Dodgers web musings: When the rites of spring are tweaks and sprains
One day, all is calm. Anyway, as reasonable a calm as it goes for teams coming off a losing season.
And then one pitcher goes down, and then another, and yet one more. Not to mention your starting third baseman and backup catcher.
Maybe Vicente Padilla is ahead of schedule in his return from arm surgery, and Jon Garland’s strained oblique isn’t all that serious and Tim Redding really won’t be sidelined that long from his back injury.
When you’re making plans during spring training, it best be in your lightest No.3 pencil. Being flexible is the key, and newbie Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly is getting an early test to his fluidity this spring.
You shuffle as best you can with what you have, which is why John Ely was reassigned to the minor-league camp Saturday so he can stay behind and throw long in a start in Arizona.
The Dodgers don’t have to use a fifth starter until April 12, so whether they go with Ely or Redding -- there are no other real options at this point -- they still have time to rearrange things.
At least until the next injury and the next adjustment.
Also on the web:
-- The Times’ Bill Shaikin takes a poignant look at how baseball reaches out to help its own while at the charity game to benefit the victims of the Tucson shooting tragedy.
-- ESPN/LA’s Jon Weisman introduces Joe Block, the new co-host of Dodger Talk on 790 AM, with a question-and-answer piece.
-- Dodgers.com’s Ken Gurnick said right-hander Jon Garland was so encouraged after throwing off the mound Saturday for the first time since straining his oblique on March 9, the Dodgers think he might only miss one or two starts.
-- The New York Daily News’ Bill Madden writes that Commissioner Bud Selig is concerned his legacy could take an even greater hit from the financial quagmire of the Dodgers and Mets than it did from the steroids scandal.
-- True Blue LA’s Eric Stephen wonders if signing Juan Uribe this offseason may prove to be a costly addition.
-- Steve Dilbeck
Photo: Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly during an exhibition game against the White Sox on Wednesday at Camelback Ranch. Credit: Rick Scuteri / Reuters
Catch a Dodger game next Wednesday on the Loge Level starting at $1.49...Reserve Level at 99 cents...or Top Deck at 79 cents. A family of four sitting on the Top Deck is going to spend $3.16 for tickets and $100 for parking, food, souvenirs and gas. It's time for McCourt baseball.
Bud Selig needs to take a risk and move quickly and decisively to oust the McCourts or his name will be linked to theirs forever. Once the "Steroid Commissioner" and now the "Hemorrhoid Commissioner."
Posted by: Skyharbor | 03/26/2011 at 08:45 PM
Good ol' Bud, worried about his reputation, but doesn't give a damn about the game and its franchises.
Quite frankly Mr. Selig, your legacy is already etched in stone as the worst commissioner in history. So relax, I don't see how people could think any less of you than they already do.
Posted by: Labeldude | 03/27/2011 at 08:22 AM
I have never heard or read anything from Bud himself about his reputation or legacy. Any such comments have been by writers who can only speculate what his thoughts about the subject may be.
Posted by: Arthur Marx | 03/27/2011 at 11:27 AM
Game itself is always above all else, hence Selig's biggest failure and albatross is steroids - not ownerships. Sorry Madden, but Mets are a fourth fiddle for the city that never sleeps, behind the 1950s departures of the Dodgers and giants.
They didn't replace anything. Madden writes for the New Yawkers, so not surprised he doesn't realize Dodgers and Cardinals are the NL's signature franchises - by a long, long way in front of anything else.
Selig's handling of Dodgers situation crushes me, but yes, the game itself is bigger than my beloved blue. The game must be respected in that regard. And Selig did things to the game that won't soon be fixed. All of the outgrowth caused by steroids, believing there should be more teams and more expansive playoffs, are a result on Selig's watch. He could not have been more wrong. Scores of pitchers on Thursday's Opening Day rosters wouldn't even be getting close to The Show had they pitched when there were real pitchers in the game. Six innings for a quality start? Gimme a break. Bandbox homerun parks? You can have them.
No, we're not fixing this bag of xxxx anytime soon.
Posted by: alanw19 | 03/27/2011 at 04:30 PM
No hitting, no bullpen, mediocre defense, nonchalant attitude = Your 2011 Los Angeles Dodgers.
Posted by: Chumpy Kemp | 03/28/2011 at 09:16 AM