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MLB weekend preview: Angels, Dodgers arrive at critical crossroads
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- UNEXPECTEDLY WILD
- DODGERS’ DESPERATION
- EYES ON A BIGGER PRIZE
- Dodgers and Giants Rejuvenate a Rivalry
- Dodgers and GM Colletti are talking about an extension
- 3 to Watch: The Dodgers need a sweep edition
- Quakes, Dodgers renew affiliation deal
MLB weekend preview: Angels, Dodgers arrive at critical crossroadsPublished 16 hours and 43 minutes ago Last updated 12 hours and 24 minutes ago Anthony Witrado Sporting News When it comes to baseball in Southern California, star power clearly isn’t the problem. Not when guys like Albert Pujols, Matt Kemp, Jered Weaver, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Adrian Gonzalez and plenty of other superstars populate the Los Angeles Angels’ and Los Angeles Dodgers’ rosters. Consistency is the issue, and it is the reason both heavily remade teams would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. Luckily for each, there is a month remaining in the season. Beginning this weekend, both Southern California teams’ postseason fates could start to come into focus.
The Texas Rangers and Oakland Athletics are ahead of the Angels, making their 2 ½-game deficit for the second wild card berth a much more realistic possibility than an AL West title. However, LA’s path just got rockier with the news that Weaver will miss his next start—scheduled for the opener of this series—after he took a liner off his pitching shoulder Sunday. Weaver was diagnosed with tendinitis and should miss only one start. It is possible the surging Angels can survive until he returns. They have won 12 of their past 15 games, thanks to good pitching (3.11 ERA) and plenty of hitting (.299/.356/.440, 6.0 runs per game) in that span. But there is that consistency problem. Before those past 15 games, the Angels had lost seven of nine. And from Aug. 1-19, their starting pitchers went 3-7 with a 6.51 ERA. Since Aug. 21, however, the starters are 10-2 with a 3.19 ERA. The Angels have been up and down all season, but they might not be able to recover if they dip again. As for the Tigers, they are actually closer to first place in the AL Central (one game behind the Chicago White Sox) than to a wild card spot (three out). Detroit has won 12 of its past 20 games, thanks largely to its pitching. The staff has a 2.41 ERA in that stretch—good enough to win most of the time, even when the offense struggles.
Considering that sizeable deficit and the small number of games remaining, the Dodgers will be forced to shift their playoff focus to a wild card berth if they lose this series. They are 1 ½ games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the race for the NL’s second wild card. Since the blockbuster trade with the Boston Red Sox on Aug. 25, the Dodgers are 5-7 and have dropped 2 ½ games in the NL West standings. That obviously wasn’t what general manager Ned Colletti planned, but it is the reality. And that reality could get worse this weekend. Josh Beckett, acquired in the trade with Boston, will start the opener against Tim Lincecum. The Dodgers, who have hit .258/.326/.386 and averaged fewer than four runs per game since the big trade, will face Matt Cain on Saturday and Barry Zito on Sunday. EYES ON A BIGGER PRIZEThe struggling New York Yankees still intend to win the AL East, regardless of how hot the Baltimore Orioles have been and how close they get in the standings. Yankees general manager Cashman said as much Wednesday, and the team can back up those words during its four-game series in Baltimore. Last weekend at Yankee Stadium, however, Baltimore took two of three. And the Orioles began this series with a bang, homering six times—three times in the eighth inning after the Yankees had tied it with five runs in the top of the frame—in a 10-6 win Thursday night that boosted them back into a first-place tie with New York. And not only must the Yankees and Orioles worry about each other, they must keep an eye on the Tampa Bay Rays, who are close behind. Because New York will play 16 of its final 22 games against sub.-500 teams, this series is even more critical for Baltimore.
By TYLER KEPNERPublished: September 6, 2012In his last National League West pennant race, in 1993, Stan Kasten rooted hard against the San Francisco Giants. Kasten was president of the Atlanta Braves, who had won their final regular-season game at home and needed the Giants to lose to clinch the division. He watched on the big screen at Fulton County Stadium, along with fans and players, cheering for the team playing the Giants that day — the Los Angeles Dodgers. “We were packed to go to San Francisco for a one-game playoff,” Kasten said. “And the Dodgers just ripped them apart that day. We couldn’t celebrate or do anything until they won.” Kasten is now president of the Dodgers, and his objective remains the same: beat the Giants. This weekend at AT&T Park, the teams meet for the first time since the Dodgers’ industry-rattling trade last month that brought Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford from the Boston Red Sox. Beckett faces Tim Lincecum in the series opener on Friday, with the Giants holding a four-and-a-half-game lead. The Dodgers and the Giants have always had one of baseball’s fiercest rivalries, transplanted together from New York to California in 1958. This year, it is easily the most compelling. With the Red Sox a total embarrassment, their rivalry with the Yankees has ebbed. So has the Midwest’s version, with the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals and the rebuilding Chicago Cubs. The Dodgers are under aggressive new ownership, free of the constraints of the previous regime, which drove the team to bankruptcy. The Giants, who have sold out their last 152 home games, are just two years removed from their first World Series title in San Francisco. There is added spice to this matchup. “We don’t want to be playing a team that’s in bankruptcy; we want to be playing a team that’s a strong contender,” said Larry Baer, the Giants’ chief executive. “The rivalry here when the Giants play the Dodgers, it’s different than any other game. It’s visceral, it’s passionate. It’s stronger now because we’re in a pennant race, but it never really went away.” Every N.L. West team has played in at least one World Series since the Dodgers’ last appearance, in 1988. The Dodgers have made six playoff trips since then, the same total as the Giants, but the Giants have been much more stable. Since Baer’s ownership group bought the team in 1992, the Giants have had only three managers and two general managers. The Dodgers have had eight managers and seven general managers in that time. Trading for Beckett and Crawford suggests a risky long-term strategy of committing big money to players who seem to be in steep decline. But Kasten stressed that team-building was complicated. “We would only do it for players that we liked and that we thought had usefulness beyond this year,” he said. “We weren’t going to give up prospects for rental players, so we wound up with significant pieces we thought could be part of our long-term future. “But I emphasize that in addition, we have already been building up our scouting and player development system. We’ll never become the team we want to be until we develop that pipeline.” Essentially, Kasten said, the Dodgers looked at the coming free-agent market, did not see much they liked, and chose to use their financial muscle now. When Miami shopped Hanley Ramirez in July, the Dodgers beat other teams for him because they absorbed his contract. The Red Sox were overjoyed to shed the salaries of Beckett and Crawford, even if it meant sacrificing a productive player like Gonzalez. Gonzalez homered in his first Dodgers at-bat, on Aug. 25, when the team was just two games out of first place. Since then they have fallen farther back and lost starter Chad Billingsley, who had won six in a row, to a serious elbow injury. “If we had done this move last off-season, we’d feel a whole lot better; at the end of August, there’s only so much of the season left,” Kasten said. “This season matters, but what matters most is that we’re serious about competing, even if it’s late in the year. Our fans should expect that, certainly in our market, we’re always going to be contending.” The Dodgers, who started this season with a lower payroll than the Milwaukee Brewers, will get a major revenue boost this winter when they negotiate a new cable deal. Gonzalez, Ramirez and Matt Kemp are more than middle-of-the-order sluggers; they are television stars in a market that demands them. The Giants are four years into a 25-year deal that gives them 33 percent ownership of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. Baer said he understands the Dodgers will operate with a higher payroll from now on, but said the Giants should remain in the upper third of all payrolls — and that should be enough to win. The Giants have signed starters Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner to long-term contracts this season, and would like to keep other homegrown players like Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey, a strong candidate for the N.L. Most Valuable Player award. The major prize in free agency would be the Texas Rangers’ Josh Hamilton, and with Barry Zito’s contract expiring after 2013, the Giants could pursue him. Whatever they do, though, the Giants insist it will not be as a reaction to their renewed rival. “We don’t need to be in an arms race to be successful,” Baer said. “We need to be in a brain race. We’d rather be in a brainiac competition than a wallet competition. It’s going to come down to the judgments of our baseball people. My job is to make sure the revenues are there to support those judgments.” CBS SPORTS Dodgers and GM Colletti are talking about an extensionBy Jon Heyman | Baseball Insider September 6, 2012 10:44 pm ET The Dodgers are talking to general manager Ned Colletti about a contract extension, sources confirm. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times first reported on the discussions. Colletti has had a spectacularly busy year that will be best recalled for the monster trade with the Red Sox that brought first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, pitcher Josh Beckett and outfielder Carl Crawford to Los Angeles in a nine-player deal that capped a whirlwind summer in which Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Randy Choate and Brandon League also were acquired by the Dodgers in trade. But as one competing baseball executive said, "The best move anyone made in the last year was that $160 million extension for Matt Kemp.'' That contract was done last November and kept Kemp in L.A. through 2019. If that was perceived as a bargain, it seems even moreso now that the Dodgers added $300 million plus in a wild summer of spending. Colletti declined to comment on the situation, and Dodgers president Stan Kasten texted back, "I never discuss anything about my GM. He's here. Period.'' Kasten had told the L.A. Times, "People should regard our management as stable and permanent.'' Dodgers owner Mark Walter, who led the Guggenheim group that spent a record $2.15 billon for the team in March, praised Colletti's diligence in the same story for completing the Gonzalez Red Sox mega deal that was a month in the making. The teams talked about a trade for Gonzalez in July, but the sides made it happen in August, when all three stars somehow slid through at least to L.A. on waivers (the Dodgers claimed A-Gone and Beckett, and Crawford cleared waivers). It was by far the biggest trade ever completed in the waiver period. The mega trade hasn't paid immediate dividends, as the Dodgers are now 1 1/2 games behind the Cardinals in the race for the second wild card, but new ownership viewed the move as their best hope for the next couple years (among the stars acquired, only Victorino is a free agent after the year). Colletti, who became the Dodgers' GM after the 2005 season, has made the postseason three times in his tenure in L.A. It was a lot different job until March, though, as the money-hoarding Frank McCourt, the old owner, led the storied franchise very differently, with both eyes on a tight budget. Colletti's old contract contains an option for 2013. According to the L.A. Times story, he is expected to receive two guaranteed years in the new deal. 3 to Watch: The 'Dodgers need a sweep' editionBy Danny Knobler | Baseball Insider September 6, 2012 9:54 pm ET With four weeks to go in the season, no team is going to say it needs to sweep a series. That's OK. I'll say it. If the Dodgers want to stay in the National League West race, they need to sweep the Giants this weekend in San Francisco. They begin the series with a 4 1/2-game deficit. They begin it with the knowledge that Chad Billingsley won't pitch again this year, and with some uncertainty about what they can expect from closer Kenley Jansen (who has an irregular heartbeat and in hoping to return in the middle of September). And they begin it realizing that the remaining schedule doesn't favor them. And that's putting it mildly. After this weekend, the Giants won't play another playoff contender until the final three days of the season -- when they face the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have a trip where they'll face the teams with the two best records in the National League -- the Nationals and the Reds. They also have a four-game home series against the Cardinals. Including this weekend's three games against the Giants, the Dodgers will play 16 of their final 24 games against teams that as of now would be in the NL playoffs. The Giants will play none. The Dodgers begin this weekend just 1 1/2 games behind the Cardinals for the last wild-card spot, but even there, the schedule works strongly against them. The Cardinals still have two series remaining against the Astros and one against the Cubs. "We have to go out and play every game like it's our last game," Matt Kemp told reporters this week. And if they want to have any chance at winning the division, this weekend they need a sweep. On to 3 to Watch: 1. Jered Weaver's sore right shoulder robbed us of what would have been a Weaver-Justin Verlander matchup Saturday night. But Thursday's off-day allowed the Angels to still line up Ervin Santana, C.J. Wilson and Zack Greinke for a series that could end up being important in the wild-card race. Santana, who is 3-1 with a 2.96 ERA in his last four starts, opens it up by facing Max Scherzer in Tigers at Angels, Friday night (10:05 ET) at Angel Stadium. Scherzer is having maybe the most under-the-radar fine season in the league, with 15 wins and 204 strikeouts. He's been brilliant lately, going 5-0 with a 1.03 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 35 innings in his last five starts. 2. Three years ago, when Tim Lincecum was on his way to a second straight Cy Young and Josh Beckett was on his way to 17 wins, a Lincecum-Beckett matchup might have been the game of the year. Of course, three weeks ago, this Dodgers-Giants series looked like it might be the series of the year. It still holds interest, as does the Beckett-Lincecum matchup in Dodgers at Giants, Friday night (10:15 ET) at AT&T Park. Beckett is coming off one of his best starts of the year. Lincecum, whose 6.42 ERA 133rd out of 134 regular major-league starters at the All-Star break (only the Twins' Nick Blackburn was worse), ranks 27th with a 3.26 ERA since then. 3. As colleague Jon Heyman likes to point out, it's a little funny that the guy the Red Sox seem to prefer as Bobby Valentine's eventual replacement is the one guy who trails Valentine's Red Sox in the American League East. John Farrell's Blue Jays have a better excuse, because of injuries that destroyed the pitching staff and then cost them Jose Bautista, their best hitter. The Farrell-to-the-Red Sox talk is sure to heat up this weekend, especially with Clay Buchholz on the mound for Blue Jays at Red Sox, Sunday afternoon (1:35 ET) at Fenway Park. David Waldstein of the New York Times reported last November that the Blue Jays asked for Buchholz when the Red Sox wanted Farrell to replace Terry Francona. That's worth remembering, since Farrell is under contract with the Jays for 2013. The only way the Red Sox could get him this winter would be to agree with the Blue Jays on compensation. SAN BERNARDINO SUN Quakes, Dodgers renew affiliation dealBy Pete Marshall Staff Writer Posted: 09/06/2012 10:08:52 PM PDT RANCHO CUCAMONGA - Two years ago, there was much drama and intrigue as the Quakes formed a new partnership with the Dodgers after 10 years as the Angels' California League affiliate. This time, there was less drama. The Quakes and Dodgers renewed their player development contract for two more years, it was announced Thursday. "It's something we have been talking about," Quakes President Brent Miles said. "It was an easy conversation with the Dodgers. We're still excited to be partners." "Brett Sports & Entertainment has been a great partner and we're thrilled to continue our relationship," Dodgers Assistant General Manager De Jon Watson said in a press release. "The improvements to their playing surface and upgrades to the stadium have made The Epicenter a great place to groom our future Dodgers." Last year, in the first year of the Dodgers-Quakes relationship, the Quakes won both halves of the California League South Division but lost in the South Finals to eventual league champion Lake Elsinore. This year, the Quakes missed out on the playoffs after losing a first-half tiebreaking game with High Desert. They lost their last two regular-season games and finished one game behind Lake Elsinore for a wild card. But the Quakes may have had one of their most star-studded years with rehabilitation assignments. Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier and Ted Lilly were some of the Dodgers who played for the Quakes in 2012. Two years ago, when the Quakes and Dodgers originally signed their agreement, the Quakes were interested in having the Dodgers eventually buy an ownership share in the club. The Dodgers made no commitment but were willing to consider the proposition. That was cited as one reason for making the switch from the Angels to the Dodgers. But that was under the Frank McCourt ownership. Now that the Dodgers have new owners, the Quakes still are waiting for the Dodgers to buy into the club. "They (Dodgers) have much bigger things on their plate right now," Miles said. "On the ownership level, we've had very preliminary discussions. But there's nothing imminent happening there." When the Quakes originally moved from San Bernardino to Rancho Cucamonga in 1993, they were a San Diego Padres affiliate. From 1993-2000 they were with the Padres, and 2001-10 with the Angels. BALLPARK DIGEST Isotopes, Dodgers extend PDC Thursday, 06 September 2012 18:17 About time: the Albuquerque Isotopes (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) and the Los Angeles Dodgers extended their player-development contract through the 2014 season. “We’re thrilled to extend our incredibly successful partnership with the Dodgers,” said Isotopes General Manager John Traub. “The City of Albuquerque and the Dodgers have been linked for generations and just as Los Angeles is considered one of the premiere franchises in Major League Baseball, the same is true for the Isotopes in Minor League Baseball. We’re proud to continue the shared traditions of two great organizations.” The partnership between the ‘Topes and Dodgers has been successful both on and off the field for both teams, as Albuquerque has racked up a record of 302-273 in four seasons with the Dodgers, including two playoff berths. Since 2009, a total of 67 players have suited up for the Isotopes and the Dodgers, with 19 leaving Albuquerque to make their Major League debut in Los Angeles. “We’re very excited to extend our relationship with Ken Young, John Traub and the Isotopes,” said Dodgers Assistant General Manager, Player Development De Jon Watson. “These two franchises have a storied history together and we’re happy to continue our relationship with the city of Albuquerque with its top-notch facilities and passionate fan base.” The Albuquerque Dukes were the Triple-A affiliate of the Dodgers from 1972 to 2000 after the Duke City hosted the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate from 1965 to 1971. Albuquerque will now be home to the Dodgers’ top farm club for 35 out of 43 years from 1972 to 2014. 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