Paul good, John bad

“The Los Angeles Dodgers have blitzed to the best record in baseball, even while six of their players languish on the disabled list.” That was such a good opening line to an article; I decided it should open mine as well. Brian Hiro wrote the quote in an article for the North County Times.

One has to now wonder just how good the Dodgers are. They should get the best closer, Erik Gagne in baseball back at some point this season (though reading ESPN’s coverage on the injury caused me to speculate about Tommy John surgery). And there are also concerns that Jayson Werth’s wrist injury is more severe than what was originally thought. Brad Penny however, is on much faster return schedule. He is to make a “rehab” start in Las Vegas tomorrow (Monday) before rejoining the team and the rotation on the weekend in Colorado.

So the best team in baseball is missing three regulars (though Werth is not really an impact player) and they already have a 3 game in the West?

Will all the old-school “How many years did he play baseball?” – yes, Randy Jones, I’m talking to you, talking heads please stand up and give Paul DePodesta his due.

***

Speaking of old-school talking heads, John Kruk spoke again – I guess that’s saying enough, but since you all don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll tell the whole story.

Let’s look at the following pitching line from Sunday:

9.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 SO, 1 HR, 105 pitches

Is there anything out of the ordinary or “wrong” with that line? No, it’s a great pitching performance – by A.J. Burnett by the way.

John Kruk whined that managers should take the kid-gloves off and let pitchers finish what the started. He said (I’ll paraphrase), “See what happens when you let a pitcher pitch.”

A.J. Burnett was brilliant. Great game kid! But Kruk argued that Burnett that got to 105 pitches because he finished the game rather than he finished the game because he had thrown few enough pitches to keep himself around 100 and in line to finish the game. Kruk is an idiot.

Burnett had a great a game because he didn’t walk too many hitters and because he only gave up four hits. Had he walked a bunch of guys or given up more hits his pitch-count would have been up, he would have tired, and someone else would have had to finish the game.