But for the move of the Houston Astros to the American League this season, Major League Baseball could celebrate a development last seen on Aug. 6, 1999.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that was the last date the two teams that call themselves Los Angeles, only one of them legitimately, were in last place on the same day.
The Dodgers, a $216 million last-place team, plunged to the bottom of the National League West last Monday and has maintained their grasp on the position since.
The Angels, whose $142 million payroll is seventh highest, has been next-to-last in the A.L. West since April 28. Last Wednesday their margin over the Astros fell to a precarious game and a half.
These positions were not what the two teams had in mind when they lit up the trade and free agent markets late last season and in the off-season. They spent millions on free agents and committed millions more in dazzling trades. Having made those dramatic moves, they were the popular choices to win their division titles.
But as Ned Colletti, the Dodgers’ general manager, said in a telephone interview Friday, “We’re behind, but we still have confidence in our group.”
What Colletti and manager Don Mattingly need from their expensive group of players is a steady torrent of hits with runners on base. Asked what the Dodgers have lacked, Colletti said, “An ability to hit with runners in scoring position. We haven’t had a problem getting runners on base; we’ve had trouble getting them in.”
Entering Sunday’s games, the Dodgers had the National League’s fifth highest team batting average (.261) and highest on-base percentage (.335) but were ahead of only Miami in runs scored (122).
The most glaring telltale sign of the Dodgers’ inability to get runners home is their position in runners left on base. They are 14th, having left 277 on base. The Reds have stranded 283 runners, but they have scored an average of 4.7 runs a game whereas the Dodgers have scored 3.5 runs a game.
That difference of 1.2 runs explains to a great extent why the Reds’ record was 21-16, the Dodgers’ 14-21.
As if those figures aren’t bad enough, the Dodgers’ production weakness is emphasized in their standing with runners in scoring position: 12th in on-base percentage, 13th in batting average, 15th in slugging percentage.
“We’ve been in a lot of games, but we need to get key hits,” Colletti said.
In an eight-game losing streak they ended Saturday, the Dodgers had key hits, but the teams they played stroked more key hits.
In a game against San Francisco, the Dodgers collected 11 hits and 7 walks but stranded 13 runners and scored only one run, losing, 2-1, on a Buster Posey ninth-inning home run.
The next night they overcame a 6-1 deficit with a seven-run outburst in the fifth inning but lost, 10-9, on a 10th-inning home run by Guillermo Quiroz.
Twenty-four hours later the Giants won, 4-3, after a Dodgers’ three-run rally in the eighth inning fell a run short. With two out and runners at first and second, Jean Machi, the fourth relief pitcher in the inning, retired pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston Jr. on a grounder.
Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt rendered Dodgers’ key hits meaningless in the Dodgers’ next three games, hitting four home runs. The second of those home runs was a two-run shot that broke a 3-3 tie and won the game. In the next game, he hit a two-run homer in the sixth innings and a two-out home run in the eighth for a 3-2 victory.
In loss No. 8 Friday night, the Dodgers trailed Miami, 5-4, in the eighth, with a runner at second and one out, but the next two batters grounded out. They looked up, and they had a 13-21 record, third worst in the National League.
A journeyman infielder, Luis Cruz, has epitomized the Dodgers’ early-season failure. A pleasant surprise in the last three months of last season after struggling for 11 ½ seasons to win a major league job and keep it, the 29-year-old Mexican went from leading the team in batting average (.297), hits (84), doubles (20) and games (78) from the time of his recall to batting .088 (6 for 68, all singles) in 26 games this season.
The most promising development for the Dodgers has been the return of Carl Crawford, who missed nearly all of last season following elbow surgery. The left fielder is hitting .309 with .488 slugging and .370 on-base percentages.
Along with first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who came to the Dodgers from Boston with Crawford last August, they have been the team’s most productive hitters. Gonzalez is hitting .345 with .517 slugging and .397 on-base percentages.
The Dodgers, however, still don’t have shortstop Hanley Ramirez, who has played only four games and remains on the disabled list with a strained hamstring.
But the best news the Dodgers have received recently is that Zack Greinke may be ready to pitch for them again this week. Greinke broke his left (non-pitching) collarbone April 11 in a fight on the mound and was expected to be out eight weeks, but he made a rehabilitation start last Friday and pronounced himself ready to return.
However, Ted Lilly remains on the disabled list with a strained rib cage muscle, and Chad Billingsley is out for the season following an elbow ligament transplant.
“We’ve been hit pretty hard,” Colletti said about the pitching. “All winter I heard, ‘You have too many starting pitchers; what are you going to do with all of them?’ I think in the first three weeks of the season we used all nine starters.”
The Angels have their own pitching problems. Jered Weaver, their No. 1, has started only twice this season and continues to recover from a non-displaced fracture of his left (non-pitching) elbow. The Angels hope he’ll be able to pitch before the end of this month.
They also hope Joe Blanton will be able to pitch more effectively than his 0-6 record and 5.66 e.r.a.
As a whole, the Angels’ pitching staff has a 4.59 e.r.a., third highest in the league. That’s no way to win the A.L. West and justify following the 10-year, $240 million signing of Albert Pujols with the 5-year, $125 million signing of Josh Hamilton.
Here are some other numbers for those two sluggers: Hamilton .207, 4 home runs, 11 r.b.i.; Pujols .239, 5 homers, 20 r.b.i.
Then there are Blanton 2-$15 million (0-6, 5.66), Chris Iannetta 3-$15.55 million (.202-3-9), Erick Aybar 4-$35 million (.273-0-2).
Jerry Dipoto, the Angels’ general manager, did not return telephone calls, but then if I were the Angels’ general manager, I probably wouldn’t want to discuss them right now either.
THINK PINK
Sometimes Major League Baseball takes things too far, and this is one of those times.
It’s not enough that several years ago MLB introduced pink bats for players to use on Mother’s Day as well as assorted other pink items, but for this Mother’s Day it added to its pink collection.
Last week a Los Angeles company announced that it had created “signal enhancement stickers” for catchers and would provide them in pink in honor of Mother’s Day.
The company, Game Signs, said in a news release that more than 38 major league catchers use the stickers. It quoted the company president and founder, Matt Flaherty, as saying:
“Throughout the history of the game, catchers have tried a number of different makeshift methods to highlight their signs to the pitcher and make them more visible, namely athletic tape, white out, white paint, white nail polish and chalk. The innovative new product from Game Signs allows catchers to communicate more clearly with their pitcher and position players.”
Pink stickers, however, were not the only products prepared for baseball games on Mother’s Day.
MLB announced last week that Rawlings, which makes major league baseballs, had manufactured balls specially for Mother’s Day games featuring pink stitching and pink graphics. It had previously used “unique colorations,” MLB said but not for Mother’s Day.
Can you believe that someone who is paid a nice salary sits in an MLB office on Park Avenue in Manhattan and thinks up these things? But there is more.
“In addition,” a news release said, “MLB licensee Phiten will feature a pink compression sleeve for the first time ever, as well as bring back its pink necklace, which was introduced in 2010. Players throughout the game will be wearing the necklaces and/or compression sleeves in honor of Mother’s Day activity.”
Making sure it got in its other commercials, MLB said “many players will use a pink Louisville Slugger bat, pink Franklin batting gloves, pink Under Armour cleats (note: baseball shoes are spikes, football shoes cleats) and pink EvoShield protective gear.
“Additionally, both players and on-field personnel will wear pink wristbands as well as symbolic pink ribbons on their uniforms. Commemorative base jewels and dugout lineup cards will also be pink.”
Now if I had wanted to get in the spirit of MLB’s Mother’s Day project, I would have written this in Dr. Seuss’s pink ink.
BLIND AND DUMB
Umpires made such a mess of things last week, I’m not sure who was more at fault – the umpires, Bo Porter or Joe Torre. Taking them in order:
One set of umpires demonstrated a gross lack of judgment, another set displayed an even worse gross lack – a gross lack of knowledge of the rules.
The first set was not disciplined because of a technicality, though the four members of the crew, who didn’t know a home run when they saw one, should at least have been ordered to have their eyes tested and have glasses made especially for viewing replays. Maybe something like 3D glasses.
The second set was disciplined but insufficiently. They should have been ordered to memorize the rule book, or at the least, read it enough times to familiarize themselves with it so they couldn’t possibly get a rule as wrong as they got the one about making a pitching change.
How could any umpire be ignorant of the rule [3.05 (b)] that says a pitcher coming in to a game in relief has to dispose of one batter before he himself can be replaced.
Fieldin Culbreth and the other umpires of his crew should have known the rule; it’s a simple, straightforward, uncomplicated rule. I’m sure there are hundreds of minor league umpires who know the rule. How is it possible that not one of the four umpires knew the rule?
Can Porter, the Houston manager, get a pass for not knowing the rule? No, not at all. He has to know the rule because he is the manager and managers frequently have to make pitching changes so he has to know the rule.
With two runners on base and two out and the Angels trailing, 5-3, in the top of the seventh, Porter called for left-handed Wesley Wright to replace right-hander Paul Clemens because a left-handed hitter, J.B. Shuck, was scheduled to bat.
But after Wright threw his warmup pitches, Porter saw Luis Jimenez, a right-handed hitter, getting ready to bat for Shuck and signaled for a right-hander, Hector Ambriz, to replace Wright, who had not pitched to a batter.
”Technically,” Porter told reporters, “Wesley came in to pitch to the batter that was scheduled to hit, but he pinch-hit for the batter that was scheduled to hit, which, from my understanding of the rule, you can bring in another pitcher to face the pinch-hitter.”
If you’re making up your own rules, you could probably do that, but Porter is managing in the major leagues now so he has to play by major league rules, even if the umpires don’t know them.
Torre suspended Culbreth for two games and fined him and fined the other umpires, who were accessories to the crime.
What about Torre, who is MLB’s executive vice president for baseball operations? In ruling on the Oakland home run that the umpires said wasn’t, Torre said it was a judgment call and judgment calls can’t be overruled.
At the same time, though, he said the umpires’ call was wrong. I guess we learned when we were young that two wrongs don’t make a right so if Torre overruled the umpires’ judgment call to give Oakland a home run, that wouldn’t make it right.
But it would make it fair. That loss could loom large on the A’s record in their fight for a division title or wild-card playoff spot. Commissioner Bud Selig could overrule Torre in the best interest of baseball and order the game to be resumed from the point of the home run.
It’s the least Selig could do for his long-time friend, Lew Wolff, the A’s owner, whom he won’t tell, more than four years into a Selig-ordered study, if he can move his team to San Jose.