Pages

▼

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Blog Kiosk: 5/21/2016 - Dodgers Links - Puig, Scully and Frankie Montas


Although the Dodgers got beat in the late innings last night it was nice to see a couple Dodgers briefly break out of their hitting slumps.  Justin Turner and Yasiel Puig, both of whom who've struggled at the plate, slugged two-run homers at separate times to give the team a lead.  Via AJ Cassavell and Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
"You saw the results from all the work I've been doing," said Puig. "There is a difference in my at-bats. I'm hitting strikes and not swinging at bad pitches. Today I was swinging at pitches in the zone and that's why I was able to hit a home run."
You can watch Puig's homer here, and Turner's homer here.  Unfortunately, their good fortune at the plate was all for naught.  The typically reliable Kenley Jansen gave up his first walk-off home run of his career and his first blown save of the season.  He was working on a 25-game consecutive save streak.  Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
"Tonight was one of those for sure head-scratchers," said Roberts. "Kenley has been lights out. You can't expect him to be perfect. I expect to have a lead tomorrow and use him again and I expect him to rebound. It's not an easy game. Got to be a man about it and turn the page."
Photo above via @Dodgers on twitter.  Below are more links to check out:
  • This Day in Dodgers History: In 1952 the Dodgers would score 15 runs in the first inning against the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field.  Pee Wee Reese would get on base three times in that inning alone.  In 2000 Adrian Beltre and Shawn Green of the Dodgers would hit grand slams to join a cavalcade of grannies hit this day throughout the league.  For the first time in history there are six grand slams hit throughout the league.
  • Via Dave Cameron at FanGraphs, "Yasiel Puig’s Other Huge Problem."
His popup rate per plate appearance over the last month is a staggering 11.8%, over five times higher than the league average. It’s easy to look at his .203 BABIP over the last month and say there’s some positive regression coming, but when you’re just hitting towering fly balls to the shortstop, that’s not bad luck; that’s bad hitting. 
"I don’t know. Maybe I was younger, more impressionable, more emotional when the Dodgers won in Brooklyn their only World Series. I had lived with the frustration of the team from 1950 through '54,” he said. “So when they won it in '55, and to know what it meant to the borough, and to know what it meant to the players who had been so frustrated, that was a very important call. And it was very simple. All I said was, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.'”

"And people said to me that winter, 'How could you have been so calm?' To be honest, I could not have said another word. I would have broken down and cried."
“I pitched two games so far and my curveball and other pitches are coming along. As the time goes on it’s going to get better,” said Ryu. “As far as the velocity and all, it’s going to come along.” 
  • Via Ken Gurnick at MLB.com; "Montas ready for Double-A rehab assignment."  He is set to pitch today for the AA Tulsa Drillers.
Montas, 23, hit triple digits in mph during a two-inning outing in extended spring training on Thursday. In his only Major League stint last year, Montas was 0-2 with a 4.80 ERA in seven games, two of them starts, with 20 strikeouts, but nine walks in 15 innings.

"We're building up his pitch count to give us the flexibility to be a starter, but I assume he's coming out of the bullpen for us," said manager Dave Roberts. "I like hearing that he's hitting a hundred. A hundred's good. Throw a hundred with command, you can help a Major League club."

* Please follow on twitter @ernestreyes *
* Dodgers Blue Heaven home page *
at

No comments:

Post a Comment