Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Blog Kiosk: 8/4/2015 - Dodger Links - Kershaw, Pederson and Jim Johnson


Congrats, Clayton!  Via Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider, "Clayton Kershaw named NL Pitcher of the Month."
Kershaw won the award even though his eight shutout innings on Saturday, July 32 weren’t counted. In the 31 previous days, the 27-year-old lefty pitched 33 innings and allowed one run for a 0.27 ERA (1.31 xFIP), walking two and striking out 45.

It was not an easy month to win the award. Among the competition was teammate Zack Greinke (38 innings, 0.95 ERA, 2.89 xFIP) and Chicago Cubs pitchers Jon Lester (43 1/3 innings, 1.66 ERA, 2.31 xFIP) and Jake Arrieta (42 2/3 innings, 1.90 ERA, 2.56 xFIP).
Graphic above via @Dodgers on twitter.  Below are some links to check out:
"My son doesn't really get it," (Jim) Johnson said. "My daughter kind of understands it and took it pretty hard. So I send them some things to get them excited about the new team. I get them new jerseys and hats. My daughter loves notebooks, so I got couple of notebooks. It makes the transition easier for them I think."
While the sample is much smaller in July, it's obvious that Pederson is not as disciplined as he was earlier in the season. It's also clear that he's not as aggressive on pitches in the zone. In the 3x3 quadrant that represents the strike zone, Pederson's swing rate has dropped in seven out of the nine boxes. Overall, he's letting pitches go by that he shouldn't and swinging at those that he should leave alone.
  • Molly Knight, who wrote "The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse," answered a bunch of fan questions at Deadspin, here.
  • Via Daniel Brim at Dodgers Digest, "Alex Wood’s Disappearing Strikeouts." 
  • Via Molly Knight at Deadspin, "How The Dodgers Got Baseball's Last Buried Treasure."  This is an excerpt from Molly's book on the Dodgers and it focuses on Yasiel Puig.
Puig hailed from Cuba but he may as well have been from Mars. When he showed up to the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona, that February he didn’t speak a lick of English. On his first day in major-league camp he stood in front of a water cooler and shook his head in disbelief at the blue liquid spewing out of it. He didn’t know Gatorade existed in more than one color. As the season wore on, the rest of the baseball world looked at him in much the same way. No one had heard of Puig a year ago, but in 2013 he would be the game’s most talked-about player. 
  • This is just banana's!  (I know, I should be beaten for this)  Via Kike Hernandez's twitter, he will apparently be a spokesman for Chiquita.


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* Dodgers Blue Heaven home page *

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