We had the opportunity to see Jason Schmidt pitch his rehab start tonight at San Bernardino. It was also Armed Forces Night, so there was a Dodger Camo Hat giveaway and several flybys from a Blackhawk helicopter. It also hovered over the outfield during “God Bless America” and the National Anthem, sending the warning track up in great boiling dust clouds and rendering the music, well, moot with the noise.
Still, a cool moment. As was seeing Jason Schmidt walking out to the mound, wearing #7 on his 66ers uniform. He got a nice round of applause as he was announced.
It was hot in San Berdoo, with a high over 100, which I imagine didn’t make the job any easier. Schmidt looked like he was doing pretty darn well, apart from a brief moment in the 2nd when either Schmidt was having trouble finding the strike zone, or the ump was.
He went 2.1 innings, giving up only one single and one walk, with no runs, three Ks, three flyouts, and one groundout on a difficult comebacker that hit him pretty hard in the 1st inning.
He had to spin around for a moment to find the ball, but still managed to throw the man out at first. Schmidt didn’t seem to be any worse for wear after the ball hit him, or at least he wasn’t letting on if it was. As he walked off, Eduardo Perez seem to be asking him how he was, and Schmidt nodded and waved his glove as if to say “No problem.”
We left after the Lake Elsinore Storm put up six runs in the 4th, but according to the box score, the 66ers have come back to within one run in the 7th.
The Sports Illustrated Vault has a gallery feature up right now: Aces High: Best Pitching Seasons with some cool pictures. As you might imagine, the Dodgers have a couple of guys in the spotlighted 15 pitchers.
Perhaps no pitcher has been better over a four-year stretch than Sandy Koufax from 1963 until his premature retirement due to arm trouble at age 30 in 1966. Over that span, Koufax won three Cy Young awards, but his best season came in 1965, when he went 26-8 with a 2.04 ERA, pitched a perfect game and struck out an NL-record 382 batters.
For most of the 1988 season, Orel Hershiser was merely very good. When he took the mound on Aug. 30, he was 17-8 with a 2.88 ERA. But beginning with a shutout of the Expos that day, Hershiser’s season went from very good to historic. By the time it was over, he had pitched a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings, including five straight shutouts. He finished 23-8 and steamrolled through the playoffs by winning all five of his starts and even notching a key save, leading the Dodgers to the World Series title.
Oh, and there’s this guy who shall remain nameless, for this post anyhow. ;)
Landon Heying, a Los Feliz tattoo artist and gargantuan Dodger fan, is featured in this LA Times article, “True Blue tattoo parlor owner is a Dodger fan on and under his skin”:
For Heying, representing is all about the ink, and the ink is all about the Dodgers. He’s the owner of True Blue tattoo studio in Los Feliz, where for $8, a discounted rate down from around $50 (he charges $100 an hour), he’s offering Dodger tattoos. Of course not everyone is ready for the Lasorda treatment, so the simple Dodger script may have to do. Still too hard-core? There’s also a selection of studs and rings for piercings emblazoned with the club’s logo.
Not sure about the Tommy Lasorda tatt, but I could definitely see a script logo. :) The coolest to me, though, is Heying and the TRUE and BLUE across his fingers. That is sweet.
Appropriately on Mother’s Day, today’s lineup is mostly a bunch of kids. :)
And speaking of kids, how about the 66ers destroying the JetHawks last night to the tune of 25-1, 10 of which were in the 9th inning? Yikes!
“These are the times,” as Vin Scully might quote, “that try men’s souls.” It’s the first line of Thomas Paine’s essay “The Crisis.” An appropriate title for Dodger fans at the moment.
Here’s most of the famous first paragraph:
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.[...]
Now, I’m not going to go too far drawing parallels; after all, Paine was writing about important topics like tyranny, freedom, and American independence. Baseball, while of vast importance, has its limits. Yet even still, there is something to be said for standing by one’s team, to be not a sunshine patriot (or fair-weather fan), but rather keep on rooting for the team no matter the score.
Which is not to say the score doesn’t matter. And here we come to the soul-trying part of the evening.
Baseball is all about patience. “It’s a long season,” you know. “It’s still early.” Whatever the hand-wringing, wincing, and neck pain being generated by our starting pitching and what I hesitate to call our “hitters,” it is only May, and we are only 3.5 games back from the Diamondbacks. We had a nice winning streak going there for a while, and we will get to play the Rockies again at some point.
But it’s depressing to watch the Dodgers right now.
It feels like it did before that win streak. Like you don’t want to watch because you just know what’s going to happen. There really isn’t any point in watching sports (or any entertainment for that matter) if you know what’s going to happen beforehand. You might as well just read the box score.
Ooof, never mind.
If it weren’t for the dulcet tones of Mr. Scully, I don’t think I’d watch at all. The way things are going at the moment, I feel sorry that he has to watch every game.
Another old baseball saying is that you have to have a short memory. Put the bad games out of your mind and get on to the next one.
That’s one I’d like to challenge. If you remember how bad it feels to nearly get shutout by Brian Moehler, maybe you’ll work harder to keep that from happening again.
The last month or so last season, I had to take a break from baseball. It was too depressing. Sports are supposed to take you away from your troubles for a few hours, not add to them with a lot of bad news every day. (Unless your Cubs fans, but that’s another post. ;)
I do, however, believe the Dodgers can turn things around again. It’s a long season.
It’s still early.
Maybe 1958 wasn’t the best 50-year anniversary to be celebrating. Maybe we should have waited until 2009 and celebrated the golden anniversary of the first world series win in Los Angeles.
Yeah, that sounds familiar. Wait ’til next year.
Congratulations to #24 on his well-deserved award.
Larry Harnisch at The Daily Mirror posted a clipping from the May 6, 1958, LA Times this morning, “Alston Isn’t Giving Up on Don Drysdale”. Fifty years ago to the day.
“Walt Alston isn’t giving up even a little bit on Don Drysdale, the 17-game winner of 1957 who became 0-5 last night as the Phillies drubbed the Dodgers 8-3 on the Coliseum greensward. [...]
“Working only two and a third innings, the 21-year-old right hander yielded five runs. He allowed three hits, walked three, wild-pitched twice, hit a batter and was guilty of a balk.”
First off, the word “greensward” needs more play nowadays. Secondly, that was quite a two and a third innings.
Drysdale finished 1958 with a record of 12-13 and an ERA of 4.17 — the worst of his career apart from the shortened 1969 season — and a WHIP of 1.351, also his worst. This was the first year in Los Angeles for the Dodgers, and they struggled, finishing 1958 in 7th place.
One year later, things were looking up.
Congratulations to our third baseman on his first career homer! :)
Oh, and a hearty “Way to go!” to the rest of our power-hitting lineup, who have a trio of homers so far in tonight’s game. :)
Except, he’s usually in right field and isn’t named Jones or Pierre.
Kemp led the National League with 11 RBI and six stolen bases and tied for the league-lead with 11 hits. The 23-year-old right fielder hit .407 (11-27) with four doubles, seven runs scored, a slugging percentage of .556 and an on-base percentage of .433. On May 2nd at Colorado, Kemp hit two 2-RBI doubles leading the Dodgers to an 11-6 victory and their seventh consecutive win. He recorded four multi-hit games and three multi-RBI games and hit safely in all six games played. This marks the first time that Matt has won weekly honors, and it is the first time that a Dodger has captured this recognition since Andre Ethier won in July 2006.
Interestingly, this award itself was the recipient of the “Double Meat Whataburger-with-Cheese Most Awkwardly Named Award Award.”
Nothing like some good months-early rumor mongering covering both coasts. MLB Trade Rumors points to a Boston Herald article on the subject, “Free to decide: Players on the open market”…
Now in the final season of a four-year, $36 million contract he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 2004 season, Lowe will be a free agent again in the fall. While there are already indications that the New York Yankees will be among Lowe’s suitors during the offseason, the pitcher will have a most obvious strength when it comes time to sit at the bargaining table: Durability.
And since he wouldn’t have to pitch in Coors Field, he’d be just fine, I’m sure. ;)
