Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Double Play Dodgers spells doom in Texas

Carlos Frias competed his butt off for five innings.

Then the sixth inning came, and with zero runs from his offense for support, he finally ran out of wiggle room.

The Rangers put up four runs on three hits and a couple of walks, and with the Dodgers' offense doing a big pile of nothing, there was no drama in dropping one in Texas 4-1.

I can't blame Frias too much, other than the two straight walks to open the sixth were obviously a killer.  At that point, he had made all the big pitches when he needed to, working around a few hits here and there.  Then the walks came, and the floodgates opened.

But that's beside the point.  The biggest culprit in this loss was once again the maddeningly inconsistent offense.  Actually, they have been pretty consistent the last couple of weeks - they can't score any damn runs.

Any threat the Dodgers put together was met by a giant thud.  Here's some of the "high"lights:

* Justin Turner doubled with one out in the second.  He was stranded at third after two groundouts.
* Jimmy Rollins singled (yes, really) to open the third.  He was gunned out stealing as Alberto Callaspo struck out.
* Turner singled to start the fifth, but was erased on Andre Ethier's double play ball.
* Callaspo and Joc Pederson walked to open the sixth inning of a scoreless game.  Yasiel Puig flew out, and Adrian Gonzalez grounded into the dreaded DP.
* Howie Kendrick hit an infield single to start the seventh, but another Ethier DP ended that threat.
* Yasmani Grandal hit a solo homer to begin the eighth, cutting the deficit to 4-1.  Callaspo walked and Pederson singled with one out, but Puig and A-Gon did nothing with it.
* Kendrick singled leading off the ninth, but again, nothing happened.

In case you're scoring at home, the Dodgers started six of the nine innings with a runner on, including Grandal's homer.  Take away that homer, and they did a whole lot of nothing with those runners.  They were 0-for-7 with RISP, and left six men on.

That's the most frustrating thing about this game - they had practically their A lineup in, and they couldn't do squat.  Andrew Friedman made such a big deal before the season about having a deeper lineup.  Well, that "deeper" lineup didn't bring it at all.

Here's one solution for Don Mattingly: PLAY ALEX GUERRERO!!!  I can understand wanting to get A-Gon some rest by putting him at DH.  And I know Donnie likes Callaspo for defense at third.  And I know Donnie likes Guerrero pinch-hitting.

But come on now, the guy needs to play!  Especially after the Dodgers once again laid an egg on offense, you can't ignore a guy who has 10 homers and 28 RBIs in about half the at-bats as some of the regulars.  There's no excuse not to play him now.  This team needs a spark, and if one of your sparks never gets off the bench, that's just ridiculous.

We'll see what lineup Donnie runs out there tonight, but if Guerrero isn't a part of it, then I'm about to go over to the "Fire Mattingly" side of things.

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