Dodgers' suddenly struggling offense looks like it badly misses Andre Ethier

"Won’t you come home, Andre Ethier, won’t you come home?

"The Dodgers moan the whole day long."

And right now, Ned Colletti will do the cooking and Frank McCourt will gladly pay the rent. Anyway, I’m assuming that last part.

What has become abundantly clear the past few games is, the Dodgers badly miss Ethier.

Since he was only the best hitter in baseball at the time he broke his pinky, that’s hardly surprising. Yet at first, the Dodgers just marched on. The offense still effective, the victories still piling up.

But in two of their last three games, the Dodgers were shut out. And not exactly by Tim Lincecum and Ubaldo Jimenez, either. Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly are fine pitchers, but shouldn’t be holding the Dodgers to six hits (all singles) and zero runs in 15 combined innings.

The Dodgers offense looked flat. Looked in need of a lift. In need of Ethier.

It doesn’t help that Manny Ramirez hasn’t hit a home run since the Truman administration. And that vaunted "balance" of his looked completely out of whack when he was struck out pinch hitting in the ninth Thursday by Carlos Marmol. He did not exactly look focused.

Last year was considered a break out season for Ethier, but then he started 2010 like the next coming of Joe DiMaggio. The only thing that has really slowed him down is the broken finger.

The injury has apparently healed much quicker than anyone anticipated. He is scheduled to make a pair of rehab starts Friday and Saturday and could be activated Monday.

Right now, Monday can’t come quick enough for the Dodgers.

-- Steve Dilbeck

Comments

[These Dodgers Suck]

Manny just needs to re-visit his local HGH provider ... to hell with the "Ramifications"!

[Ross]

Seems reasonable to me that the Dodgers would miss a guy who was hitting .392 when he got hurt.

I hope this isn't one of those injuries where he comes back for like a week and hurts it again.

[phillydodger]

Please don't rush back Dre. What's the hurry? Take your time and come back healed and not with your pinky sticking out like a coffee cup handle.

[OldBrooklynFan]

The trouble with the Dodgers is not unusual for them, in fact this is something that happens quite often. If fact if they didn't have this problem, which seems to come and go, they probably would've won a pennant or two. They can't seem to get both the pitching and the offense to work well in the same game. This has happened many times before, when the pitching goes north the hitting goes south. If the offense is scoring runs, the pitchers give the runs right back. When these two thing work together everything's fine but when they go in opposite direction or work against each other then there's trouble. It even happens when Andre's in the lineup.

[jim hitchcock]

I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that we couldn't, like, hear Dilbeck sing.

[bob cuomo]

Yeah, not having Ethier in there certainly hurts...and it doesn't help that nobody is taking up the slack. Wait...I take that back...Loney is hitting pretty well.

[Ross]

I bet Mr. Dilbeck has a wonderful singing voice.

[Steve Dilbeck]

Ah, Ross, you've heard the rumors. And they're true. American Idols been telling me for two years now they'd waive their age requirement if only Id compete. Holding out for a guest segment on the season finale. Cant believe they went for Joe Cocker and Janet Jackson instead.

[Ross]

You know, Steve, that may get me to watch AI.