The never ending rotating arms traveling from the DL to the Dodgers to Oklahoma City and back again continues. On Friday night, the Dodgers announced that switch-pitcher Pat Venditte and left handed Adam Liberatore were recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City, Brock Stewart was optioned back to OKC, and Dennis Santana was placed on the 10-Day disabled list retroactive to June 5.
Continue reading “Dodgers Reinforce Bullpen with Liberatore & Venditte”
While many fans of the Dodgers were once again pointing their fingers at the bullpen after Saturday’s loss to the Padres, I thought I’d try to make some sense of what was happening by digging a little deeper into some of the general numbers. And while there’s been no rhyme or reason as to when exactly the relief corps is likely to implode, there has been a bit of uniformity, nonetheless.
Continue reading “Dodgers Roster: More Thoughts on an Otherwise Shoddy Bullpen”
A little over a week ago, Andy put together a story surrounding a meaningful comment from Dodgers‘ boss Andrew Friedman which stated something to the effect that the club was struggling to click on more than one vital component of its game on a nightly basis.
Continue reading “Dodgers Roster: A Few Thoughts on Improving an Inadequate Bullpen”
The good news is that the Dodgers have strung together three consecutive wins for the first time in what seems like a very, very long time. The bad news is that the club has suffered yet another injury to an already battered starting rotation.
Continue reading “Dodgers 25-Man Roster: Rethinking the Bullpen & Starting Rotation”
Considering everything that went down in both legs of Saturday’s doubleheader in San Francisco, there’s bound to be a few roster moves on the horizon, especially in the bullpen. Righty Pedro Baez suffered his biggest pummeling of the season in the first game; however, it was the southpaw Scott Alexander who was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City to make room for the emergency promotion of outfielder Alex Verdugo. With the move, the Dodgers are back down to eight arms in the big league bullpen, but not many of them are fresh, to say the least.
Continue reading “Dodgers Bullpen: Sorting Out the Top Relievers on the Farm”
In case you missed yesterday’s column, the theme of the story surrounded the sputtering offense of the Dodgers, although we did reflect on how it seemed that other areas of the club sometimes have tendencies to under-perform on any given day.
Continue reading “The Bizarro Worlds of Pedro Baez & Tony Cingrani”
Heading into the 2018 regular season, one of the biggest concerns for the Dodgers was finding a suitable setup arm for closer Kenley Jansen. Yet, when Jansen was struggling mightily for the first few weeks of the campaign, that worry shifted, as all the focus was on getting the All-Star righty’s mechanics fixed. Now that Kenley appears to be back on the right track, the focal point of the bullpen could fall back on the setup role.
While there are numerous factors which have contributed to the substandard performance of the Dodgers during the first three weeks of the season, none appear to be more disconcerting than the effectiveness of team closer Kenley Jansen.
It’s been a happy, yet rough week for the Dodgers. On Thursday, Clayton Kershaw tossed the first pitch to Yasmani Grandal, marking the official commencement of the 2018 season. Since then, we have seen some remarkable pitching performances, as well as some we wish could be erased, or redone.
Continue reading “Dodgers Roster: First Week Pitching Performance Evaluations”
In the Oscar-nominated baseball movie from 2011, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill brought the historic tale of the 2002 Oakland Athletics to life. Moneyball is about a small market team finding overlooked players that were able to rival the nearly $200M payroll of the New York Yankees.
Continue reading “Dodgers Bullpen: Why Ross Stripling Is Ready to Step-Up in 2018”
