Dodgers lefty Scott Kazmir is headed for an examination today as he deals with back and neck issues, as Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times was among those to tweet. The issue isn’t exactly a new one, but seems to be an occasionally recurring problem. As Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register tweets, Kazmir says that he ends up having trouble picking up the target and keeping his right side closed when it flares up. It’s not yet clear whether a DL stint will be considered or whether there’s cause for broader concern. Regardless, it’s not great news for a Los Angeles team that has dealt with injuries to nearly every member of its rotation at one point or another this year.
Here are a few more notes out of Los Angeles:
- The Dodgers are at least finally set to welcome trade deadline acquisition Rich Hill to the rotation on Wednesday, as he is now officially scheduled to start an important tilt against Johnny Cueto and the Giants. Hill has been on the shelf for much longer than had been expected while waiting for a blister to heal and has yet to take the mound since arriving in L.A. over three weeks ago. A blister may not sound like much of an injury, but as Eric Nusbaum explores in great detail for Vice Sports, it’s a major problem for a pitcher.
- Dan Johnson, a 37-year-old former first baseman, has joined the Dodgers as a knuckleballing hurler, per an announcement from the indy league St. Paul Saints (with whom he was pitching). He’ll head to Double-A for the Los Angeles organization, where he’ll be reunited with Andrew Friedman — who was the GM of the Rays back when Johnson popped his famous home run for the organization. Johnson had returned to Tampa Bay for Spring Training this year, but wasn’t able to stick as a pitcher. Now, he’ll head to the Double-A level and try for an improbable return to the majors. Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN recently ran a story on Johnson that is well worth a look.
Andrew Friedman, how about signing some high school buddies while you’re looking for more pitching depth?
Friedman continues to act on the cheap with the deep pocket Dodgers. His approach has netted them a bunch of starters with injury histories that have now placed the pen in danger of over use. He held onto his precious prospects until well he didn’t to acquire Hill who has not thrown a pitch for them and is set to be a free agent. His moves are baffling to say the least.
You forgot to mention he’s running a first place team.
Yeah, it’s kinda hard to criticize a strategy when your team is winning.
He’s running a first place team because the Giants’ free fall. How does LA compare to the other first place teams in baseball. Worst record right? It’s about the post season and they are not set up to succeed. Anyone feel comfortable with that starting rotation?
I feel comfortable with the Dodgers’ rotation when Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill come off the DL to join Kenta Maeda and others.
it’s easy to criticize a strategy when your team is winning *in spite of* the strategy.
Or because of the strategy. Since, you know, it’s effective enough to put them in front of the other teams in the division.
where we disagree is “effective enough to put them in front of the other teams”. I don’t think the front office strategy has done that – I think gritty play in spite of the front office’s “strategy”, whatever that is, is why they’ve clawed their way to where they are now.
it only occurred to me recently that this is one of the first times in recent years the Dodgers have played without expectations – most pundits wrote them off when Kershaw went on the DL, and perhaps that lifted a bit of an intangible weight off their shoulders. It’s always been odd to me how teams utterly in the basement will play in sort of a free and easy “nothing to lose” manner and put up surprising wins. Suddenly the Dodgers are tapping into a bit of that.
Grit and chemistry are words that explain the inexplicable, and are wholly impossible to quantify. What’s possible to quantify?
Wins.
Presently they have more wins than any other team in the NL West. When they had less wins, the FO was is at fault . Now that they have more wins, the FO just got lucky. Just absolutely baffling to me.
Nope
I don’t understand how outspending everyone = “on the cheap.”
David is upset of the Dodgers lack of all-stars. However, the Dodgers formula to add quality depth rather than signing big-name players to albatross contracts has been working very well, especially this year due to so many injuries.
Pretty much. Ask AZ how that Greinke contract is looking now.
There are valid criticisms of this front office, no beef there. But, for all the complaints about them not going out and spending on the top free agents – it’s the depth of this team that has carried them to first place.
Somehow, they lost the best pitcher in the game, and have already set an NL historical record for most trips to the DL, but they’re accelerating and in first.
Point taken, but a plan that requires your opposition to incinerate themselves probably isn’t the world’s greatest.
it’s hard to debate two points: One is that the dodgers have played well since the break, but didn’t exactly reach out and grab first place but rather the Giants put it in reverse and backed into them. The other is that there is something fundamentally off about how this front office evaluates and signs pitching, starting with the curious decision to NOT grab Andrew Miller in free agency the last time around. It seems to me that historically in both Tampa Bay and Oakland once in a while they hit on something, but most of the time their “innovative” and “creative” approach yielded average pitchers that turned in some good performances over varying lengths of time, then faded from memory into the middle-of-the-pack ranks. It often feels like doing something even somewhat “sure handed” is pure anathema to them, and winning without it being based on “innovative” and “outside the box” thinking is somehow not winning at all. Right now a collection of players are grinding out wins as hard as they can and deserve all the credit for where they are now, and they haven’t gotten much breathing room or help from their front office.
W/r/t your two points:
1) The Giants are playing 90+ win baseball still; the regression was to be expected. Same with the Dodgers’ improvement
2) The Dodgers offered Miller the most money. He preferred to stay on the East Coast, and took less to do so.
This strategy seems to be working so far, as they’re in first place.
I hear you and believe me I love that they’re in first place. I just feel pretty strongly that the front office is less responsible for them being in first place and far more responsible for them not being in first place by many more games than this at this point in the season.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The strategy this particular FO employed was clearly one of high risk players and depth. It’s working so far, and everyone who was upset when they were in second place is now upset because they’re in first, but not by enough?
Weird that success is unsuccessful for so many people. It’s like Jeter saying, “We won the World Series last year,” and Costanza replying, “Yeah, in six games.”
Rather than go out and acquire healthy pitching Friedman signed guys with injury histories and then counted on Ryu to make it back. He signed Kazmir who cannot go more than 5 innings without giving up 5 runs. Friedman signed Kazmir knowing that faultered down the stretch for the Astros last year. He refused to trade his prospects then did a 180 and traded for Hill who has not contributed yet and an under performing Reddick. I’ve been criticized for being critical yet no one has responded to the bottom line question: Do you feel confident that this rotation is good enough to get LA far into the playoffs?
You raise a valid point, and to answer it, yes I am confident if we have Kershaw, Hill, and Maeda ready to go by playoff time.
It may be useful to mention Zito, Hudson, Mulder, Maddux, Smoltz, and Glavin at this point. You just can’t predict the playoffs. Who the hell did the Giants have besides Bumgarner going into the playoffs after finishing 6 back of the Dodgers in 2014? Crapshoot.
Granted a rotation of Kershaw, Hill and Maeda looks good in a postseason context, but they still have to get two of those guys in playing shape. Even then the back end of the bullpen will still be mostly a collections of odds and ends.
And the bullpen is presently one of the best in the NL.
As a general comment, while the Giants regression must be tough to watch for their fans, it’s not entirely surprising. They have more or less regressed back to the position that many expected them to be in the first place. It’s a bit of counter-balance to them playing above their heads for the first half.
No one could realistically expect the Giants to have run away with the division – now we’re in a dogfight, it’s back to the expected.
I’ve been surprised by how well the bullpen has performed. Leading the NL in bullpen ERA recently (haven’t checked in the last few weeks) seems to fly against the narrative that they are garbage.
Although I’m kinda done with Pedro Baez. Cannot take that flat fastball anymore.
A Dodger fan complaining about not spending lol
You assume I’m a Dodger fan. I guess I’m the idiot for believing better dialogue to be found here vs. ESPN. Yea, I’m the idiot.
The team who has the hot hand both on the mound and at the plate can move through the playoffs to the World Series. That was the key to the Giants success every other year for the last six (and I’m a Dodgers fan). The Dodgers arguably had a better rotation last year and lost – again. Since Kershaw went down, the bats have gotten hot and the bullpen has done a solid job at the right time. If the bats fall flat in late Sep into Oct, it won’t matter if Kershaw is back or anyone else for that matter. Let’s wait and see.
Kazmir has certainly been a pain in our neck and back all season.
Maybe time for Jose De Leon. I’d take him Thursday night over the other options.
Indeed. De Leon is putting up some great numbers at OKC, not sure what’s holding him back from promotion over some of the other candidates. Would hate to throw another rookie straight into the hottest part of the fire, but the choices are slim and none.
I’m on board with that BlueSky – absolutely buzzing for De Leon to get a call-up. He’ll be here in September no doubt, but..give me him right now! 7 innings of 1 hit shutout ball the other day, he’s absolutely done with AAA seasoning.
The Dodgers continue to sign pitchers with many injury histories and not that good to begin with. And they them 12. , 15. , 16 million a year.
They pay them the millions I mentioned.
Y’all are crazy. You can’t have it both ways. You either keep your top prospects or trade them away for big names. The FO kept Seager, Pederson, and Urias instead of going after big arms. The result is that we have the rookie of the year, an above average center fielder with power, and a future ace on the mound. All of whom have contributed to the current standings. Not to mention all the deals that have made the bullpen a force this year after an abysmal couple years there. And the team that is grinding out some great wins offensively…also has significant pieces that were acquired by the FO without giving up too much. Dodgers are in a great place right now with reinforcements on the way (also thanks to the FO). We may not win the WS but we have as good a shot at is as anyone else right now.