LOS ANGELES, CALIF. – The Los Angeles Dodgers have a .500 record after 14 games, but if their pitching were worthy of their hitters, the team would be on top of its division.

A glance at a box score from last night’s 14-6 victory against the Cincinnati Reds can get you giddy when you see the batting averages of their starting lineup.

Leading off, shortstop Raphael Furcal sports a .356 BA. The outfielders are all contributing with CF Matt Kemp batting .333 to go along with his seven home runs, RF Andre Ethier killing at .400 and Manny is still Manny with a .421 average. First baseman James Loney is holding his own with a .317 average, 3B Casey Blake is handling his business with a .313 average and even C Russell Martin, who is a notorious slow starter is batting a sizzling .317 this season.

So why are they 7-7 at this point of the season? It’s the pitching, stupid.

What was a concern throughout the off-season is now a reality, even this early. Without having picked up an additional starter, the rotation looks thin already unless everyone comes through with a solid 6-7 innings.

Ned Colletti, the team’s GM held the line, presumably on orders from ownership and failed to snag someone like Joel Piniero. The right-hander now pitching in Anaheim for the Angels was still available three weeks prior to spring training. He signed a two-year $16 million deal and has already paid dividends for his team with a sizzling 1.77 ERA in three games.

In some respects you could almost sympathize with Colletti since he hoped that Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda would return to form. The team also banked on Vincente Padilla continuing to pitch like he did when he arrived last summer as a cast off from the Texas Rangers.

So far Billingsley has been unable to pitch past the fifth inning, even in his only win and is struggling with an ERA over 7.0. No one can pinpoint what his problem is and his future contributions can only be considered iffy.
Padilla sports a 1-1 record but a whopping 8.04 ERA and has pitched a total of 15.2 innings in his three starts.

Kuroda is doing much better leading all starters with a 2-0 record and an ERA of 2.18, although he coughed up six runs last night against the Cincinnati Reds.

Clayton Kershaw has a win under his belt, but still needs too many pitches to achieve an ERA of 3.18. And therein lies the problem for the starters.

They can’t pitch deep into the game with an occasional exception and the middle relievers as well as last season’s darling, set-up man George Sherrill, have given up runs at a record pace.

Five of the team’s seven losses were recorded by the bull pen. Jonathan Broxton is the only exception. The young closer hasn’t given up a run in 5+ innings.

No one is running away with the NL West. The Giants got off to a hot start but have come down to earth losing 6 of the last ten, leaving the small market San Diego Padres atop the standings with a 9-6 record. And as they like to say in a sport that has a 162 game schedule. it’s still early.

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax™

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The San Francisco Giants know that in order to have success this season, they’re going to have to endure their share of theatrics. And they won’t always be the ones playing the role of the gun-slinging hero in this 162-game live-action drama.As for the antagonists? It doesn’t get much different than Manny Ramirez and David Eckstein, who each took turns auditioning their villainous trot.

A day after Ramirez hit career homer 548 to beat Sergio Romo, Eckstein hit his 35th major league round tripper to vanquish Jeremy Affeldt (2-2) in the 10th inning, as the Padres handed the Giants a 3-2 loss in San Diego on Monday.

The defeat spoiled another good outing by a starting pitcher, and began what is the Giants first losing streak of 2010.

For Matt Cain, who allowed a pair of runs via sacrifice flies in his six innings of work, the outcome is far too unoriginal and overdone. The noted tough-luck righty got his third straight no-decision in 2010, and hasn’t won at Petco Park since Aug. 17, 2006.

Since then, in seven starts the Padres are hitting just .227 off of Cain. His ERA is 3.24, but he is 0-4 in the most important stat column – wins and losses. Remarkably, six times in his nine career starts at Petco, Cain has pitched six or more innings, allowing two runs or less, and doesn’t have a win to show for it in any of those half dozen outings. Somehow, Cain doesn’t mind.

“I like pitching here. I’m confident,” Cain told reporters. “It’s a great ballpark to pitch in.”

In a frighteningly similar fashion to Sunday’s game against the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, Monday, the Giants hitters were hand cuffed by Padres starter Clayton Richard.

The left hander scattered seven hits, struck out five, walked one, and allowing just one run, which came on a Pablo Sandoval infield single in the fourth. Were it not for Juan Uribe’s ninth-inning home run off San Diego closer Heath Bell that tied the game at 2-2, Cain’s night might have been even worse.

The Giants were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, and have just one hit in their last 16 at bats in those situations, heading back to Sunday.

“It’s two games,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy told the Bay Area News Group. “We were putting runs on the board until (Sunday). We did what we wanted and created the opportunities.”

The loss sent the Giants to 2-3 against lefties this season, and their offensive woes are perhaps being compounded by some key injuries. Aaron Rowand, who discovered his broken cheek bones will not require surgery, is on the disabled list until May 2, and Mark DeRosa didn’t start for the second straight day due to a strained right hamstring. DeRosa did come up as a pinch hitter in the seventh with two aboard, but struck out.

Additionally, Eugenio Velez – a career .213 hitter from the right side – went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, and Andres Torres was unable to reignite the success he had against lefties in 2009, going 1-for-4. He also grounded into an inning-ending double play in the fourth with the bases loaded, and his only two hits this year have failed to reach the outfield. Torres is now 2-for-18 on the year, and has started just one less game, five, than has John Bowker, who won a starting job in Spring training.

But, ultimately, it was Affeldt who had to stomach this loss.

“Part of it was I couldn’t locate my curveball,” Affeldt said. “When they don’t have to respect the curveball they can look for the heater, and when you try to throw a heater away and it goes inside, the ball goes where it should have gone (out for a home run). I would have gotten lucky if it had gone foul.”

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. Besides his contributions to Examiner.com, the I.J. and Sports Climax, Theo is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax™

Friday night the San Francisco Giants sustained a big blow from the Los Angeles Dodgers’ offense and starter Vicente Padilla. Though Aaron Rowand may disagree, the Giants’ arch rivals waited until the eighth inning of Sunday’s rubber match before delivering the knock-out punch.

Pinch hitting with a runner on and one out, Manny Ramirez hit career home run 548 off Giants reliever Sergio Romo (0-1), lifting the Dodgers to a 2-1 win, and spoiling one of Barry Zito’s best career starts as a Giant.

Zito was masterful in 7 1/3 innings, scattering four hits, fanning three, and allowed just one run, which was a result of a walk to pinch-hitter Garrett Anderson – the last hitter he would face — who scored on Ramirez’s blast. Ramirez hadn’t played in the series since departing part way through Friday’s contest with a strained calf. It was also just the second pinch-hit homer in Ramirez’s 18-year career.

“Romo, he’s been throwing as well as anybody,” Bochy told reporters. “He’s one of our setup guys. I like him out there. He’s made some great pitches. I’ve got him and (Jeremy Affeldt). That is their role, to pitch in the seventh and eighth innings.”

Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw was nearly just as good. The 22-year-old Dodger lefty pitched into the seventh, allowing just four hits and a run, while striking out nine, and walking four. The lone run allowed was on a Juan Uribe (1) solo-homer in the seventh, which came after a long battle, from which Uribe fell down 0-2 before battling back in the at bat.

Without the presence of veterans Mark DeRosa (hamstring), and Aaron Rowand – who was placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday – the Giants missed two right handed mainstays in their lineup that may have proved to be helpful against Kershaw.

Eugenio Velez led off and played left field, while Andres Torres filled in in center, hitting eighth. The duo combined to go just 1-for-7 with a walk, and three strikeouts. The Giants also wasted a lead-off double from Aubrey Huff in the fourth, and they left the bases loaded in the eighth when Ramon Trancoso got Uribe to ground out to end the inning.

Second guessing is a part of baseball, and over 162 games a skipper is going to have plenty of chances to be questioned. Giants manager Bruce Bochy will no doubt receive some heat because of the fashion his team lost this one.

But there’s a reason Ramirez holds the record for postseason homers with 28, and is a likely first-ballot Hall of Famer – he’s clutch, and he’s really, really good.
And pitching match-ups, execution, and righty-lefty showdowns often stand out more than assigning blame where it may more easily fit.

The Giants stranded eight runners on Sunday, and had lead-off runners on in three separate innings, and none of them scored. The result was the first series loss for the Giants in 2010, and prevented Zito from improving to 3-0 for the first time in his career.

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. Besides his contributions to Examiner.com, the I.J. and Sports Climax, Theo is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax™

Los Angeles – Manny Ramirez’s agent, Scott Boras has made it clear that the Dodgers’ offer (he still won’t confirm the details) wasn’t sufficient. The length of the proposed contract is too short for Boras’ taste. To buttress his negotiating position that age shouldn’t matter in the case of a hitter like Manny, Boras offered this:

“There is evidence of major league teams giving a player that’s older a contract for five years.”

Of course, that refers to the contract Barry Bonds signed when he was 37. And look how well that worked out for the San Francisco Giants, right? They got the revenue from his chase for the record books as he passed Hank Aaron on the career home run record and were able to dump him immediately thereafter when his the contract expired.

Ned Colletti, the Dodgers GM, was quoted yesterday as warning Boras that the Dodgers offer, whatever it is, would not be on the table forever. I’m sure Scott is shaking in his boots. Do you think he wears boots?

In Southern California, sports talk radio has been ablaze with talk about the Dodgers offer to Manny Ramirez and if it will fly with his agent Scott Boras.

Boras threw out the fishing line at season’s end with the announcement that the bidding would start at $25,000,000 for a multi-year deal of four years or more. The Dodgers have a short and exclusive period to see if they want to bite on what Boras is dangling on that line and Wednesday afternoon the team released a cryptic statement about an offer.

It was described by the Dodgers as “the highest average annual value in the history of the franchise and the second-highest average annual value in baseball”.

In other words, the offer was less than what A Rod makes and more than Johan Santana’s annual haul. Neither Dodgers’ GM Ned Colletti nor Scott Boras was willing to be specific about the dollar amount or the length of the deal on the table.

Notice the use of the words, “annual average”. Obviously this is a multi-tiered compensation package that either front-loads or back-loads some of the money and might include various bonuses. As I wrote yesterday, the looming new tax bite on the top income earners has agents trying to get clubs to shell out bonus money prior to year’s end.

The Dodgers are being very tight lipped about it as is Boras. No one else can intervene with an official offer until fifteen days after the final game of the World Series was played. But you have to presume that Boras was mixing and mingling with club officials and owners during the meeting held this week here in So Cal and knowing winks and nods were presumably exchanged. Whether they turn into definitive offers remains to be seen.

What is certain is that Dodger fans are saying their prayers that their team lands the biggest fish they’ve had in their pond for a couple of decades.