Schebs and Kemp go boom boom & boom
I can’t help but LIMH when a player I like has a big day. Tonight Scott Schebler and Matt Kemp made me smile as the two ex-Dodger right fielders wrecked havoc upon their competition. Matt Kemp helped the Dodgers by blasting a three run run home run to lead the Braves to a 3 – 1 victory over the 2nd place Giants. Scott Schebler didn’t help the Dodgers any but he did hit two home runs tonight and drove in five runs playing RF for the Reds.
Now I can understand how strange that sounds. The last time a Dodger RF hit two home runs and drove in five runs was probably when Puig was one of the best players in baseball, not some AAA player on a time out.
Oh wait, upon further review, it gets better. The last time a Dodger right fielder hit two home runs and drove in five runs was the second game of Yasiel Puig’s career. Ha ha ha
Just for fun Scott Schebler has six home runs and 25 RBI in August in 84 at bats.
Josh Reddick has zero home runs, zero RBI in 82 at bats
For the season the Dodgers right fielders have hit .233 / .301 / .369. Those numbers looked a lot better on July 31st. They would look worse without the three rookies Thompson, Toles , and Segedin.
I’m sure this will all work out with Reddick, but you have to think it is starting to enter Dave Roberts mind that Toles might be the better option in RF. Sure going to get interesting when Andre is ready come September.
Julio Urias has Erv Palica next on his list
With eight more strikeouts Julio Urias is moving up the all-time Dodger strikeout leader-board for pitchers 20 and under. Julio already has the most strikeouts in LAD history for a 19 year old, so I thought I’d mosey over into all time Dodger territory. An area I rarely tread onto but I go where the stories are and Erv Palica is a great story.
I’d never heard of Erv Palica but sabreorg/bioproj has and the story is interesting enough that I thought I’d drop a line about him. Erv had 75 strikeouts through age 20, and Julio has 70 after today.
Only six Dodgers have struck out more than 60 hitters through the completion of the age 20 season using baseball-reference baseball age, and the list is a complete who’s who of Dodger baseball.
Except Erv Palica.
You have Drysdale, Fernando, Branca, Kershaw, Podres, Palica, Urias, and Koufax.
Just like Julio Urias, Erv Palica was signed at the tender age of 16, still a junior at Harbor High school.
I thought Erv had joined the team the same year as Jackie Robinson in 1947 because that is what Baseball Reference showed on his pitching page. But no, Erv actually joined the team at the age of 17 as a pinch runner because at the time Branch Rickey thought he was going to be shortstop. Erv would get into two games as a pinch runner in 1945 and then was sent back to the minor leagues. His being a SS never took and he would pitch for the Dodgers from 1947 – 1954 with some major happenings. Those teams lost to the Yankees four times in the World Series. He then had the misfortune of being traded before 1955 and thus missed out on getting his World Series ring with the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers after having had to deal with losing four World Series.
Palica had his best season in 1950 when he was finally inserted into the rotation full time in the second half and responded by leading the team in strikeouts even though he logged sixty innings less than Don Newcombe. He was instrumental in the late run by the Dodgers that just fell short of catching the famous 1950 Whiz Kids. Heck he even hit a grand slam that year.
But all was not great for Palica. His new manager in 1951 was Charlie Dressen, and Dressen was not a fan. Dressen had two problems with Palica. The first was that he felt that Palica’s best pitch was his fastball but he rarely used it, and thus Dressen felt Palica was a coward. If that wasn’t bad enough he also thought Palica was a hypochondriac and it came to a head one day after a tough loss on July 19th:
When asked to comment on Palica, he grabbed his throat in a choking gesture and ordered reporters to put it in print. He then launched into a tirade: “He’s got more alibis than Carter’s has liver pills! If it isn’t his fanny it’s his arm! If it’s not that, it’s his groin! If it’s not that, he’s worried about his wife! If it’s not that, he can’t run with his high blood pressure! If it’s not that, the Army is going to get him!”
“The guy is a joke around the team,” Dressen continued. “The players laugh at him. One day when he said he was ready, they gave him a big hand of applause in the clubhouse.”
After that outburst by his manager, Palica was only used four more times by Dressen. Could be the case of someone cutting off his nose to spite his face. The Dodgers/Giants of course ended 1951 in a tie, and the Dodgers would lose the playoff series. One can imagine a scenario where the manager instead of breaking his ballplayer did the opposite and got the most out of him and thus might have won 1951 instead of losing it.
Palica was in military service for 1952/1953 but was available to the team from time to time though rarely used by Dressen. By 1954 Dressen had moved on but Palica could never regain his 1950 form and the Dodgers traded him in the winter of 1954.
The “hypochondriac” died at the young age of 54 to a heart attack after a 15 plus year as a longshoreman in Southern California. I guess the high blood pressure really existed. Even though he lived in Southern California he was never invited to any LAD activities, which could be one reason why I’m just reading about him now.
As I read the different stories I’m now sure I’d read about Palica before because I can’t imagine not reading the Boys of Summer, or the books about those Brooklyn Dodgers without his name coming up, but right now I was blank about him until I read about him today.
Bob Uecker was a fan according to the Baseball Almanac:
“Erv Palica had so many pitches, the catcher had to take off his mitt to give the sign.” – Joe Becker in Baseball’s Greatest Quotes (1982)
Day time Adrian Gonzalez ready to rumble
I knew Adrian was doing great work during the day but I didn’t know until the Dodger notes came out this morning that he has been the best day time hitter in baseball this year:
González leads the Majors in batting average in day games, hitting .395 (51-for-129) with a .448 on-base percentage, 12 doubles, six homers and 31 RBI in 34 games. This season, he has 16 multi-hit games in his 34 day games, including seven three-hit games, and during the course of his career, González has a .315/.382/.533 slashline in 510 day games vs. a .281/.355/.479 mark in 1,262 night games.
I’m sure the Dodgers note folk used a different plate appearance criteria, but when I use at least 50 plate appearances I get a little different number. Adrian is 2nd in OPS behind Sandy Leon. Yeah, Sandy Leon, the little known journeyman catcher for the Red Sox who has gone off this year. I expect they used 100 plate appearances as their cutoff.
Since the notes showed that Adrian has a career OPS of .915 in the day time compared to .834 in the night time, it made me wonder how Adrian’s day time splits as a full time Dodgers (starting in 2013) compared to the rest of baseball. Pretty good, not the best in baseball but number eight is very impressive.
Coming off a home run last night I think we can expect more from Adrian today as he hopes to help Julio Urias continue to write his name in the record books.
Even though Urias has pitched spot duty one could say he has been the most effective Dodger pitcher. Julio is coming off of six inning scoreless start and has not allowed a run in his last 10.2 innings. In the 2nd half Julio has gone 3-0 with a 2.18 ERA (5 ER/20.2 IP) in five games (three starts).
Kris Bryant shows why he is the MVP frontrunner
I tried to make a case for Corey Seager the other day for MVP but after watching Kris Byrant slug two important home runs on Friday Night, the road sure got tougher.
I was even playing with the idea of starting a daily checklist of who did what as we enter the last five weeks of the season, but it is probably best I don’t do that.
Not like Seager was a slouch tonight with two doubles, but a walk off in the 9th instead of foul pop up caught by none other than Kris Bryant didn’t do his case any help.
With those two doubles Seager is now tied with …………..AAA Right fielder Yasiel Puig and Steve Garvey for 9th place among LAD double leaders with 37. Puig hit his 37 doubles in 2014.
Bochy throws wussification out the window
It can’t be an easy position to be in. Your pitcher is throwing a no-hitter but racking up the pitch counts. At some point, you have to say enough and go get him, but to Bruce Bochy’s credit, he let Matt Moore take it to the limit going 132 pitches before Corey Seager broke up the no-hitter with a bloop single to right field on the 133rd pitch.
According to Vin Scully, no pitcher had thrown more than 125 pitches this year, so those 133 pitches were easily the most thrown by any pitcher this year.
For Bochy, Moore isn’t just some rental like Rich Hill, he’ll be under Giant control for a while yet, so the health of his arm is important to the future of the team. Add in that Moore had TJ surgery in the summer of 2014 and you can see what a tough decision he had to make.
We won’t know if the decision to let him go for it will have an adverse effect or not, but this is one fan who was glad to see him let Moore go for the no-hitter.
And yes, Vinny, I was with you hoping that he would get it.
A.J. will never score another run for the Dodgers
That seems sad that Ellis last scored for the Dodgers on May 1st.
[Update to this: David Young at TBLA pointed out to me that the last run that A.J. Ellis scored for the LAD was the 1 – 0 game Clayton Kershaw pitched on May 1st. The best part is that Ellis was driven in by his best friend Clayton Kershaw.
Single to CF (Ground Ball thru SS-2B); Ellis Scores; Kershaw out at 2B
How bloody cool is that?]
Even sadder is that Ellis has been shown the door by the Dodgers after a long career in the organization.
This season already looked like his swan song, it seemed inevitable that Austin Barnes would be the backup headed into next year but after this trade, I’m not sure that will be the case. Anyway, that is for another day, today is about A.J. Ellis.
Ellis is the only major league player I ever directly interviewed. It happened on the day that Mitch Jones was brought up and everyone was gathered around Mitch Jones because he had had this long minor league career and was getting his first major league start that night. A.J. Ellis had been brought up the same day, had the same career in the minor leagues, but no one seemed to pay him any mind. So I moseyed over and started asking him questions, I think I still have it on my recorder somewhere. Ellis said the same cliches that everyone ever says when they get promoted but I left the interview hoping he would have enough success to have a career. He only got into four games that year. Only ten games the following year. Forty-four games the year after that, and back to 31 games in 2011.
After four tuneups in four years that amounted to 89 games, no one ever envisioned that the 31 one year Ellis would be a full-time catcher for the Dodgers in 2012. The most games he ever caught in the minor leagues was 110, every other year it was less than 100. Yet, not only was he the full-time catcher he had a great year and caught a remarkable 133 games. It was a unique season to be a full-time catcher for the first time at the age of 31. To his credit, Ellis delivered the goods and has been a mainstay on the team since 2012.
Seems no point in discussing his shortcomings now. I just want to think A. J. Ellis for being a big part of a team that won three Division Championships, and for his humor during that period.
Good Luck Mr. Ellis, and I hope the Dodgers can deliver a WS ring to you sometime next year, wherever you catch on.
Streaky catchers – Zunino on fire
Gary Sanchez may be smoking hot in NY, but Mariner Mike Zunino is not far behind and his story is even more unlikely. Gary Sanches is just starting his career, but last year it looked like Zunino was ending his.
Zunino was the 3rd pick in the 2012 draft and was in the majors by 2013 at age 22. He scuffled but in 2014 he slugged 22 home runs and seemed to be the Mariner catcher of the future. However, there were signs of trouble to come. He struck out 158 times in 2014 and those strikeouts proved to be his undoing in 2015. Zunino couldn’t make contact and found himself with an OPS below .600 and a ticket to the minor leagues.
Ove the winter the Mariners hedged their bet on their catcher of the future and signed Chris Iannetta. To prove their point they sent Zunino to the minor leagues to start the 2016 season. Mike had a great April in AAA but trailed off in May and June. With just a few minor league at bats in July, the Mariners recalled Mike and he’s been slugging every since.
Maybe the Mariners do have their catcher of the future after all.
Gary Sanchez doing things never done in pinstripes before
No one can deny that the Yankee’s are baseball’s royalty with a long successful storied history that began when Babe Ruth first donned those pinstripes.
Yet in that long history, no Yankee has ever done what Gary Sanchez has done this month. Last night Sanchez slugged his 9th home in only his 18th game thus becoming the first Yankee to ever hit nine home runs in their first 21 games.
Gary Sanchez, c, Yankees. Sanchez hit his ninth homer in 18 games this month as the Yankees beat Seattle 5-0 on Wednesday. Sanchez’s nine homers are the most ever for a Yankee in his first 21 games.
He has a wRC+ of 261.
All this from a guy with a fairly pedestrian minor league career
After the Rich Hill debut, which column will he fall into, Greg Maddux or Brad Penny?
When it comes to tradeline debuts Brad Penny is the one that always comes to my mind for several reasons. When DePodesta traded for Penny in 2004 it was a huge gamble as he traded the most popular player on the Dodgers (Paul LoDuca) without securing a proper backup catcher when Charles Johnson decided he didn’t want to play for the Dodgers. That left the young David Ross as the full-time catcher. The general thought was that Penny was going to be flipped for Randy Johnson but that part of the trade never happened.
Brad Penny made Depodesta look good by hurling a two-hitter on Aug 3rd, 2004 in his debut and going eight innings for the win. For a moment it looked like Depodesta had acquired the pitcher the Dodgers needed to help them in October. That moment didn’t last long because Penny would get hurt in his next start and only pitch 3 innings for the Dodgers the rest of the year.
Greg Maddux had his own memorable debut on August 3rd, 2006 by pitching a six-inning no-hitter. The cost for Maddux had been cheap enough with Cesar Izturis going to the Cubs. Maddux would go on to have an effective final two months with the Dodgers making 12 starts, and even pitch one lousy game in the postseason.
Notice that both of those debuts were on August 3rd, which makes sense given the players were acquired at the trading deadline of 7/31 and were needed ASAP to help the rotation.
Even though Dodger fans had to wait until August 24th, Rich Hill can now join Penny and Maddux with a memorable debut after his six shutout innings last night.
The question now remains which column does Hill end up in? The Penny column or the Maddux column?
That was worth waiting for
Rich Hill’s long-delayed debut for the Dodgers turned out to be an exceptional debut, as Hill blanked the Giants for six innings. That is not a misprint, a Dodger pitcher got 18 outs that was not a rookie. Very impressive for a guy who hadn’t pitched an inning in any game since July 7th.
Justin Turner continued his Mike Schmidt imitation and blasted his 24th home run for the only run of the game.
Baez, Libby, Blanton, and Jansen finished off the spiraling Giants, and that is how you win a game 1 – 0.
Josh Reddick continued his impressive hitting picking up three more hitless at-bats.
Adrian Gonzalez did not drive in any runs thus ending his quest to tie or break Shawn Green’s 14 RBI in three games, but he did collect a hit to continue his hitting streak to 17 games.
Corey Seager did not get a hit, and his 14 game hitting streak has come to an end.
Hill is the fourth pitcher this year to pitch 6.0 or more scoreless innings in his Dodger debut, joining Scott Kazmir (6.0 IP, April 5 at SD), Kenta Maeda(6.0 IP, April 6 at SD) and Bud Norris (6.0 IP, July 1 vs. COL).
When Kenley Jansen struck out the final two batters of the game he tied Jim Brewer’s franchise record for strikeouts as a reliever with 604 career Ks.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 