Here is Matt Kemp in a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes uniform from Tuesday, July 3rd via
twitter @IEPhotoNow. Below, Kemp signs for fans, via
twitter @IEPhotoNow.
- The revolving door leading to the Disabled List continues to haunt
the Dodgers. Andre goes down. At least Mark Ellis came back to the
roster. Via a Dodgers press release:
The
Los Angeles Dodgers today placed outfielder Andre Ethier on the 15-day
disabled list with a strained left oblique (retroactive to June 28) and
reinstated Mark Ellis from the disabled list. Ethier was batting .291
with 23 doubles, 10 homers and 55 RBI in 75 games this season.
- Are you kidding me? Dee Gordon steals third but dislocates his thumb in the process, via Alex Angert and Ken Gurnick at MLB.com.
But a dislocation is bad enough, because it means ligaments were completely or partially torn, and it is the thumb on his throwing hand. Gordon said the swelling was significant. He's virtually certain to go on the disabled list.
"I stole third and I actually don't know what was caught, but I think it went underneath the base," said Gordon, who swiped his Major League-leading 30th base. "It was a weird play and a weird thing happened. I felt I hit something real hard and got up and looked at my batting glove and it looked big. I looked at my finger and it was not a good sight."
“I always had the dream of taking an untutored kid who showed some
promise and of putting him on the air for what he was, a neophyte
learning the trade,” said Barber in his autobiography, Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat.
“Scully was a perfect choice. He was a green pea, but he was a very
appealing young green pea. It was obvious he had something on the ball;
you didn’t know precisely what it was, but he had it.”
First of all, as you know, no matter how long you’re in the game, losses really hurt (chuckling) and losing streaks are the worst of all. So yeah, this is a bad week for all of us who are Dodgers fans. I do have to say, to be fair, I was thrilled that we were doing as well as were doing up until two weeks ago, given the unbelievable injuries to the key people that we’ve had. Ya know, we’d love to have Matt back, we’d love to have Mark Ellis back, we’d love to have Ted Lilly back, and yet without guys like that, and other people that we’ve lost along the way, we really held up well. That was a real testament to the fortitude of this team, the resilience of the backup players who had to step up and the managing of Don and the coaching of his coaches. So that’s a real strength I think and that hasn’t gone away, we still have those strengths. But when we get players back, we obviously expect to get better.”
And...
And all I will say to you is this, I think we demonstrated with Andre Ethier that we will be aggressive in retaining the players that we really appreciate. I think that when we get going on these international signings, we will demonstrate there too that we’re going to be aggressive in pursuing international talent.
And...
And I think going forward, it’s a new day with a little more resources, with a little more aggressive philosophy than they’ve been able to have recently, and I don’t think I need to say more about that. So I hear what you’re saying. There IS a value to a veteran bench. We’ve had many nights this year, where our veteran bench has really come through and, in fact, until two weeks ago, they were doing it regularly all season, so lets give them that credit.
And...
It won’t be a matter of resources as I’ve described to you before. At the trade deadline, the currency that is most valuable is not money, it’s prospects… and there are a number of teams that are deeper in those than we are, frankly. So that’s why you need to build that organization up, not just to build the pipeline and use players yourself, but to use as currency to improve your team in other ways.
