Dodger Talk

Turner called them to worst team in baseball and I agree. I've stopped watching games. For months I caught almost every minute because at any moment something magical was going to happen. Now? They aren't paying attention, why should we? There's just no sense at all that this team might want to win a title. Right now it looks more like they want to go home.

At some point they're going to get their focus back. They better hope it's in time. They're dangerously close to losing their "insurmountable" lead.

 

I agree. The team just needs to buckle down and get back to it, but it seems like they're not all there. They're in their own heads. They need someone on the team to relax them and just let them play ball, but instead they're letting things just continue to go wrong. This is one of those moments when you need someone in the locker room to do something stupid to get the guys laughing and relaxed. Usually that's Kike, but his home island is being blown away by multiple hurricanes right now. Someone else needs to just get these guys relaxed and refocused. Losing isn't the end of the world, just come back the next game. They've forgotten all that.

I do think that having vets like Granderson, Ethier, and Gonzalez all there when they're not great anymore is a bummer for the young guys. The old guys know this could be their last shot and they're probably stressed and anxious and that's going to rub off on the others too. Especially the young call ups.

 

Granderson was tremendous for the first week he was here and then has been just awful since then, every bit as bad as Joc was but much worse defensively.

I think Gonzalez is likely done as a big leaguer. His back has given out, it won't improve, and that robs him of his power. Without power, he's not quick or fast enough to run the bases effectively. The best he could be is a decent at-bat to get a runner on and then sub someone else onto the base (Barnes probably), but is that really a priority? Does A-Gon understand that's his limit?

I probably wouldn't include him on the playoff roster at this point.

 

With the way things are going, the Dodgers won't make the postseason.

 

What a stressful game.

Hopefully this gets the monkey off their back, but I've got a feeling we're not out of the woods yet. I'm excited to see what happens with Darvish coming up today. The funny part is the bats have been waking up the last week or so, now it's on the pitching.

 

I agree completely. It's all in conjunction with each other. The bats slowed down which stressed the starters. The bullpen starts getting a ton of work with a lot more pressure and now they're faltering which in turn puts more pressure on the bats and starters. The bats are feeling their pressure which leads to errors and misplays in the field. It all collapsed together in amazing fashion. The bats are coming around which means the pitching should soon follow.

By the way, the big buzz is Otani is coming over from Japan this winter... The kid is a unicorn as the children say these days on social media. A pitcher who can crank up to 100 on a fastball and yet he can also hit .250 with 25 homeruns. Just incredible. The international signing rules limit what we can offer, but if the Dodgers can rope him in, we've got a bonafide star.

 

Quiet story line building as well: Walker Buehler has looked good. He's had one rocky appearance, but his stuff looks great. He has a natural fastball in the 96-98 range, but can power all the way down to the 80s for his curve ball. He could end up being a great bullpen piece for us in this home stretch.

Verdugo has been underwhelming. I was hoping he'd come in and at least post a really good on-base percentage, but it just hasn't been there.

As for Yu, these Giants were exactly what he needed. I don't know if you guys noticed as well, but he took something off his power to work on placement yesterday. @puffyusaf#2 is right 100%, Yu has 1000 different pitches and he tends to spray them everywhere. Yesterday his fastball was sitting at 94 instead of 97 which I think is the right move for him. He's got some of the just nastiest pitches when he's placing them. Yesterday I saw him throw what I assume is a two-seam fastball at 95 with movement on it. Just insane. Pence somehow fouled it off, but it's incredible what the man can do when he's dealing.

 

I'm saying in the MLB I'm not sure he is going to hit over .300. It's possible he does, but I'm not counting on it. I think the best you hope for is a Puig-ish bat: big power, but a lot of strikeouts too. Otani is a smarter hitter though too so he can go opposite field to get the ball in play if/when he has to.

I'm desperate for him. I'd give up a lot to get this kid, he's going to be amazing.