The Pen And A Roster Move

I wasn't here long enough after the game to write something up, and now that i'm home, I feel way too lazy to actually do it, so i'll let Jon Weisman do it for me. :o

This was a strange game. From the odd fifth-inning reprieve from home-plate umpire Eric Cooper that set up Casey Blake's three-run homer, to Chad Billingsley cruising again against Atlanta and then straining his hamstring, to Hong-Chih Kuo being chosen to warm up in place of Billingsley with everyone looking at their watches and then giving up a two-run homer, to Joe Torre double-switching Manny Ramirez out of the game, to the fan running on the field while Jonathan Broxton was trying to close out the game in the ninth, to Tony Abreu trying to produce a bases-loaded, walk-off hit in his first at-bat of the season in the 11th, to the fissures by Ramon Troncoso and Elbert in the 12th, this was a strange game, indeed.

Okay, so why did Joe Torre make Hong Chih Kuo, with his history of arm trouble and problems getting loose, pitch as the emergency reliever in the seventh inning? I know you technically get all the time you want, but you and I both know (and as Jon noted) that they feel rushed doing it. It's not normal, it's not routine, and baseball players are all about routine.

I also found it odd that Torre let George Sherrill pitch for so long. The 31 pitches and 1 2/3 innings were the longest he had gone all season. I surmise he did it simply because he kept finding the handedness matchups he liked, but at what point was he going to pull the plug there? It worked out in the end, so nobody is gonna say anything, but it struck me as odd. It's no wonder why relievers die under Torre.

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Jason Schmidt might be done, so the Dodgers called up hot hitting Tony Abreu, and Scott Elbert will make his first start on Sunday.

The Dodgers wouldn't -- or couldn't -- say exactly what was wrong with Schmidt. Officially, the 36-year-old former All-Star was moved to the 15-day disabled list Friday because of what was called a "shoulder injury."

Schmidt's place on the active roster was taken by utility infielder Tony Abreu, who was recalled from triple-A Albuquerque. His spot in the rotation will go to left-hander Scott Elbert.

Schmidt didn't complain of any discomfort in his shoulder Wednesday night when he was charged with four runs and five hits in 3 2/3 innings against Milwaukee.

"It was after that that he felt something," said Torre, who spoke with Schmidt on Thursday.

So basically, this is a ******** injury.

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Chad Billingsley ran into some hamstring trouble again.

In Friday's 9-5, 12-inning loss to the Braves, Billingsley left after six innings with a strained left hamstring.

The injury occurred when Billingsley ran out of the batter's box after singling in the bottom of the sixth.

"[I was] running down the first-base line, and about halfway I felt a grab in my left hamstring," Billingsley said after the game. "No good thoughts were going through my mind at that time."

Either that wasn't really a cramp in his last start and he was misdiagnosed, or this was a totally new injury. Based on the track record of Stan Conte, i'm going with the former.

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Eric Seidman thinks the odds are against a James Loney power resurgence.

A grand total of just 14 players were returned, but 10 improved their slugging percentage in that fourth season by at least 40 points, eight of whom improved by 50 or more points, indicating that there are several precedents for young players losing a wide array of their power and recovering it to a significant extent. Unfortunately, very few of these players were able to sustain some semblance of that power in the year after, suggesting that the power renaissance was short-lived. From 1954 onward, only three players age 25 or younger—Paul Konerko, Bill Skowron, and Jeff Burroughs—lost 100 or more points of slugging percentage over a three-year span, regained significant power in the fourth season, and sustained it into the fifth.

With that in mind, James Loney certainly has his work cut out for him given the dearth of comparables in this regard, and even then, unlike the aforementioned trio, he bats lefty. He may improve and regain the power witnessed in his first year and a half as a big-league first baseman, but history certainly is not on his side, and the time is quickly approaching when we may have to look past the potential and realize that players of Adam LaRoche’s ilk comprise his upside instead of serving as a launching pad to fantabulous performance.

It was a long article full of data, but that's the conclusion.

I thought of him as having a Mark Grace upside coming up through the system, so this revelation doesn't surprise me. However, there are those who believe Loney's power will appear at some juncture, and this doesn't do much for their case.