AN ODE TO WILLIE

Sandoval and Vicotrino who??? Can someone please explain to me why Matt Kemp is not on the All Star team this year? I would like to believe his AMAZING game tonight was just to rub it in everyone's faces. Like, ok, fine.....I don't need to be on the all star team to play great baseball. But really, Matty, you ARE an all star. Look at his stats of late and his offense? Incredible. He consistently makes great plays in the outfield and leads with outfield assists. Tonight it seemed like Matt was channeling the great Willie Mays with that incredible basket catch he made to end the game. And this right after his long shot grand slam (his 3rd of the year!!) Wow. What a night for him, and what a night for the Dodgers. I have to say, games like this one that are back and forth, back and forth, are more fun to watch but man are they anxiety driven!! Tonight I was told by my friends I am no longer allowed to be facing big screen t.v.'s when out to eat while the Dodgers are playing. I admit, I'm not a great conversationalist when the Dodgers are playing. But sorry friends, tonight was DEFINETLY a game worth watching!

I'll say again how much affection I have for the great Joe Torre. Man his managing is unlike anything I've ever seen with the Dodgers for a looooong time. He really does manage this ball club well, especially when he makes moves such as having Kemp bat 8th in the order. Naysayers have a problem with this and think he should be behind Manny and that on many other teams he'd be batting cleanup. But Joe oh Joe is a thinker. He doesn't put Kemp there, oh no...he bats him 8th so that he can contribute some RBIs to the bottom of the order. And that's why I like Joe. He isn't afraid to look at things from a different standpoint. And, hey, it seems to be working out right? Still the Best Record in Baseball. Now if we compare stats the 2009 Dodgers are still inferior in many aspects to the 1955 Dodgers, but this team (as it stands now) is my generations BOYS OF SUMMER.

I'm kind of tired of everyone talking about the lack of stuff our pitching staff has. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say that oh yeah we'd be a heck of a matchup but our pen and our starters are still having solid years. Wolf, although shakey at times, as been pretty dominant all year but you'd never know it looking at his record. Bills has been having some off nights (could it be something with where his toe is pointing?) He has just lost a little control and demand of the ball, but it will be interesting to see the changes he makes after the break.....but ALL players have their ups and downs. Let's not forget his consistent he has been to have it all blown in the save. Kuroda has just come back but he's proved himself in the playoffs and I still think he's a pretty solid pitcher. and KERSHAW. wow what pitcher this kid is turning out to be. I would venture to say that Kershaw is a Lincecum in the making. For the last 30 innings, Kershaw has only allowed 2 ER and HE'S ONLY 21!!!!! We DO need a starter that can go a little deeper....(can we do 7 innings at least, people?) and I don't think Kershaw is steady enough to be able to count on for that......yet. We'll see how he does on Sunday.

I think it's funny that our bullpen is actually dominating by Mota right now. (and weaver has been excelling coming out of the bullpen and taking the 5th spot) Tonight, Mota got 3 outs on 6 pitches but still ended up with the blown save. AM i back in that parallel universe? Where are all those haters that wanted to kick Ned Colletti's butt for bringing back Weaver and Mota? I bet they're hiding somewhere....although I'm sure they'll pop right back up if these guys start to flounder again. It's not that we have bad pitching, it's that the rest of our awesome defense is overshadowing that of our pitching. I do think we need another pitcher before the deadline, but I am dead set against trading J. Mac or Dewitt and I think those are two of our most valuable people to make a trade. We'll see.

Giants fans need to make sure they don't fall of their bandwagon too fast after last nights game. I'll give it up to Sanchez (as a baseball fan) for his no hitter but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. It was ONE game and um, oh yeah, it was against the Padres.....are they even still playing?? The Giants DO Have an incredible pitching staff but they're not unbeatable. They have ONE guy as the title holder of the Cy Young award (Lincecum) but Cain isnt gonna get it this year and the two other guys on the team that are previous Cy Young award winners (Zito/Johnson) are in the second half of their careers. Now don't get me wrong, I think it be awesome to see a match up in NLCS between the Giants and the Dodgers but its JULY people. and you're still 7 games back. and Jim Tracy is doing something he apparently never chose to do with the Dodgers with those Rockies, so I wouldn't get too confident just yet. Remember, pitching does win championships but bad defense loses games. :)

Weaver takes the mound tonight and I'm confident our boys in blue will dominate again tonight. In the last 4 games we've scored what like 40 runs and the pitching hasn't been that great. It gets more difficult to score when there's nothing to hit but we're even putting up the double digits.

Interesting that now the ESPN dudes are talking about the NL West and how maybe it isn't a "soft division". ha, yeah. Thanks guys...read my earlier blog...I knew that long ago!! Too bad they're still not gonna give us any air time. That's ok...pretty soon we'll give them no choice.