defensive shortstop to provide some security for the starting pitching.

And while I don’t want to bash Kemp/Dewitt/Ethier, etc., they haven’t exactly been performing well lately. When I posted this article, Kemp, Dewitt and Ethier’s OPS+s were, in order, 110, 110, 112. They are now 99, 96, 104. Pretty significant drops in less than a month. Meanwhile, in that span, Loney has raised his to above 100 and Martin has stayed consistently between 115 and 120 (God I love that kid).

Obviously, blame goes where it’s deserved: Kent and Jones deserve much of it for their horrible play and Penny for his NEGATIVE FOUR-POINT-FIVE VORP. But my point is that it’s been pretty much shared blame.

Derek Lowe has raised his value from the beginning of the season, as has Billingsley. There are six players that have been good, two or three that have been very good, but no one’s been great. No one has a VORP in the 20s, no one has an OPS+/ERA+ above 120, except for Furcal, who’s probably going to be out until after the all-star break.

I guess Furcal’s absence has been a big part of this team’s underachieving. It’s entirely possible that when the team’s leader in OBP and EQA (.349!) returns and replaces Pierre’s subpar .253 EQA, there will be a greater number of runs — and, hopefully, wins — to follow. I can definitely see Furcal getting a single or double to lead off an inning against Robertson and Martin knocking him home and perhaps that’ll alleviate some of the stress that’s put on Loney/Kemp/Dewitt/Ethier to provide and everyone’s numbers will spike upward.

But we’ll just have to wait until Furcal gets back.

Oh duh.

Matt Kemp was serving his suspension Thursday and Friday, that’s why he didn’t play.  Suddenly Torre doesn’t seem so dumb.