September 29, 2004
Tracy heaps praise on his bench
He points out the vital contributions and lack of complaints from Hernandez, Saenz and Ventura.
By AL BALDERAS
The Orange County Register
LOS ANGELES The Dodgers probably would not be in their current position - three games ahead of the second-place San Francisco Giants with six games remaining - were it not for the way players such as Adrian Beltre, Shawn Green, Milton Bradley, Cesar Izturis and Alex Cora have performed this season.
Beltre is having the best season of his career in terms of offensive production with 48 home runs and 121 RBIs. Green has hit 28 home runs as part of his 85 RBIs, and Bradley has also put up career-high numbers with 18 homers and 66 RBI's.
But Manager Jim Tracy took time during his pregame routine Monday to praise the way others on the team have responded, including Olmedo Saenz, Jose Hernandez and Robin Ventura. Tracy said that this season's bench players don't compare to those of the past few seasons.
"It's overwhelming in favor of the 2004 version," Tracy said. "We don't have guys coming in here and complaining about why they're not in the lineup. There is a real understanding amongst this group as to what the expectations are of them from day to day.
"We've gotten so many big hits off of our bench this year, big home runs, we've had creative rallies. We didn't have the capabilities of that (before)."
Hernandez was hitting .296 with 13 home runs, 29 RBIs when he started at second base in place of Cora on Monday. Hernandez had a hit and scored a run.
Ventura has hit three pinch-hit home runs and has played in 98 games. Of his 28 RBIs, 13 are a pinch hitter.
Saenz has hit three home runs, including a grand slam as a pinch hitter.
________________________________
September 25, 2004
whittierdailynews.com
Robin Ventura said he wasn't trying to fire up the team when he yelled at umpire Ed Montague from the dugout Thursday night after being called out the previous inning. Montague ejected Ventura, who then ran onto the field and had to be restrained.
"It was probably just the frustration of me being a bad hitter,' Ventura joked.
_______________________________
September 24, 2004
DailyBulletin.com
Dodgers win going into showdown
By TONY JACKSON STAFF WRITER
SAN DIEGO - Somehow, you always knew it would come down to this. The National League schedule makers certainly must have.
The Dodgers, who beat the San Diego Padres 9-5 before a sellout crowd of 42,159 on Thursday night at Petco Park, begin a three-game series at San Francisco tonight. It is the first of six games the storied rivals will play against each other over these final 10 days of the regular season.
Predictably, and appropriately, the N.L. West division title hangs in the balance.
The two clubs enter the series separated by only 1 1/2 games in the standings. But they also enter the series headed in decidedly different directions, a trend the Dodgers are desperate to reverse. The win over the Padres notwithstanding, the Dodgers are laboring.
For days, the wheels have seemed to be coming off their once-magical season. Despite salvaging the final game of their series with the Padres, the way they did it was every bit as unsightly as the way they went about losing the first two.
The Giants, meanwhile, blew a ninth-inning lead against Houston on Thursday night. Going into that game, they had won three in a row, nine of 10 and 13 of 16.
Once again, a Dodgers starter failed to complete five innings, the eighth time in the past 13 games that has happened. This time, it happened despite a seven-run lead that seemed to invite agressive pitching with a heavy emphasis on strike-throwing. This, alas, was Kazuhisa Ishii, for whom strike-throwing always has been something of a challenge.
The result was that Ishii walked four in the inning, running his total for the game to six. Three of those four scored on a two-out double by Rich Aurilia, cutting the Dodgers' once-cushy lead to 7-3. After the fourth one, a frustrated manager Jim Tracy yanked Ishii just one out short of qualifying for a victory that would have made him the club leader in wins.
Ishii turned the ball over to reliever Elmer Dessens, who didn't retire either of the next two batters. But after Ramon Hernandez made it 7-4 with an RBI single, Dodgers left fielder Jayson Werth cut down Ryan Klesko trying to score Ramon Vazquez's single, ending the inning.
Dessens gave way to a pinch hitter in the top of the sixth, and the frazzled Dodgers did their best to forget the previous inning ever happened.
Although they have a shortage of quality starting pitchers, they have enough mediocre ones that they might do their best to forget Ishii altogether. The lefty has been removed from the starting rotation twice previously for his maddening inconsistency, and the only reason he started this game was because Wilson Alvarez's left hip prevented him from doing so.
Offensively, the Dodgers showed signs of escaping what had been a team-wide slump. Cesar Izturis hit his first home run in 61 games with two outs in the third, giving them a 1-0 lead. Jayson Werth followed with a single, snapping a string of five consecutive strikeouts for the left fielder. Steve Finley followed with a double, scoring Werth for a 2-0 lead and snapping a string of 24 consecutive hitless at-bats for the center fielder.
The Dodgers chased Brian Lawrence, who was starting only because David Wells had the flu, with three more runs in the fourth. They made it 7-0 in the fifth, actually scoring one of those runs on a two-out single by Milton Bradley that drove Adrian Beltre in from third base. That snapped a string of 14 consecutive hitless at-bats for the Dodgers with runners in scoring position.
The Dodgers wouldn't get another hit in that situation. They now have three in their past 40 such at-bats. On the 40th of those at-bats, Robin Ventura was called out by plate umpire Ed Montague, with Shawn Green on second to end the top of the seventh. In the bottom of the seventh, when Montague appeared not to be giving the same pitch to Dodgers reliever Yhency Brazoban, Ventura started yelling from the dugout, earning a quick ejection from Montague.
The normally mild-mannered Ventura went nuts, to the point he had to be restrained by Tracy and bench coach Jim Riggleman. Once he left, though, the Dodgers seemed to feed off his outburst.
Brazoban suddenly started throwing strikes. Word came from San Francisco that Houston's Lance Berkman had hit a three-run homer in the top of the ninth, putting the Astros in front. And suddenly, all didn't seem so lost for the struggling Dodgers.
________________________________
SEPTEMBER 10, 2004
DODEGERS DEFENSE IMPRESSIVE
OC REGESTER
MARK WHICKER
LOS ANGELES During their most desperate moments this week and last week, the Dodgers have invented a unique stratagem to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It's called Hit 'Em Where They Are.
Not until the Dodgers concentrated on stroking easy grounders to Arizona's ground zero middle infield did they wrap up last week's series in Phoenix.
On Thursday night here, Milton Bradley reached base on a 130-foot pop-up that the D-Backs treated like a ticking suitcase, and Jayson Werth received a base hit on a ball that befuddled shortstop Jerry Gil.
Steve Finley's two home runs also helped the Dodgers win, 5-3, sweep Arizona, and lead the National League West by a deceptive five games - deceptive because Arizona takes its walking baseball satire to San Francisco this weekend, and a real baseball team from St. Louis begins a three-game set here.
Watching the immortal Randy Johnson share the bus with these incompetents is like watching Robert Duvall get trapped into making "Gone In Sixty Seconds." Stripped of any further resemblance to the 2001 world champions, Arizona has committed 121 errors and omitted perhaps a hundred other opportunities to make reasonable baseball plays.
Another reason it looks so odd is that major-league teams don't play like that anymore. If anyone ever did, it was the Dodgers, even in Tom Lasorda's best years.
Stunningly, and almost imperceptibly, these Dodgers are easily the most efficient defenders in the National League and are among the best in NL history.
In 1999 the New York Mets led the loop with 68 errors. That was 32 fewer than the second-place team. That also set a NL record.
The Mets featured Rey Ordonez at shortstop, Edgardo Alfonzo at second base - and, interestingly enough, Rickey Henderson in left field and Mike Piazza catching.
The third baseman was Robin Ventura, now called upon for occasional grand-slam work at Dodger Stadium.
Afterward, Ventura was first asked how he approaches hitting against Johnson, whom the Dodgers missed this week (but not very much).
"I don't anymore," Ventura said. "I don't want to, and I don't need to."
Then he was asked to compare the leather of '99 with '04. The Dodgers have erred only 59 times, 13 fewer than any other team in the league.
"Pretty similar, actually," Ventura said. "Both teams were and are very good up the middle, with Izzy (Cesar Izturis) and Alex Cora. And we've got three center fielders out there now. Shawn Green has made a lot of improvement at first base as well.
"And neither team had an abundance of strikeout pitchers. In '99 we had Orel Hershiser, Rick Reed, Al Leiter, Kenny Rogers, Masato Yoshii. ... There were a lot of chances for everybody in the field. But this team's defense has been there all year. I just got here last July, but (Adrian) Beltre has been about as good as anybody I've seen at third, and Izzy makes plays at shortstop and never makes them look hard. I think that's probably why he doesn't get as much national publicity as he should."
No Dodgers infielder has won a Gold Glove since Davey Lopes in 1978, but that should change this year. Izturis andCora have only seven errors apiece. Izturis went headfirst to remove a hit from Chad Tracy's column Thursday.
In the eighth, Beltre threw out a Diamondback at the plate then started a double play.
"Those two plays were great because if he doesn't make them, then we're in a little trouble," Jim Tracy said. "But our defense has been instrumental all year.
"Our pitching staff is not going to strike out many people in the first six innings. It gets most of its strikeouts on the back end of games. So our pitchers need this type of defense. When we make plays like that, we save our pitchers from throwing stressful pitches. A game like this makes you appreciate what we're doing out there."
The defense has improved with each front-office transaction. Finley's arrival in center field moved Bradley to right and made sure Green stayed at first. No one, in fact, has reached the double-figure mark in errors, and, of the pitchers who have stayed in the rotation all year, only Odalis Perez has made an error.
But then defense has been the most improved aspect of modern baseball. In 1975 Cincinnati had 102 errors, fewest in the league. This year, only three of the 16 clubs have reached 100.
And in 1927, the Chicago White Sox made 180 errors. That made them the good-hands people of the American League.
"The gloves are better, the athletes are better and so are the fields," Ventura said. "Back in the '70s you had a lot of turf fields, and the ball got through there a lot quicker. There's just a lot more emphasis on defense now. There's better athletes playing first base, for instance."
That's how Jose Lima can go 12-5 while striking out only 85 hitters in 153 innings.
This also was the third time Finley had gotten the backbreaking hit in the past two Arizona series. Finley, 39, was supposed to be the summer rental in Paul DePodesta's trading spasm of late July. He probably still is - but a wallet will always open for a Gold Glove center-fielder who hits 31 home runs and whose on-base percentage is nearing .500.
Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks trudged toward the Bay area. Should they win one or even two games this weekend, the Dodgers might be moved to send them a thank-you note. An e-mail would do
___________________________
SEPTEMBER 9, 2004
NOT READY TO HANG EM UP
OC REGESTER
By BILL PLUNKETT
LOS ANGELES It's a question they will have to answer sooner or later - when is it time to leave?
For the Dodgers' oldest player, center fielder Steve Finley, the answer is not yet. Finley, 39, is enjoying a productive season (.275, 29 home runs and 74 RBIs) with the likelihood that he will have a few offers to sort through when he becomes a free agent this winter.
For some of the Dodgers' other elder players, the situation is not as clear. "If you ask me every time I get out, I'd probably say I'm not playing next year. But if you ask me after I get a hit, the answer would be the exact opposite," said Robin Ventura, 37. "I'm enjoying it. It's been a fun year being around all the young guys.
"That (decision on playing next season) will come later. I'm just trying to get through this month."
Manager Jim Tracy has praised Ventura for his influence in the clubhouse - and benefited from his presence on the bench.
Ventura and Olmedo Saenz have given Tracy one of the most productive righty-lefty pinch-hitting tandems in the major leagues. Each has 12 pinch hits (Ventura in 39 at-bats, Saenz in 38) including three home runs (one grand slam each in the past two games). Saenz has a 13-11 edge in pinch-hit RBIs.
"It's the perfect situation so far," Ventura said of his reserve role. "It was the same way last year, and I still went into the offseason not sure if I wanted to play again. I could tell about a month after the season ended that I wanted to come back."
Catcher Brent Mayne, 36, said he has a similar timetable.
"I honestly don't know. It depends on the situation," said Mayne, who has played for seven major-league teams in the past nine seasons.
With three children, the youngest starting school for the first time this fall, the Costa Mesa resident is not interested in chasing a job if it takes him away from California.
"It's not like when I was younger," he said. "I also know this is not the right time to talk about it. I've said that the last four years (might be his last). Then a month into the offseason, somebody offers to throw some money at you and you're thinking, 'Yeah, I could do it again.'"
Left-hander Wilson Alvarez, 34, said his mind already is made up. He reached his avowed goal of 100 career victories earlier this season but said he wants to go for more in 2005.
"I would like to be back here doing the same thing - pitching out of the bullpen, starting when they need me," said Alvarez, 7-5 with a 4.15 ERA in that role this season. "But after next year - 2006? I don't know about that. Next year, for sure. It's harder to walk away if we're winning."
__________________________
SEPTEMBER 9, 2004
FINLEYS HIT IS DOUBLE CLUTCH
LA TIMES .COM
By Ben Bolch, Times Staff Writer
Steve Finley drove in the winning run with a ninth-inning double and Eric Gagne collected the victory with a perfect inning of relief Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium during the Dodgers' 6-5 come-from-behind triumph over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
And the save? That could have been credited to Olmedo Saenz, whose pinch-hit grand slam in the fifth inning the Dodgers' second pinch-hit grand slam in two days after going more than 11 years without one pulled the Dodgers out of a 3-0 bind.
One day after Robin Ventura moved into a tie for third place on baseball's career grand slam list with his 18th, Saenz hit his first, over the left-field wall, to give the Dodgers a 4-3 lead.
The blast earned Saenz a mini-hug from Milton Bradley and a curtain call from a crowd of 28,888 who appreciated the rare feat. Dave Hansen had hit the Dodgers' last pinch-hit grand slam before Wednesday on June 28, 1993, against San Francisco.
"I was really just looking to get a base hit," said Saenz, who connected on a hanging breaking ball from Casey Fossum. "He gave me a good pitch, and I hit it out of the ballpark. It's one of the best feelings in baseball, especially since we got the win."
Saenz's slam might have been relegated to a footnote if Finley had not delivered another blow to his former team with a ninth-inning double to right-center against Mike Koplove (3-4) that drove in Cesar Izturis from first base with the winning run.
Finley, who had driven in all four Dodger runs during a victory over the Diamondbacks on Aug. 31, prompted the Dodgers to race out of the dugout in celebration after his clutch hit allowed them to maintain a 4 1/2 -game lead over San Francisco in the National League West.
One significant reason the Dodgers continue to inch closer to their first playoff appearance since 1996 is the depth of their bench. Manager Jim Tracy used the left-handed-hitting Ventura to pinch-hit Tuesday in the seventh against Diamondback right-hander Chad Durbin.
On Wednesday, Tracy opted for the right-handed-hitting Saenz against the left-handed Fossum.
"We have weapons from both sides of the card," Tracy said. "We can counter moves made against us."
Nonetheless, the Dodgers found themselves in another hole in the sixth after Shea Hillenbrand hit a two-run homer against former teammate Elmer Dessens to give Arizona a 5-4 lead.
Ventura had a chance to make it a truly historic night for the Dodgers when he pinch-hit for Jayson Werth in the sixth against right-handed reliever Scott Service with the bases loaded and one out.
Ventura generated more cheers when he hit a fielder's choice grounder that drove in the tying run. It might have been an inning-ending double play if first baseman Hillenbrand hadn't momentarily lost his grip on the ball.
If there was a positive for the injury-ravaged Diamondbacks in losing for the 15th time in 18 games against the Dodgers, it was catcher Chris Snyder, called up from double-A El Paso on Aug. 18 to replace the injured Koyie Hill.
Snyder's two-run homer to center in the second and his solo shot to left in the fifth both off Dodger starter Odalis Perez, who earned his major league-leading 17th no-decision gave the Diamondbacks a 3-0 lead. Snyder, who doubled his career home run total in a five-inning span, has hit three of his four homers off Perez, in seven days.
"The only thing wrong with [Perez's] performance was that he couldn't figure out Snyder," Tracy said.
Perez said he was disappointed Tracy pulled him after only five innings but conceded afterward that it was the right move.
"I felt bad because I'm not a pitcher to be out there for five innings," said Perez, who gave up four hits and three runs. "But it worked out. Olmedo made it happen."
Said Tracy: "We're trailing, 3-0, and we have the bases loaded. We can't wait around."
__________________________________
SEPTEMBER 8, 2004
VENTURA, DODGERS TOO TOUGH FOR D-BACKS
Bob McManaman
The Arizona Republic
LOS ANGELES - The 98-pound weakling tried to kick a little sand in the face of the muscle-bound bullies atop the National League West here on Tuesday night.
Eventually, the Los Angeles Dodgers grew tired of it and stopped toying with the Little Team That Can't, beating the Diamondbacks 8-2 in front of 35,078 on a hot and steamy night at Dodger Stadium.
Nice try, kid. Now get out of the way before you get yourself hurt.
That's what the first-place Dodgers communicated to the slap-happy Diamondbacks, who have managed to play better baseball in spurts, but had better learn to play consistently - especially against a team like the Dodgers.
"Usually, these were the kinds of teams that scared me the most, the ones with nothing to lose," former major league outfielder Eric Davis, a guest on the Dodgers' radio network Tuesday, told announcer Rick Monday during the broadcast.
"They don't care who the pitcher is. They don't care who the hitter is."
They should have in this instance, because the Diamondbacks, fielding 16 rookies on the active roster, didn't have any kind of success against starter Hideo Nomo or that grand ol' pinch-hitter Robin Ventura, who hit the 18th grand slam of his career.
Nomo (4-11) kept Arizona in check for six-plus innings, allowing two runs on five hits with a pair of walks and six strikeouts to snap a personal 10-game losing streak. The right-hander, who dropped his traditional corkscrew delivery to rest a tired pitching shoulder, looked unbeatable at times.
"Condition-wise, I felt the same as I did in my last start. I just didn't want to have the same results as last time," Nomo, who lost 3-1 last week in Phoenix, said through an interpreter.
Ventura, meanwhile, delivered the beating not long after Arizona put together a solid fifth inning to tie the score at 2. The Dodgers made it 4-2 in their half after starter Brandon Webb (6-15) walked the first two batters.
In the seventh, with newly acquired Chad Durbin on the mound and the bases loaded thanks to a single, an error and a walk, Ventura pinch-hit for catcher Brent Mayne and drilled a 1-0 pitch to right field.
It was Ventura's sixth pinch-hit home run of his career and the seventh pinch-hit grand slam by a Dodgers player, the first since Dave Hanson on June 29, 1993 against San Francisco.
"I can't explain it, so I'm not going to try, but I'm glad it's happening," Ventura said.
__________________________________
SEPTEMBER 8, 2004
AND NOW COMES THE SCARY PART
LA TIMES
It's not a month, it's a monster, four weeks that can swallow a summer.
"When you think about it," says Robin Ventura, "you just can't think about it."
It's not about a calendar, but a conviction, the days reduced to moments of joy and fear and discovery.
"Everything disappears," says Steve Finley, "and it's all about one at-bat, one inning, one game."
Welcome to September.
Or, in Dodger lingo, Think Cruel Month.
They left Dodger Stadium late Tuesday night in the best of circumstances and the worst of situations.
They are leading the National League West by six games in the loss column with 16 of their last 25 games at home.
But they were burdened by the weight of recent Dodger Septembers, a load that the most wretched team in recent baseball history could barely ease.
The Dodgers' 8-2 win over the double-A Arizona Diamondbacks inched them closer to October, but the month is still young.
What happens to a team that has been in contention two of the last three Septembers, yet each time has slowly dissolved like crowds at the beach?
Three years ago, on Sept. 7, they were one game behind the first-place Diamondbacks.
They proceeded to lose 11 of their next 13.
Two years ago, with nine games remaining, they were one game behind the San Francisco Giants in the wild-card race.
They lost two of their next four games and, well, the Giants didn't.
"September is not a time when you play not to lose," says Ventura, who has survived a few hot Septembers with grand slams like the one he hit Tuesday. "This is a time when you have to play to win."
Around here, September has been Gary Sheffield being ejected in the first inning of an important game for arguing strikes.
It has been Chan Ho Park asking out of a game because he was suffering a leg cramp.
It has been about the San Diego Padres summoning anger and inspiration over what they considered a showboat home-run trot by Alex Cora?
Recent Septembers at Chavez Ravine have been as pretty as recent Junes at Staples.
Even when the Dodgers have survived the season, they've lost the month.
Remember the last time they entered the playoffs, as a wild-card team in 1996? Remember how the regular season ended?
Swept by the San Diego Padres, they were.
Which brings us to this September, a month that began with four losses in five games before Tuesday's arrival of those belly-crawlers bearing gifts.
"This is right where we want to be," Manager Jim Tracy protested, but why didn't it feel like it?
In the three-game sweep by the St. Louis Cardinals, who appeared to barely break a sweat in a supposed playoff preview, the Dodger offense drew only one walk.
Neither money ball nor Moneyball, it seemed.
The losing pitcher in one of their previous five September games was Giovanni Carrara, a midseason replacement for traded Guillermo Mota.
The losing pitcher in another game was Hideo Nomo, a late-season replacement for, well, Hideo Nomo.
The truth is that the Dodgers don't need to be the fastest kid on the league, they only need to be faster than San Francisco and San Diego, and on that count, the playoffs seem a likely destination.
But stranger things have happened, and questions need to be asked.
Do they have the manager for September?
Jim Tracy's record in three Septembers here is 43-44, the worst stretch of any of his seasons.
Three Septembers ago, he was ripped for bringing Park out of the bullpen. Last September, he was ripped for not bringing in Eric Gagne.in relief.
Yet this year he has seemed to find the right mix of aggressive and calm in essentially managing two teams pre-trade and post-trade into first place.
Tracy would be a clear choice for National League Manager of the Year if the season ended today.
As longtime Dodger fans know, it does not.
Do they have the bullpen for September?
Since the trade of Mota, starters have been stretched and middle guys have been pushed and even though Yhency Brazoban has been a revelation, two stats stick out.
Before the trade, they were 44-0 when leading after seven innings. Since the trade, they are 15-3.
Do they have the stuff for September?
Can Shawn Green and Milton Bradley break out of slumps? Can either catcher break some bats? Can Steve Finley play younger? Can Hee-Seop Choi play, period?
The only thing certain, September will tell all, with only the best stories stretching through October.
The 35,078 fans at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday barely seemed to notice when the scoreboard initially showed the Giants losing to the Colorado Rockies, and with good reason.
Crowds here have long since learned, the only thing that matters is the makeup of the team in front of them.
"September can make you," Finley said. "September can save you."
Or, in the case of the Dodgers, it can do both.
*
