None the less, Gwynn singled in the eventual winning run, Broxton got the save, and the Dodgers took game 1.  But once again, the scary thing, the offense.  Once again, two bad plays accounted for 2 of the 4 Dodger runs.  An error and a wild pitch.  I really hope this doesn’t become a trend, and someone on the offense other than Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier come alive.

Player(s) of the Game : Dodger bullpen

After Lilly had a relatively short outing to start the game(though credit to him for coming back after the delay), the pen threw 6 2/3 scoreless innings in relief, only giving up two base hits.  It really can’t get much better than that, especially given the circumstances surrounding the game.  Delays and a game suspension, and the bullpen did exceeded expectations.

Flop of the Game : Juan Uribe/James Loney

This one has been coming for a while, and you may see his name later in the post.  Honestly, Uribe has had some of the worst at-bats I’ve seen this season.  He and James Loney combined went 2/10, 4 Ks, and 10 men LOB.  Rod Barajas also deserves some noteable mention here.  He also went 0/5, 2 Ks, and 4 men LOB.  Add that to the 6 SBs he gave up with the pitchers, it was rough for them.  But, luckily for the lack of offense, the bullpen came through big time here.

20 minutes later, game 2 began.  Needless to say, Kuroda dominated tonight.  Matt Kemp was great, as usual going 3/5 with 3 SB.  Andre Ethier blasted his first homer of the season to go with 3 hits total, and the Dodgers shut out the Padres 4-0.  Tony Gwynn also has been pretty impressive, especially so far in Petco.  2/5  with 2 runs, 2 SBs.  Along with solid defense, and I’m very happy with his play.  But, for a shut out, the end was certainly dramatic, yet comical.  Mattingly tried to let Kuroda polish off the game, but ended up pulling him once the save situation arrived in the 9th.  Broxton came in with two runners on, two outs, tying run on deck.  He then proceeded to walk Denorfia, and get the bases loaded.  That’s when things got fun.

Cameron Maybin came up to the plate and hit a weak ground ball towards the hole on the left side.  Maybin obviously has good wheels, and it was an easy infield single.  The crafty veteran Casey Blake, however, had a different idea.

Chase Headley was on his way to third, and Casey Blake had a heads up move.  Blake headed towards the hole, and intentionally ran into Headley to end the game.  Obviously, that was runners interference, and an automatic out to end the game.  This isn’t the first time Blake has performed some heads up, veteran moves over at 3rd.  Let’s not forget when he got the walk off-balk.  Blake, although I bagged on him last year and in the offseason, has showed up big time so far in the 4 games.  If he can perform even remotely what he has done, I’d be happy.

Player of the Game - Hiroki Kuroda

Well deserved here.  8 2/3 IP, 6 hits, 2 BB, 4 Ks.  Brilliant performance, and one backed up by some hitting finally.  He probably coulda gotten the complete game shut out, but you can’t blame Mattingly for pulling him to bring in Broxton.

Flop of the Game - Juan Uribe

Two in one day.  Rough.  But, Uribe has been brutal to watch.  He added an 0/5 in game 2, with 4 LOB.  So in 2 games, he went 1/10, with 9 men LOB.  Rough rough rough.  No easy way to say it.

Tomororw, Elymania returns to the big leagues.  I for one, am excited he got the first shot at the 5th starter, and great that Mattingly has followed through with it all.  Mattingly has been amazing so far.  And I hope he, and the Dodgers, continue with the wins.

Anywho, the Dodgers dropped the quick two game set to the Rockies, and quickly are now officially at .500.  Obviously, that’s putting a great big emphasis on 8 games.  Today begins a string of games I will not see, so we’ll see truly how this blog will go, when I cannot give first hand material.

C Bill$ struggled, Blake Hawksworth struggled, but for once, the offense didn’t.  Two solo blasts, one each by Loney and Barajas, Casey Blake had a nice return on the offensive side, and overall, the offense did a pretty good job.  Just, for today, the pitching stunk up the place.

Player of the Game - Rod Barajas

Barajas hit his first homer of the young season, and added another hit to his tally.  He’s been pretty surprising to me so far, and if he can keep up what he’s doing, we’ll be pretty solid behind the plate.  I know that former Dodger catchers seem to be tearing it up, but overall, Barajas is doing a solid job.  Not worth his salary, but solid.

Flop of the Game - Chad Billingsley

A pretty brutal job today by C Bill$, but I guess I gave him the kiss of death yesterday, so maybe I deserve part of the blame.  3 IP, 5 ER, 3 BB.  Vintage C Bill$ right here.

Next up is a 3 game set at San Diego, and a 4 gamer in San Fran, before heading home for the home stand.  We get our first taste of the new look Padres, and it seems to me that the Dodgers always seem to struggle at Petco.  Game 1 will be Lilly V. Richard, Game 2 will be Kuroda v. Moseley, and the finale will be Kershaw TBA v. Harang.

The Dodgers hit the road to Denver, and threw up a big stinky game, losing to the Rox and Jhoulys Chacin, 3-1.  The Dodgers were able to muscle up 5 hits and 2 BBs over the game, spoiling a greatly pitched game by Clayton Kershaw, who gave up 3 ER in 6 innings while striking out 8.  Tulowitski and Ianneta both hit solo blasts, while Jose Lopez added an RBI single.

The Dodgers offense, on the other hand, was about as anemic as you can get.  I mean, let’s face it, when Tony Gwynn is your batter of the game going 1-4, it’s a pretty bad day. As I had said during the Giants series, the lack of defense put on by the Giants truly helped the Dodger offense, and that showed once again tonight.  In 5 games, the Dodgers have had 2 games in which the other side played error-less defense.    And in both games, they were shut out.  I’m not saying this is going to last obviously, but it’s a very bad indicator of this offense.  And believe me, I’m not trying to play down how good of pitchers Chacin and Matt Cain are, but we all know this was going to be a light hitting Dodger team.  Tonight, once again, showed that.

Player of the Game - Clayton Kershaw

Some would argue(with good reason) this should be his second appearance on the list.  But, Kershaw once again shined, regardless of the L he was stuck with tonight.  Kershaw through 6 IP, gave up the 3 runs, while striking out 8.  He has shown why he is arguably one of the top lefties in baseball, if not, one of the top pitchers in baseball period.

Flop of the Game - Matt Kemp

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  Obviously, this is only basing it on a single game, but going 0-4, 1 K, and leaving 4 men on base, is pretty rough.  But, knowing Kemp, tomorrow he will be back on top of his game, and shine the Dodgers to victory tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, we have ourselves a good old fashioned day game, as Chad Billingsley takes on Jason Hammel.  My guess is that C Bill$ will put up a similar type game that he through against the Giants.  Hopefully the Dodgers offense can gather up enough hits to give him, and the team, the W.

San Diego Padres == 3-1

Colorado Rockies == 2-1

Los Angeles Dodgers == 3-2

Arizona Diamondbacks == 1-2

San Francisco Giants == 1-4

..always good to see the Giants in the cellar, no matter how early on in the season it is.

But, you gotta give credit to them as well.  After the second bad play by Huff in RF in the 7th, basically everyone was hitting to Huff.  Here’s the Yahoo play-by-play :

That’s pretty impressive, 3 straight hits to RF, and 4 outta 5 batter got a hit to RF.  That’s a great great job of taking advantage of the Giant’s defensive problems.

Apparently, Broxton decided that if there is more than one run lead, he HAS to give up a solo shot to make things interesting.  Burrell on opening day, and Rowand tonight.  Not quite the start I had in mind for Broxton, but getting 3 saves in 4 games, once again, pretty solid.

Player of the Game : Rafael Furcal

No one really, truly stood out tonight.  I was tempted to hand it over to Hiroki Kuroda, but the quick run scored by Furcal in the first, and the double in the 7th were two really big momentum changers.  So, Furcal gets it tonight.

Flop of the Game : Matt Guerrier

Pretty rough 1/3 of an inning for Guerrier.  2 walks, never a good sign.  It just seems that the bullpen today demanded they make things interesting, and Guerrier definitely did that.  Walking in a run, and getting Miguel Tejada to pop up on a bad pitch is definitely an easy way to get the award tonight.

In the end, a pretty darn good opening series, but still a tremendous amount of questions as the Dodgers hit the road.   Next up is a quick two game series in Colorado.  Which, good thing, means we get two games of Vin Scully.  Pretty disappointing to get a single game with Scully out of the first four.  But, we get a straight 17 games with Scully in a row, and that is always a good thing.

Colorado, in the mean time, will be a pretty good test for the Dodgers.  They take on Jhoulys Chacin in game 1, followed by Jason Hammel game 2.  We’ll see what happens with the offense in the mile high city.

Current Standings

Los Angeles — 3-1

San Diego – 2-1

Arizona – 1-1

Colorado — 1-1

San Francisco 1-3

Firstly, Ted Lilly.  As I noted yesterday, his fastball speed was truly low.  And today, his fastest pitch was 87 mph, but was more around 85 with his fastball. When you get a total of 2 swinging strikes all game, it’s gonna be a problem.  Now, obviously Ted Lilly is not a strike em out, miss bats kind of pitcher.  He is a pitch to contact guy.  It was really just a singular rough inning for Lilly, but I’m not really sure how long he’s gonna get people out if his mph continues to decline.  Let alone the lifetime of his deal.  But he wasn’t the only pitcher who failed today obviously.

Kenley Jansen truly struggled today, and after his pretty solid spring and dominant 2010, it was pretty mindblowing.  For those of us listening to SteinMO on the radio, we heard curse to the Dodgers Rob Reiner.  Once Reiner was talking, the Dodgers flailed.  But beyond that, he even mentioned how Jansen looked phenomenal last year/this spring.  So chalk it up to nerves of his first year being heavily relied upon in the pen.  It was a struggle, but I can’t imagine it will continue.

Lastly, being a day game after a night game, it was quite a fearsome lineup set out by Mattingly.  I don’t blame him, but look again at this 1-8, and see how many players you’d be afraid of.

Aaron Miles

Ivan De Jesus

Andre Ethier

Matt Kemp

James Loney

Hector Giminez

Xavier Paul

Jamey Carroll

That’s 3 out of 8 players that are starters.  When you play 5 bench players in one game, you’re almost booting the game as is.

Really, there wasn’t a lot to like today.  The good news is, it wasn’t a tight game.  It was a “we are checked outta this game by the 6th, let’s look forward to tomorrow” type of game.  Which is good.  Losing a close game to the Giants today would have been a lot more painful than this loss.  I mean..when Lance Cormier goes 3 IP and gets an at-bat, you know its blowout.

I’m gonna try to stick the next categories to Dodgers, but after the boneheaded defense by the Giants, they had to make an appearance as a flop of the game.
Player of the Game: Andre Ethier

The lone standout on a rough looking boxscore, that’s for sure.  And sadly, his 3 for 4 games went pretty much unnoticed.  But I guess that’s what happens when you get blown out, and account for 1/3 of your teams hits.  Honorable Mention goes to Hector Gimenez, as a 1st career hit deserves some recognition, even n the worst case games.

Flop of the Game : Kenley Jansen

Tough competition for this award today, Ted Lilly, Jansen, De Jesus.  But I think the shear awe by Jansen, and at that point it was still a game, gives him the edge.  But once again, honorable mention to Ivan De Jesus.  He’s looked overmatched.  Now, I understand he’s faced two top tier pitchers.  However, going 0-7 with 5 Ks, is not the way to start off your career.  I hope he gets more time at 2B, but I have a feeling with Uribe coming back anyday, and Blake potentially coming back in the next week, De Jesus’ days are numbered.  At least for the moment.

Tomorrow, fresh off a car accident on Sunset Blvd, Barry Zito takes on Hiroki Kuroda.  Kuroda has been about as consistent of a pitcher as you can hope for.  No doubt he’s gonna do his usual routine tomorrow.  I’m looking for big things tomorrow from the Dodgers, so we’ll see how it goes.

Standings as of 5:30(pending outcome of D’backs/Rockies)

Padres — 2-0

D’Backs — 1-0

Dodgers — 2-1

Giants — 1-2

Rockies — 0-1

The big glaring improvement, as I mentioned yesterday, has been Matt Kemp.  Although it is still early, Kemp has been all over the field, taking advantage of what he can, and making opportunities.  Going from 1st to 3rd on the groundout, phenomenal.  It’s been fun watching him play these two games, and I hope he continues it.  Even on the post-game interview, he seemed like a totally different person.  I think last year set him straight, when even though he had a good, solid season, he was slammed by both media, and front office alike.  I think it got him a kick in the pants that he needed.  He seems devoted, and primed to continue a great season.

The bullpen, once a worry, has been solid so far.  The inning by Hawksworth was rough, but got out of it.  I assume he was just trying to make the game more interesting, and a job well done at that.  Broxton was dominant in the 9th tonight, Guerrier looked great, as did Kuo night one. 

Chad Billingsley added a solid outing.  6 IP/3 ER(all off the swing of Brandon Belt)/4 Ks/1 BB.  I think if C Bill$ could come out and do that every 5th night, we’d all be happy.

Player of the Game : Matt Kemp

2 times in 2 nights(though last night could be debated).  Kemp continued to show patience, and a great grasp on the running game.  In fact, early in the game, Kemp had either knocked in or scored the first 4 runs of the season.  Still, accounting for 2/3 the Dodgers offense is both impressive, and frightening.  The sky’s the limit with him right now, and the Dodgers are going to ride him for as long as possible.

Flop of the Game : Giants’ Defense

Something that I had imagined being a problem for the Giants has become a problem.  5 errors in 2 nights, while it isn’t a sustainable pace, is brutal.  Take away half those errors, and the Giants could be 2-0 right now, rather than 0-2.  Last night was by people I expected, (Tejada/Burrell), and tonight by those I didn’t(Panda/Sanchez).

Tomorrow is another twilight game between Ted Lilly, and Matt Cain.  On paper, this seems to favor the Giants.  Cain is a supremely underrated pitcher, and Lilly has seen the MPH on his fastball drop nearly 4 MPH from last year. Needless to say, my hopes aren’t high.  But, just like the past two nights, anything can happen.  I see a Giants victory, but nothing would be make me happier than to be wrong.

Dodgers 2-0, 1st place in the NL West

Player of the Game : Matt Kemp

For someone who got ragged on as much as he did last year, Kemp seems to have put all of that aside, and shown up this year.  Gone are the coaches he disagreed with and all that over-hyped jazz, blah blah blah.  But, 3 walks..very impressive.  Stolen base, even better.  Can’t really hate on the game Kemp had today.

Loser of the Game : Rafael Furcal

As mentioned on Dodger Talk tonight, it seems to take Furcal a few weeks to get his arm in check.  And sure enough, first inning, errant throw to Loney.  Add on an 0-4, 1 K day, and you get the Loser of the Game.

Dodgers 1-0, 1st place in the NL West

I’m going to try to keep this as up to date as possible, so hopefully, I can.  And hopefully, once I get into the groove of writing, it’ll polish up nicely.  So, stay tuned.

Though, I do have a reason in particular.  Back in 04, I was going into my Junior year of high school, and really kinda debating on whether to play baseball again or not.  At this point in time, and I think it was the last year, they had Think Blue Week.  They gave away certain activities if you wrote the ‘best’ essay out of all of them.  I was lucky enough to be chosen to throw in the bullpen with a Dodger.  So, one day I get a message on our answering machine(yikes..only 6 years ago, and apparently I had no cell phone), saying I was chosen and to call back.  Yadda Yadda Yadda, the day comes, and we’re at the ballpark.

So I get a uniform, and head down to the pen.  Walking down, I see Jose Lima workin with another guy.  Soon enough, its my turn to go, and I enter the gate.  Meeting and shaking hands with Lima was literally a dream come true.  We then start to warm up.  People would pay thousands of dollars to do what I was doing, and sure enough, I was able to.  So we just begin chit chatting, and my family watches along the sides of the stands, what is now Mannywood.  He adds them into the conversation, and soon enough, he’s going through the basics of pitching with me.  After throwing a few off the mound to the bullpen catcher, I REALLY can’t remmeber his name, but he too was an insanely nice guy.  Lima giving me tips,a nd just kinda talking.  It was great.

After the lesson, we take a photo.  He really did everything he could to be as nice of a guy as possible.  It seemed like he knew how amazing of a thing it was for a 16 year old kid to throw in a bullpen next to major leaguers.

A few hours later, we’re back on the field, this time for pre-game introductions.  As we’re walking onto the field, there of course is Lima, on top of the dugout, signing autographs like he did before every game.  Just talking with fans.  Laughing, taking pictures, everything.  We walk down towards the dugout, and he immediately sees us, shakes our hands again, and says how much fun he had just hanging with us and talking baseball.  So after the introductions, we are walking back off the field, and he throws me a ball that someone had fouled off during BP.  Once again saying how it was awesome to meet us, and the usually salutations.

Even though I had really only met Lima once, and talked to him for a total of 20 minutes, he really drove my love of baseball even further.  Rest in Peace Sir…Rest in Peace.

There’s good and bad news when it comes to Billingsley.  Besides the mental struggles he is obviously going through on the mound, there are some oddities in his stats that should be taken a look at.  Obviously in 2010, the sample size is incredibly small, but regardless, it is still interesting to take a look at, especially when compared to his career stats.

Firstly, let’s look at the bad news.  Billingsley’s fly ball percentage has skyrocketed, and that is definitely something to worry about.  In his career, Billingsley’s Ground ball to fly ball ratio is about 1.30.  Meaning, he gets 1.3 ground outs for every fly ball.  So far in 2010, 42.6% of balls in play have been fly balls, and 42.6% have been ground balls.  In his career, his ground ball rate is about 45%, while fly ball rate is around 35%.  His line drive rate has also decreased, from 18.8 in his career, to just under 15% so far.  Along with that increase in fly balls, more of them have left the yard.  His HR/9 innings this year, is 1.29%, while his career is .53%.  So his home runs per 9 have nearly tripled this year.  So not only is he giving more fly balls up, they are going farther.

Going by the great Pitch/FX tool, we can go in depth at Billiingsley’s pitches.  And this is where it got interesting.  This year, 76% of Billingsley’s Pitches have been either a fastball, or a cutter.  In his career, those same pitches were thrown 66% of the time.  His curveball % has shrunk significantly, 18% in his career, to just 2% this year, and was nearly 22% in 09.  To counter that, his usage of sliders has grown from 11% to 18%.

With that, his velocity has changed.  With his fastballs and cutters, it has been nearly the same.  No change.  However, his curve has dropped 8 mph, and his slider has dropped 6 mph.  That’s a tremendous difference.  On the outside, you would think that a bigger change in velocity between your hard stuff and your slow stuff would help you, but in this case, it must not be.

Now, the good news.  His peripherals are all pretty similar.  His Ks/9 is nearly the same, his BB/9 has lifted a bit, but not too much.  In his career, 60% of his pitches have been thrown for strikes, and in 2010, same thing.  60% of his pitches have been thrown for strikes.  His BABIP, meaning the batting average on balls put into play, is around .400  That is nearly .100 points HIGHER than this career.  That will go down sooner or later, and thus, his ERA will drop as well.  His FIP, or fielding independent ERA, is “only” 4.37.  But that is 3 points lower than what his ERA is. And that is an improvement.

Obviously that’s a lot to digest, but upon looking at that, it makes me think more and more that Billingsley’s problems can be fixed.  I can’t really tell what is causing the change in velocity, but it seems to me that Billingsley has lost confidence in his breaking pitches.  His variety has been messed with, now focusing mainly on fastballs/cutters, rather than mixing in some breaking pitches.  It’s becoming easier as a hitter to see that 76% of the time, you’re getting a fast pitch.  When you know you’re gonna get a pitch in the 89-94 zone, you’ll wait on it.  You’ll take that breaking pitch and wait for the fastball.  I tried to look up a stat for checking the batting average on certain pitches, but I can’t find it.  But if I were to bet, I’d say his fastball would be getting hit hard.  If Billingsley can gain the confidence back in his curve ball specifically, he can regain the stuff that made him the top starter he was just a few short years ago.

The Dodger offense, much like yesterday in Pittsburgh, continued to excel.  Furcal picked up 3 hits and a SB among others.

The Dodger defense, much like the first 3 games of the season, continued to struggle as both Blake and Martin committed their second errors in 4 games.  Not quite the way we should be starting the season.

Russ Ortiz finally remembered he was Russ Ortiz, and gave up 2 runs over 1/3 of an inning, walking 2 and giving up a hit.

On a side note, anyone else getting annoyed by the rapid changes in the Marlins stadium name?  3 names in 3 years is just a little bit absurd.  Dolphins Stadium –> Land Shark Stadium –>Sun Life Stadium. Then going back a few years ago to Pro Players Stadium.  Yikes.

Player of the Game : Hiroki Kuroda  — 8 IP, 5 H, 1R, 0ER, 1BB, 7K

Not-So Player of the Game : Reed Johnson 0-5, 4 LOB