The new Dodger owners are starting to spend money. The team lost tonight, but the newest Dodgers, Hanley Ramirez and Randy Choate looked great. Ramirez tripled in his first at-bat and Choate adds another left-handed arm to a bullpen that only had one lefty. The middle of the lineup now has Kemp, Ramirez and Ethier right in-a-row. If Hanley doesn't melt down, this will work. The team is still looking for another power bat at 1st base and another starting pitcher. Money is no problem now... re: Nathan Eovaldi I hate to see that kid go. He's only 22 years-old with a 95mph heater and legit control over three great pitches. The Marlins got a good one. re: More trades The Dodgers are willing to trade pitchers off the 40 man roster, but won't part with phenom pitcher Zach Lee unless they get a prime-time pitcher in return, like Zach Greinke or Matt Garza... The previous owners left the cupboard bare, but the new owners are determined to buy their way out of the mess. One of the owners was in the broadcast booth tonight, cheering like a little kid...
Astro's new owners are in the tear down mode, selling anybody and everybody for prospects and young players. We'll lose 105 games this year probably and get the #1 draft choice again, it's going to take 5 years to get back to average this way but if they do it right and have some luck with the players that they draft we could be solid again for years. We had exhausted our minor league system in the last years of the old owner and had not much in the pipeline.
re: St. Louis Who? Isn't that where the Rams went? re: Stros Houston is on the right track. It's the slow, but sure way to rebuild. Look at Washington, Tampa Bay, Texas or even Oakland. Houston will be back and they should be very competitive in the small market American League.
:idea: I know that several of you are fantasy gamers. Here's something from today's LA Times that was released by the Angels publicity dept. Mike Trout, who was maybe the most impressive young player that I've ever seen, is on track to do some amazing things. In his first 77 games this season, Trout had 111 hits, 49 RBI's and 31 stolen bases. The last player to do that in either league was Ty Cobb in 1911. So are the MLB pitchers getting this 20 year-old kid figured out? Uh......I don't think so: May- BA .324 - HR 5 - OBP .385 - SLG% .556 June- BA .372 - HR 3 - OBP .419 - SLG% .531 July- BA .413 - HR 8 - OBP .473 - SLG% .838 BTW- the Angels now have two of the best outfielders in baseball on their bench: Vernon Wells and Peter Bourjos. There's simply no room for them in an outfield that includes Trout, Trumbo and Torii Hunter...
Those are very impressive stats when you consider that we are more than halfway through the season, and he just keeps getting better. Hopefully, he can stay healthy and turn in some historic numbers by the end of the season.
Hanley Ramirez report: We've been burned so many times before with outlanders coming in here and melting down, that we try not to get our hopes up too soon. Ritchie Allen, Frank Robinson, Darrell Strawberry, Eddie Murray, Milton Bradley, Manny Ramirez etc. They even tried to bring Juan Marichal in here at the end of his career, but Dodger Dogs booed him from the parking lot to the bullpen and ran him out quickly... Hanley Ramirez looks different. It looks like he's having fun. Tonight he got his first taste of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry up in Frisco. They had their usual sell-out crowd chanting "Beat LA" and wearing costumes fit for a gay pride parade or a Halloween party. Several fans behind the Dodgers dugout were arrested/ejected when they entered into an altercation with injured Dodger shortstop Dee Gordon and the rest of the crowd were the usual rude, crude, dudes... In the top of the 10th inning, Hanley parked a game-winning HR into the leftfield pavillion and stood at home plate, with his bat pointed to the sky, and did the slow Cadillac trot around the bases as he taunted Matt Kemp in the dugout with "did you see that?" The two of them have been teasing each other and there doesn't seem to be any jealousy or rivalry between the two stars. Kemp remembers how poorly he and the others were treated when Jeff Kent and his crowd were on the team and he goes out of his way to treat all new players as valuable teammates. The chemistry in the clubhouse is wonderful and I give much of the credit to Kemp and Mattingly...