A two-game tease or a preview of things to come? Dodgers display new aggressive attitude
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Could it be?
Ah, come on, it’s just two games. Two measly little games.
No, really, could it be? Could Don Mattingly, Davey Lopes and the rest of the coaches have truly transformed the Dodgers into an aggressive, base-running team?
The weak evidence of two games at least suggests it’s so. Of course, the more frightening answer is, with this offense, they had better be more aggressive.
That couldn’t be said about last year’s Dodgers. Scoring became a second-half challenge of unobtainable heights. And it’s not like they returned from the winter with a bevy of new sluggers.
So all spring, Mattingly, Lopes and staff tried to hammer it into the Dodgers that they had to run out every hit, be willing to take the extra base, go from first to third on a single, force the action.
More than not, the results were there.
‘I noticed that during spring training,’ said right-hander Chad Billingsley. ‘We put pressure on the defense to make plays, to make things happen.’
Through their first two games -- two victories -- this new Dodgers mindset has been led by Matt Kemp. Yep, same guy who was so atrocious on the bases and on the field last April, he was called out by General Manager Ned Colletti.
Kemp, whose ground-rule double into the left-field stands drove in the Dodgers’ first run Friday, led off the sixth with a single. He got a great jump and had second stolen when Marcus Thames hit a bouncer to San Francisco third baseman Pablo Sandoval.
Kemp slowed only for a moment as he rounded second and then broke for third when Sandoval fired to first. Kemp has such large strides, he seems to almost effortlessly carve up ground. He was easily safe, going from first to second on a ground out. It was Kirk Gibson-esque.
‘I was just trying to make something happen,’ Kemp said. ‘I saw Pablo looking at first base, he threw it and I just went for it.
‘Just instinct, and my instincts were right.’
His instincts have been wrong plenty enough times in the past, so it’s a tad early to be sold on a successful new approach. Still, no doubt recognizing this was an offense that was going to have to manufacture more runs in 2011, the Dodgers did work on developing a new mindset in spring.
‘It’s something we wanted,’ Mattingly said. ‘Guys have to do the work and have to want to do it, to be that guy. It’s something that we didn’t just go around the bases and talk about situations and not do it again. It’s something we did almost every day. We had a group that came through every day at a different place.
‘It’s one of those things you put time on.’
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-- Steve Dilbeck