The Futility Infielder

My cup runneth over. Even as the Yankees' magic number to clinch the AL East has dwindled to six and the Bombers prepare for their series in Fenway, my baseball attention has turned to a race on the other coast. The Los Angeles Dodgers, who have been in first place for months and who held a six-game lead as recently as September 11, have suddenly found themselves squeezed by their archrivals, the San Francisco Giants (a.k.a. Bonds and Schmidt and the Rest Is...). By winning 9 out of 10 while the Dodgers lost 7 out of 10, the Giants moved to within a half-game of the Dodgers going into Thursday's games, the narrowest of margins.

Even with the two teams slated to play six games over the season's final two weekends, this wouldn't be cause for more than the usual extraordinary concern. But while the Dodgers have battled gamely all year, injuries to their starting rotation -- the latest being Brad Penny's swan song for the season -- have put them in a real bind, and they may well run out of pitchers before they run out of season. Like some bungee jumper standing on a precipice with an indeterminate amount of rope, the results could end in "SPLAT!"

With all that in mind, I stayed up well into the wee hours of Friday morning awaiting the West Coast returns. Through the magic of MLB.tv, I caught the second half of the Dodgers-Padres game as narrated by the greatest broadcaster in the history of professional sports, Vin Scully. The other day, I jotted something down regarding Scully over at the Will Carroll Presents blog, where Carroll understudy Scott Long started a lengthy discussion about not liking the voice of the Dodgers. Here's what I wrote:

I still get a thrill when I hear Scully call a game, one that takes me back to being nine years old and riding around in the car with my dad. With a patient turn of the knob, he could magically summon the Dodgers from a thousand miles away. Static, static, static... what the hell was he doing? Then all of the sudden I'd hear Vin coming in clear as a bell talking about Davey Lopes leading off of first base or something, and it was like a free ice cream cone had appeared in my hand.

Even now that I can summon Scully's voice from the ether myself, the thrill of hearing him describe a tense ballgame from a far coast is one I still cherish, and if the Dodgers have done nothing else during manager Jim Tracy's tenure, they've played meaningful games well into September and given me a reason to tune in again.

On Thursday, the Dodgers had sailed out to a 5-0 lead by beating up on Brian Lawrence, spot-starting for the Padres in place of the illin' David Wells. Cesar Izturis, the Dodger shortstop, started the scoring with a solo homer in the fourth and then drove in another run via a sacrifice fly. Time was where one might die laughing at the thought of a productive offensive game from Izturis; he was a HACKING MASS All-Star with OPS numbers of .556 and .597 in the past two years. But his bat, while still nowhere near Jeteresque, is now much improved, and he's hit .293/.334/.387, good for a .721 OPS. Harnessing his speed has been a huge factor in improving his game; among his 185 hits are nine triples, and he's also stolen 25 bases in 34 attempts.

The Dodgers added two more runs in the top of the fifth off of reliever Ricky Stone, but Kaz Ishii, the erratic L.A. starter, couldn't keep it together. He walked four men in the fifth before Tracy gave him the hook. All four runs eventually scored -- oh, those bases on balls! -- and the damage would have been even worse had leftfielder Jayson Werth not thrown out Ryan Klesko at home to end the inning. I had tuned in just in time to see the replay and to hear Scully say that with Ishii's departure, this was the eighth time in 13 games that the Dodger starter had failed to go five innings. Gulp.

Oddly enough, Klesko returned Werth's favor in the next half-inning... sort of. After Werth walked, Steve Finley lashed a two-out double to deep rightfield, but Klesko came up throwing and the ball beat the runner home. Home plate ump Ed Montague called Werth out to end the inning, but replays showed that Padres catcher Ramon Hernandez completely missed the tag. Even up three runs, it was a tough break for the Dodgers.

Yhency Brazoban, the babyfaced killer out of the Dodger bullpen, took over in the bottom of the sixth and quieted the Padres, but not without getting a major break. Speedy Kerry Robinson had beaten out a high chopper for an infield single to lead off the inning. Jay Payton then lined a shot up the middle, but Izturis had moved over to cover second base on the double play and found himself in the right place at exactly the right time. The ball came right to him, he stepped on the bag for the force, and threw out Payton before he'd even gotten halfway up the line.

The Dodgers threatened in the seventh thanks to two walks, but Robin Ventura, pinch-hitting for catcher Brent Mayne, struck out looking at what should have been ball four. Ventura didn't appear to argue with Montague, he just walked away exasperated. But when Montague wouldn't give Brazoban the same call in the bottom of the inning, Ventura began squawking from the bench. Montague ejected him, at which point Rockin' Robin decided to get his money's worth, charging onto the field and requiring restraint from coach Jim Riggleman. Somewhere Milton Bradley was taking notes.

Ventura's outburst came after Brazoban had gone 3-0 on Phil Nevin, having already walked Brian Giles. He recovered to retire Nevin on a fly ball, then got Rich Aurilia to ground into a double play to end the inning.

The Dodgers went on to pad their lead in the top of the ninth with a pair of runs, but Eric Gagne, who'd come on in the eighth (and even batted) ran into trouble. Terrence Long and Jay Payton -- two of the most fundamentally flawed ballplayers ever to bat back-to-back, for my money -- both singled. A sac fly scored Long, and then another single and sac fly scored Payton. But the Padres ran out of outs and baserunners, and Gagne rang up Aurilia to end the game.

As if that hadn't been enough excitement, the Giants-Astros game simultaneously became very interesting. Behind Jason Schmidt, the Giants had taken a 3-0 lead into the seventh. The Astros chipped away with a run in the seventh and then another in the eighth, chasing Schmidt in the process. Dustin Hermanson came on to save the game for the Giants in in the ninth, but allowed two singles before Lance Berkman hit a wind-assisted three-run homer to give the 'Stros the lead. Hermanson then hit Jeff Kent with a pitch, drawing an ejection for himself and for manager Felipe Alou (apparently hostilities had already taken place and both benches had been warned). Houston scored two more times to rub a bit of sand in the Giants faces while keeping their own Wild Card hopes alive. Mmmm good stuff.

• • •

The big news concerning the Dodgers on Friday is Shawn Green's compromising position. The Dodger first baseman/outfielder, who is Jewish, will sit out one game in observance of Yom Kippur but not both. The holiday technically begins at sundown on Friday night and runs until sundown on Saturday, meaning two games will be played in that span this year.

Looking back to the relatively recent past, Green played on Yom Kippur in 2002, sat in 2001 (breaking a streak of 415 consecutive games), didn't need to decide as his season was over by the time the holiday rolled around in 2003, 2000, and 1998, and his team had an off-day in 1999.

Said Green, "I'm not orthodox. I am Jewish and I respect the customs, and I feel like this is the most consistent way for me to celebrate the holiday." Looking at his track record, the split decision isn't inconsistent. As a less-than-fully-observant Jew as well as a Dodger fan, I can certainly live with it. He's no Sandy Koufax -- recall that the lefthander declined to pitch the 1965 World Series opener against the Minnesota Twins in observance of Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday -- but he's trying to stand on principle while balancing the needs of his team at a time when they need him, and if that's not a mensch, I don't know what is.

Today Lee Sinins, who writes the invaluable Around the Majors newsletter, criticized Green's decision in his typically blunt fashion, "It's the equivalent of deciding that a religious holiday only applies to one game of a doubleheader." Lee rides a pretty high horse when it comes to fun stuff like no-hitters and insists on telling us what a crappy ballplayer somebody was the instant that death takes him away ("[Ken] Brett had a 3.93 career ERA, compared to his league average of 3.66, and -34 RSAA in 349 games with 10 teams from 1967-81 (except 1968). He ranked in the top 10 in the AL in worst RSAA twice," he wrote the day after Brett died of cancer at the age of 55). So I'll say this: put a sock in it, Sinins, and go watch your Mets instead of pontificating about how holy somebody else should be.