The Dodgers left Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon feeling good about the ballclub, good about the National League West standings, and good about the future after Clayton Kershaw made a stellar big league debut and Andre Ethier drove in the winning run in the tenth inning to send the Dodgers to Chicago on a winning note. But, boy, can baseball humble you in a hurry.
As quick as the Dodgers rode into Wrigley Field, they were sent out with a three game swepp twice as fast, the final loss being a 2-1 disappointer Wednesady evening after Los Angeles had the game in their hands and a chance to salvage one of the three games before they headed to New York. Just wasn't meant to be.
Derek Lowe was stellar over seven innings on Wednesday night, walking two and striking out five. The sinker was back to sinking and the slider was a nice complement to the bread and butter. Lowe, who was 0-3 with a 6.61 ERA on the road entering Wednesday's start, had given up 27 earned runs in his previos 6 starts but showed signs of returning to the rock that he is capable of being. When Lowe doesn't nibble and uses a steady diet of sinkers to get the opposing hitters to kill the grass in front of the dish, he is an innings-eater and a tone setter.
The Dodgers gave the ball to Jonathan Broxton with a one run lead in the eigth inning, and he did what you would expect him to do. The big righty used his plus fastball and power slider to strike out the side and showed all the reasons why the Dodgers are comfortable with the thought of him filling the closer role when Takashi Saito calls it quits.
It was the ninth inning where things began to unravel, the place where you would least expect the wheels to fall off for the Dodgers. But Saito was not sharp from the start, as he walked Ryan Theriot to lead off the bottom of the ninth. It was downhill from there. Another walk, sac fly, and 30 some odd pitches later the game went to extra innings, tied 1-1, only to have Alfonso Soriano drive in the winning run off of Chan Ho Park in the bottom of the tenth. Soriano, who has been struggling, has been backed by his teammates and everybody from Chavez Ravine to Wrigley Field knows that Soriano is critical to the Cubs success this season.
"They know that I am working hard every day to do better and better. I love what I do and I believe in myself all the time", Soriano said after the ballgame.
So there it was for the Dodgers, as deflating and demoralizing loss as they could get this week. Their stud at the back of the bullpen look as vulnerable as ever, and the hitting woes continue as they go on to play the Mets for four games, a team that has all of sudden found a little confidence and is finally playing like they feel somewhat embarassed by their record thus far.
The pitching has been great for the Dodgers of late-- they have a team ERA of 2.38 in the last week. It is the hitting that the Dodgers cannot figure out, and is the lone reason why they are not right on top of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the standings. This is purely a team-wide struggle. It is not as if six guys are stinging the ball and they just aren't falling into place. That would be easy to deal with because that is baseball and that sort of cruel suffering lasts as long as it will take the Dodgers to fly from Chicago to New York. Rarely will a team be tied down an entire ballgame if they are having quality at bats.
Even though the Dodgers had the lead in the ninth inning Wednesday with a great chance to win, it wasn't like their offense did any of the work. They were up 1-0 and that lone run was courtesy of Carlos Zambrano, who walked Blake DeWitt with the bases loaded in the fourth inning. It wasn't a Matt Kemp home run or an Andre Ethier RBI-double. It was a bases loaded walk. That sums it up for the Dodgers.
In the last seven days, as a team, the Dodgers are hitting .230 with 2 home runs and 9 RBIs. Adding insult to injury, they have walked 16 times and struck out 41 times. That's not bad hitting, that's anemic hitting. That's leaving the team bats in Los Angeles and taking hotel broom sticks to the ballpark.
There are two main problems for the Dodgers. The first is the fact that Rafael Frucal's back has turned out to be a pretty serious injury and he is going to miss more than a month when the Dodgers first expected him to miss a series, maybe. Furcal was put back on the DL this week, the second time for the same injury, and is looking at at least two more weeks before his return to action. Furcal was on a torrid pace before he got hurt, so it is safe to say that the Dodgers lost their biggest bat for a substantial part of this early season. Not helping matters is Furcal's replacement at shortstop, Chin-Lung Hu, who is hitting .179 on the season and .152 in the last two weeks.
The second problem for the Dodgers is the vanishing of first baseman James Loney's bat from the middle of the order. We all know what type of offensive player Loney is capable of being, as he had a .296 career batting average in the minors when he was playing against much older competition after being drafted out of high school.
Loney is hitting .274 on the season but has hit a horrific .105 in the last week, the games when the Dodgers needed his bat the most. Usually, Loney has few, if any, holes in his swing as he can handle any fastball, lays off of the high gas, and is a good breaking ball hitter. He is more than a tough out when he is playing like he is capable of.
But against the Cubs and Cardinals the past two series, Loney has been exposed to great lengths. He is chasing the letter-high fastball, a pitch that is impossible to do anything with, and is being fooled and frozen by breaking balls alike. The fluidity in his swing is gone and the sweet, powerful stroke that wears out the gaps is nowhere to be found. Loney appears rigid and uncomfortable in the box, as if he simply isn't picking the ball up well coming out of the pitchers hand.
The good news out of this, the little there is, is that the Dodgers have a solid core of veterans and a mature group of young players who are keeping this slump in perspective. This is exactly the reason why Frank McCourt brought in Joe Torre to manage the club with unlimited potential, after watching the clubhouse crumble last fall under the lead of Grady Little.
This is not time for the panic button, by any means, and is much to early to be worrying about falling out of the standings and not being able to contend come September. But the Dodgers need to take it for what it is, a discouraging sense of frustration, and let the sickness brew a little bit and finally snap out of it and learn how to prevent these stretches from lingering no more than a game or two. Due to the chemistry in the clubhouse and the tightness of the club, Derek Lowe, who has been a starter and a closer in his career, handled it best as he discounted the Dodgers lack of hitting while backing up Takashi Saito and pointing his focus towards New York, leaving these struggles behind.
“I really think that if anybody can understand about losing and frustrations, it’s me and that’s what makes it easier. You root for him and games like that are going to happen. I’ve blown a lot of games in my career, so I understand the feeling", said Lowe after watching his win evaporate.
And with that the Dodgers packed up their bats, the ones that will bail them out sooner or later, their confidence, which will get them back on track, and their teammates, the ones who join the battle and ease the stuggles, and headed off for the Big Apple with a fresh start ahead.
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