California Sports Fan Blog

The Los Angeles Dodgers season opening win over Tim Lincecum was marred by an ugly incident with the beating of a Giants fan in the parking lot. This incident seemed to be a bad omen and coupled with other distractions, hung over the team’s head the entire year. With a core of strong young players, the Dodgers were expecting to be a strong team competing for a division title. The divorce case of the owner Frank McCourt and underperformance of key players In light of these circumstances, a few players had some monster individual performances. Unfortunately the team was not able to build on the momentum generated by those individuals and the team struggled to an 82-79 record.

Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp seemingly had to carry the rest of the team on their backs from start to finish. Kershaw outdueled San Francisco ace Tim Lincecum 4 times over the course of the season and each was a tightly contested contest. Kershaw finished with the pitcher’s version of the Triple Crown (strikeouts, wins, and ERA). Matt Kemp was equally as dominant in the batter’s box. Kemp was simply awesome. He nearly finished with the Triple Crown, but finished third in batting average. The performance by the rest of the team ranged from wildly mediocore to hardly inspiring at all. While Kemp had 39 home runs, the second highest on the team was Rod Barajas with 16. Andre Either, the player supposed to be second fiddle to Kemp, hit only 11 home runs and was a shell of his former self. The same could be said for starter Chad Billingsley, the number 2 starter behind Kershaw. Billingsley had the worst season of his career. His strikeouts dropped for the 3^rd consecutive year and recorded the highest ERA and most hits allowed of his MLB tenure. Dee Gordon, son of former pitcher Flash Gordon, came up to play shortstop for spurts and was electrifying on the basepaths. His game is very raw right now, but he could be a great sparkplug at the top of the lineup in the near future. The bullpen was also very strong minus the efforts of injured Jonathon Broxton and Hong-Chih Kuo.

The key for the Dodgers to have a more successful season in 2012 is to upgrade the lineup. Andre Eithier and James Loney are solid pieces, but not hitting in the middle of the order. Rod Barajas is an abomination at catcher, and veterans like Casey Blake and Jamey Carroll fail to strike any fear into opposing pitchers. The starting rotation must also be improved upon. Hopefully a settlement to the McCourt divorce case will allow the owner to set forth a direction for the team.

Bright Spots: Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp, Bullpen, Hiroki Kuroda, Dee Gordon

Disappointments: Andre Ethier, Casey Blake, Rod Barajas, James Loney, Chad Billingsley, Jonathon Broxton

The comparisons start simply enough: The kid is left-handed. And when Clayton Kershaw snaps off his curveball while wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform, his fate is sealed.
Kershaw is 22 and living with comparisons to Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.

“I’d rather just go and pitch,” says Kershaw, who concedes that he is both humbled and embarrassed by the references to the Dodgers legend from the 1950s and ’60s.

He will just go and pitch tonight at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park in the Dodgers’ second game of the season.

That he’s starting Game 2 is the source of different questions around the Dodgers, but not totally disconnected from the Koufax comparisons.

Kershaw has a similar response.

“I’m not worried about when I pitch,” he says. “I just want to get ready and do the best I can.”

Click here to read the full article – By Paul White of USA Today

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Whomever the opponent in the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers are not expected to make changes in the lineup.

It isn’t broken, so manager Joe Torre doesn’t figure to fix it, which means Ronnie Belliard will be the second baseman over Orlando Hudson, Matt Kemp hits in the No. 2 hole and Manny Ramirez continues to bat cleanup.

What really is making the lineup click more than anything right now is Rafael Furcal’s production at the top of the order. He not only had a .500 batting average (6 for 12) in the three-game National League Division Series, he had a .667 on-base percentage. He also is a threat on the basepaths with 12 steals.


Click here to read the full article – By Doug Padilla of Daily News

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Chris Carpenter had always found the Dodgers to be easy prey.

Six times the St. Louis righthander had gone against the NL West Division champs, and he was 5-0 with a 2.20 earned run average. In his last 32 innings against the Boys in Blue, the Cy Young Award contender had held them to three runs.

And the way the Dodgers staggered into the playoffs, moving to the cusp of an epic collapse, it stood to reason that Carpenter would help himself to another healthy portion in last night’s first game of the NL division series at Dodger Stadium.


Click here to read the full article – By Ray Parrillo of philly.com

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Orlando Hudson feels grateful merely to be on anybody’s roster this season, much less getting ready for the first postseason series of his career.


Actually playing would be even better.

It’ll happen, but not at the start of tonight’s Dodgers-Cardinals Game 1 at Dodger Stadium. Dodgers manager Joe Torre said Tuesday he’ll go with Ronnie Belliard at second base for the opener against Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter.

Belliard “doesn’t have as wide a range (defensively) as Hudson does, but I think offensively he’s maybe a little fresher right now,” Torre said Tuesday.

“We asked O-Dog to do a lot of stuff early in the year. And he played his tail off and continues to do that. But it was just a decision I decided to make, and we’ll go day-to-day right now. We’ll go with Belliard and see what we have.”

Click here to read the full article – By Jim Alexander of The Press-Enterprise

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29 SEP 2009: Scott Elbert of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches during a game against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park in San Diego, CA.

The Dodgers were already trailing by the final score in the eighth inning Tuesday night when Scott Elbert took the mound for the Dodgers, but it wasn’t a meaningless outing for the rookie left-hander.


“He’s auditioning,” said manager Joe Torre, who has been impressed enough by Elbert’s composure and stuff to suddenly use him in close games with an eye on October.

Indeed, with Hong-Chih Kuo’s elusive command only a couple months after seemingly overcoming control issues, Elbert could very well be this year’s James McDonald, sneaking onto the postseason pitching staff via an impressive September after having virtually no role during the previous five months.


Click here to read the full article – By Ken Gurnick of MLB.com

Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp celebrated a quarter century of life on Wednesday while Dodgers fans are celebrating a rising star who has a good shot of reaching a statistical plateau that has never been reached in the more than 100-year history of the franchise.


Kemp is aiming to become the first Dodgers player to hit .300 with 25 homers, 100 RBIs and 30 steals in one season. Through Wednesday, his 25th birthday, Kemp was hitting .304 with 25 homers, 97 RBIs and 34 steals in 149 games.

Already, he is only the sixth player in Dodgers history to have 20 homers and 30 steals in one season, and the first since Raul Mondesi in 1999.

There will be those who tell you that they knew this is what they’d eventually see from the gifted but raw young athlete drafted in the sixth round of the 2003 First-Year Player Draft out of high school in Oklahoma, where he turned down an offer from the Sooners to play shooting guard and instead opted to focus on baseball.


Click here to read the full article – By Lisa Winston of MLB.com

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Below are links to memorabilia available for Matt Kemp.

On the very day the Chicago Cubs decided they had seen enough of Milton Bradley and sent him home, the Los Angeles Dodgers and their fans just couldn’t get enough of Andre Ethier.

And just what does Bradley have to do with Ethier? Plenty. They are connected by a trade nearly four years ago that resulted in Ethier becoming a member of the Dodgers and a driving force in the team’s bid for postseason success.

On Sunday at Dodger Stadium, Ethier hit his team-leading 31st home run and ran his RBI total to 101. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, where the Cubs were preparing to play the Cardinals, Chicago GM Jim Hendry met with Bradley to tell the outfielder he was suspended for the final two weeks of the season.


Click here to read the full article – By Fred Claire of MLB.com

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Excluding strike-shortened seasons, the Dodgers haven’t finished first in back-to-back seasons since 1977-78 or reached the postseason three times in a four-year span since 1963-66.

Frank McCourt owns the Dodgers and Joe Torre manages them, but this is Ned Colletti’s club. He traded for Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez, he refused to trade away Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw, and he signed Randy Wolf and Vicente Padilla.

Since the general manager took over four years ago, the only team in the league with more wins is Philadelphia. Colletti inherited a club that finished 20 games below .500, and in four years, the Dodgers are 50 games above .500. Colletti’s best win-loss record of the four seasons will be this year — after trimming the payroll by $20 million.

Click here to read the full article – By Ken Gurnick of MLB.com

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Over the years, Randy Wolf has worried less about striking out hitters and more about pitching to contact. That strategy has worked this season as Wolf is 9-6 and has won four consecutive starts.


Wolf said he hasn’t pitched any differently during his winning streak.
“When you pitch to contact, you get ahead of guys and you’re throwing strikes,” Wolf said. “Then you can expand and then you can go for the punchout. Throw strikes early, and if you show the other team you will do that, they will become aggressive.”

Click here to read the full article – By Steve Gartner of MLB.com

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