Affiliate shuffle

"Bubba" mentioned the Cubs signing a player-development contract with the Tennessee Smokies in a comment and asked about the other openings in the Southern League. It seemed logical to start a new thread about that.

www.ballparkwatch.com is a great place to track the affiliate shuffle -- and any off-the-field baseball news. They list three Class AA openings (San Antonio, Mobile and West Tenn) and three major-league teams needing affiliates (Mariners, Padres and Diamondbacks).

San Antonio had the Mariners and wants to look around. San Antonio will get first choice among the three suitors. Mobile will get the second pick and West Tenn will get whatever team is left.

There are two other affiliates where the signings are only a formality: Bowie and the Orioles, Reading and the Phillies.

The Devil Rays won't be back in Michigan. With Southwest Michigan becoming the Great Lakes Loons in Midland, Mich., the new franchise is flirting with the Dodgers, according to the site. The Rays could stay in the Midwest League (Clinton, Iowa??) but would prefer a South Atlantic League entry. Savannah and Columbus, Ga., are open. Savannah would be a better situation for the Rays.

The Dodgers will probably move their spring training to Arizona in two years and may sell their Vero Beach franchise in the high-Class A Florida State League to the Devil Rays. The Rays will move the franchise to their new complex in Port Charlotte that opens in 2009. If that happens, I'd expect the Rays to stay in Visalia for the next two years.

The affiliate dance will end this week. After that, Minor League Baseball starts matching up stragglers.

Game 119: Dodgers vs Florida Marlins 4:2

In a game like this, tonight's series opener against the other major Latino-community team, the Florida Marlins, it almost feels unfair that the Dodgers get so many lucky breaks both on offense and defence. This game could have easily gone the other way, and justifiably so.

If you take away a couple of Dodger bloop hits (past the fifth inning), a couple of groundball double plays by Derek Lowe and at least two misfortunate plays for Dontrelle Willis, the game was even closer than the final score indicates. Then again, why would we want to take anything away from these streaking Dodgers? :). For now I will just enjoy the breakthrough early-to-mid August and take something like borderline Gio Carrara pitch to end the seventh for granted ;).

A couple of observations, back in the huddle:

(1) When is the right time for the veterans to step it up a notch? Nomar Garciaparra did hit the game-breaking home run tonight, but how about Jeff Kent and JD Drew having the same breakout series? I mean, c'mon guys, it's not like there's fifty more games to play. Ehmmm, ok, there's forty-three... Get going!

(2) See how patient and opportunistic these "recent" Dodgers are? They got like six base on balls tonight and then used their happy feet to get over into the scoring positions. Who is the slowest Dodger on the basepaths apart from Olmedo Saenz and Kent? I haven't noticed, to be honest... One thing for sure - the Monday evening version of the Marlin defense did not help find any flows in the LA baserunning.

(3) It was anticlimatic that Saenz struck out with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of what I believe was the sixth inning. The stadium was rolling and with the score 2-1 Dodgers at the time, I'm sorry it was not meant for him (by Willis' fastball) to come through once again and bust the game open a bit earlier.

(4) Raffy Furcal has now hit safely in 18 of his last 19 games. Better late than never, huh? ;)

Sele Demoted To Bullpen

As expected, Aaron Sele was demoted to the bullpen, leaving open the question of whether the Old Professor will be any better over the remainder of the season.

Game 96: Dodgers @ Arizona Diamondbacks 2:5

Sorry for the delay. I hadn't received Marcin's email asking me to do the summary for this game.

The Dodgers had another lackluster game, but at least the kids are hitting. Oh wait, that was a Diamondbacks kid

New Dodger Mark Hendrickson kept his record perfect since joining the Dodgers. Perfectly abysmal, now reaching the 0-3 mark.

This was the Dodgers' sixth loss in their last seven games.

"I just see a team that things just aren't happening
for them right now," Los Angeles manager
Grady Little said. "The effort is there. It's something
we've got to get through."

Hendrickson lasted 5 1-3 innings, allowing five runs and nine hits.

"One of those games that's kind of frustrating because
I felt like I had pretty good stuff," Hendrickson said.

Hmmm, could have fooled me that it was a good game.

The Dodgers offense were dominated by Brandon Webb. They definitely didn;t look like the National League leading team with a .280 batting average. The Dodgers hit into four double plays.

"He's not the guy we wanted to see today," Little said.
"He was on the top of his game. A couple of times
there we thought we had a chance, and then here comes
that double play ball and that was the story."

It seems that any pitcher is who the Dodgers don;t want to see lately.

It was a nice touch of the fan who caught Quentin's first career homerun back to him without even asking for anything in return.

I like that. Shows class. Well, unless its a Steroid Boy home run.

"The guy gave it back," Quentin said. "He didn't want anything.
He wrote me a note. I think I'm going to send him maybe
a bat or something, and say thank you."

Bleeding Blue

Last night saw my annual trip to Chavez Ravine with a friend to watch the Dodgers battle the visiting Cubs. As is generally the case, the loveable losers had a vocal contigent on hand to cheer on the cursed team.

Dodgers Stadium is a fine place to watch a game and reminds me some of the place I grew up watching baseball, Kaufmann Stadium in Kansas City. Surprisingly enough for a city built on appearances, Dodgers Stadium still feels more like a ballpark than it does a "stadium."

We bought some seats for $20 in the outfield, but by the third inning were seated firmly behind home plate on the first base side.

The Dodgers led throughout, but 3 runs for the visiting Cubs in the 8th were enough to give them the series 2 games to 1.

In my opinion, recent addition Juan Pierre was without question the player of the game. His tenacity and fundamental play were enough produce 4 total bases and 2 steals. Pierre is a "ballplayers ballplayer," to use that cliche. Without question he could fit nicely into any era (provided it was an era that allowed blacks the right to play).

Another story of note was the sprained wrist suffered by Derrek Lee in the bottom half of the 7th inning.

Juan Pierre

The Los Angeles Dodgers

The view of the nostalgic Dodgers' scoreboard in right field.

San Diego Padres

First of all, sorry about the layoff. The past week has been filled with family, Disneyland, Universal Studios, The Reagan Library (I'm a devout liberal, but the library was still pretty interesting), All In The Timing, San Diego Zoo and PETCO Park. No time whatsoever to do any blogging, which is kind of nice sometimes.

The wife and I spent our first wedding anniversary in San Diego where, amongst other things, we took in a San Diego Padres game. The whole weekend made me wish that Los Angeles and San Diego were flipped geographically so I could drive the short 60 miles into town, park downtown, stop somewhere and get a bit to eat and a beer, and then hoof it to see a Padres game at beautiful PETCO Park rather than fight traffic, hit McDonald's so I have something to eat while I wait in the parking lot line, hike a monster hill because I'm not allowed to enter on the field level, and then sit in the parking lot for hours trying to go home at a Dodgers game. And this comes from someone who really likes Dodger Stadium.

Let me give you one big warning though. Do not, whatever you do, think that you will buy merchandise at the Padres Team Store inside PETCO Park. You will find nothing that a normal, sane person would find reasonably priced, so just suck it up and buy a t-shirt somewhere else before hitting the park. It will save you some serious gasping and moaning.

I fully intended to make a purchase on Sunday at the team store. I love all of the old brown and gold merchandise that the Padres used to wear and they now sell at top dollar. I expected the prices to be outrageous, but sometimes that's what you have to pay for quality. Well, once I looked at a Moonlight Graham shirt that was priced at over $80, my heart sunk. I perused the section some more and found nothing worth purchasing.

So I turned my attention on some new merchandise. It was then that I realized just how boring the Padres logo is (I like simple and classic, but the Padres logo and color scheme are downright depressingly dull). I walked around the store looking at $60 throw blankets and $35 plain t-shirts featuring this painfully boring logo and found nothing. My wife found a nice, simple $40 t-shirt and I nearly fainted.

Then I found it, the perfect shirt. A Nike t-shirt with the Padres script and the old Friar embroidered right on the front and the "SD" logo on the sleeve. It was a very nicely designed, classy t-shirt that I would have worn all of the time. When I looked at the $60 price tag I exclaimed very loudly "holy shit!" (the mom with her kids right behind me didn't appreciate that very much and she shot me the nastiest look). Wondering if that could possibly be right, I asked a friendly Padres employee if it was marked correctly. She seriously laughed in my face and said that it was. So I slinked out of the Team Store sad and dejected.

Luckily the rest of the day made up for it. The ballpark was beautiful, the food was good, the game was exciting and there was no traffic on the way home. I just don't have a souvenir to show for it.