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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Dodgers-Padres rubber game-dodgers hope april showers bring may flowers

Dodgers lineup
Gwynn7
miles4
Ethier9
Kemp8
Uribe5
Loney3
Navarro2
Carroll6
Garland1

Dustin Moseley 0-3 vs. Jon Garland 1-1


UPDATE-just heard this news....
the Dodgers activated Kuo from the DL, and sent down Jansen to AAA. this makes no sense. IM glad to see Kuo is back from the DL, but why send down Jansen? especially when you have one of the worst relief pitchers in baseball like Lance Cormier remain with the team. SIGH....

Todays rubber game against the Padres, is the first of the month of may for the Dodgers, and they hope it brings them some May Flowers, as they move on past the first month of the season that has seen them fisnish at 14-14.

lets take a moment to talk about a big problem that has been plauging the team over the last few weeks. lousy relief pitching.   the bullpen has just been awful this year. and when we play teams that clearly have better bullpens, we end up getting killed in the late innings. let me show you some stats, cover your eyes becuase it might get ugly.

Dodger relief pitchers have issued 42 walks, and struck out only 66 batters. thats a strikeout to walk ratio of less than 2-1. not even 2-1, which is a major league average. thats not good. the relievers have also allowed more hits than innings pitched, and entered yesterdays game with a collective ERA of 5.14.

we watch every game, we see every situation. lets call this what it is. BAD RELIEF PITCHING. nothing more nothing less. we see a team like the padres, who cant hit much, but they have a terrific bullpen. a good bullpen can come in and strike guys out, and not issue a ton of walks, wild pitches, and allow the majority of their inherited runners to score. we see how bad our bullpen is, and we see other teams good bullpens in comparison.

with that being said, I still think there is hope, if some of these guys are used properly. since the bullpen is all righty at the moment, which is another bad thing. Jansen and Padilla should be used more often in the 7th and 8th innings, and not guerrier or hawksworth. Guerrier just sucks latly, and Hawksworth has been inconsistent. and can we please for the love of all that is holy stop using broxton to close games.

lets not blame the defense or bad luck for the lousy relief pitching. we see it for what it is. if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and talks like a duck, its usually a really crappy all right handed bullpen. just sayin.

as far as the lineup today, we have Gwynn in the game leading off in left field. Gwynn has always preformed very well against his former team, batting .500 (6 for 12). fatty Navarro gets his first start of the season. batting 7th.

Andre Ethiern looks to keep his record breaking hit streak alive. he is now at 26 games, and now has the second longest hit streak in dodger history.
Dustin Moseley who is 0-3 thus far will match up against Garland.  Moseley has pitched very well this year despite getting absolutly zero run support. Garland has also pitched well since coming off the DL. he is 1-2 against his former team.

heres hoping the month of May is a good one for the boys in blue! game time today at 110.  GO BLUE!

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