Pitching and defense win championships, the old saying goes. But you also have to score some runs, and that means that as a team you have to get on base and move around to score. Which means you have to hit, or at least bat effectively.

The Dodgers play very good defense. They play the field aggressively, they turn the important plays, they make very few errors.

They pitch well enough, although I don't think their pitching intimidates anyone. Billingsley has come apart some, Kershaw has never quite come together this season. Both pitchers are young, I know, and probably have long careers ahead of them. But neither one has his head together yet. Kuroda may not quite have his head back together yet after being hit there by a line drive earlier this season; he couldn't finish the second inning yesterday. Randy Wolf had a pretty good season; Vicente Padilla has proven to be a valuable late-season pickup. The bullpen has been reliable, the best in the National League this season, so if the Dodgers can get the game to the seventh inning with a lead or down by just a run or two, they're in pretty good shape.

It's the hitting, the effective batting, that seems to be a problem now. In three games in the National League Championship Series they've scored just eight runs – and six of those were in a losing effort in game one. In those three games, they've left 27 runners on base. And although the Dodgers swept the Cardinals in the Division Series, they left 31 runners on base in those three games.

That's 58 runners left on base in six games. Their opponents left 39.

I am not an insider; I don't have access to the Dodgers clubhouse. But I know the Dodgers coaches, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt and batting coach Don Mattingly in particular, know their craft, and I'm sure they tell their young players what those players need to be told: trust your fastball, Mr. Kershaw, and remember you have a whole team on defense behind you; be patient, Mr. Kemp, and make sure it's in your zone before you swing....

One of the criticisms of the team last year was that the younger players didn't listen to the coaches or the older players. Some of the younger players came back saying We don't need to listen to them. To me, that seemed like the wrong attitude to have. I hope that as October and postseason play continue, that attitude hasn't snuck back in under the Dodgers' caps.

Hey, Dodgers.
Did you think it was just gonna come back to you? That you didn't have to (ohmigod) try a little? Exert some effort?
Hit the ball once in awhile?
Stop reading the crap in the Times about how wonderful you are and start doing the job, guys.
Maybe you need your butts kicked from inside the clubhouse, the way Jeff Kent did last year. Stop loafing and play your hearts out!
That's all any of us fans really want. You've played the last week or ten days like you don't even have hearts.
And Joe Torre and the coaches can't do it for you. You're the ones who have to go out there and see the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball.
You still don't have enough pitching, but that doesn't matter right now. You could overcome that. But right now, you don't look like you have enough anything!
Come on, boys, play the game like you want to be there, like you want to win!

I thought it was the pitching

Dang! I thought the pitching was gonna be the Dodgers' comeuppance. The pitching has come through, although whether it will come through in the playoffs and the Series if they get there after, we'll see. But the pitching has held up, and with the addition of Padilla and Granger and Sherrill (did I leave anybody out?) okay.

But what has happened to the hitting? 10 runners left on base, 8 in scoring position. 8 runners left on base, 6 in scoring position. Manny can't find Mannywood with a compass. Kemp skies a few but not when it's most needed.

Batting is the ultimate Zen. In this moment, of this moment. See the ball, hit the ball.

Stop thinking so hard, boys; see your pitch and swing the bat. Hit that horsehide into Pasadena.

Having a Heart Attack

Having a heart attack changed my life. It could do the same for you.

A heart attack isn’t something you want to go through and I wouldn’t wish one on anybody. But if you have to have one (and some of us just can’t avoid it) you might as well embrace the changes it makes to your life. The changes can’t be avoided anymore than the heart attack, so you might as well hug them close and accept them as your own. They’re going to be with you for a long time.

I had my heart attack on Friday, June 5. Never saw it coming. No symptoms. No weakness, no shortage of breath no chest pains, no palpitations. Just a sudden wrenching, squeezing, nauseating pain that doubled me over and made me sweat blood.

I was at work when it happened; I managed to drive home. I should have called 9-1-1, but I didn’t want to admit that I had what I had. I called my wife instead.

“Call 9-1-1,” she said.

“No, I’ll wait for you,” I told her. “I’ll be okay.”

After two and a half hours of pain, I thought about praying. I don’t know why I waited so long. As soon as I started the Rosary, the pain vanished.

“I believe in God,” I said, and the pain went away. Of course I prayed the entire Rosary.

When I finished, my wife arrived home and took me to the hospital. She stayed with me through a long weekend of minimally-invasive surgical procedures, EKGs and recovery. The doctors sent me home on Monday along with a bag of drugs I have to take everyday and several pamphlets full of suggestions.

“I always thought it would be the other way around,” my wife told me. “I thought it would be you praying for me.”

The changes in my life? I get up early every morning and walk, for at least an hour. I tend to walk around the perimeter of the local golf course and collect lost golfballs. Found a TopFlight last week. I pray more. I take work less seriously, even though in these times of economic challenge the owner of the business where I work would prefer me to take it more seriously.

And my marriage has changed. After 32 years of sleeping together, my wife now sleeps alone in what used to be our son’s room. We barely talk. I get up early and go walking; she gets up and goes to work. She comes home late. We haven’t shared a meal together in a month. I have reached out to friends I hadn’t talked to in years, because I need someone to talk to. I trust she has too; I heard her on the phone with someone the other day, laughing in a way I haven’t heard her laugh in months. Hearing her laugh made me feel good for her.

I couldn’t avoid the heart attack or the changes that followed. I saw my doctor last week; he said as long as I keep walking and taking my drugs I should be just fine.

“Call me anytime,” he said. “But I don’t want to see you for six months.”

My wife feels the same way, I think.

But it’s all okay. This moment, this moment right here, is a good one. And that’s really all any of us has the right to hope for.

This was Kershaw's game.

It went 15 innings and the Dodgers lost. But this was Kershaw's game.

50 years ago, 40 years ago, Kershaw would have gone out there to pitch the ninth inning, and the guys in the field would have given their all to make sure he got the win.

End of eight innings, the Dodgers led 1 - 0. Clayton Kershaw deserved the chance to pitch the 9th and win the game for himself.

Dodger manager Joe Torre, following along with the prevailing thinking among managers, turned the game over to his closer, Jonathan Broxton.

But that was the wrong thing to do.

Broxton gave up the tying run and the game went 15 innings and the Cardinals won.

Torre should have given the ninth inning to Kershaw to win or lose.

I think he would have won.

Still Not Enough Pitching

The Dodgers still don't have enough pitching.

Sure, they lead the National League West by 7-1/2 games.

Sure, they have the best record in the major leagues at 31 - 15 after 46 games.

But the starting pitchers have not been able to pitch enough innings.

The Dodgers cannot continue to win if their starting pitchers pitch just 5 or 6 innings every game. The starting pitchers have to finish 7 or 8 innings, consistently, if the team is going to go all the way to the World Series.

The Dodger offense has come together; the Dodgers gang up on their opponents, now, hitting hit after hit after hit.

7 runs in one inning, 8 in another today.

But Stults (who has a complete game this year) couldn't finish the fifth... couldn't get credit for the win today, even though it was his to take, if he could just have nailed it down.

I am beginning to wonder about the effectiveness of Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. He was not a winner; he pitched in the major leagues for 13 years, but his overall record was 95 - 125. I remember him as a nibbler - a pitcher who tried to throw pitches that just missed the strike zone, hoping the batter would swing at them.

In today's game (5/25/09; the Dodgers won 16 - 6), the Dodger pitchers walked 11 Rockies. I guess you can get away with that in Coors Field as long as you can hit. But you can't win the division, the league or the World Series by nibbling.

You have to throw strikes.

I'm not sure the Dodgers have enough pitchers who can throw enough strikes to win the season. We'll see.

   People tend to lie to themselves. They tend to tell themselves that things are better than they really are, that those things they fear aren't really there, that everything is gonna be okay.

   Most of the time, it isn't true.

   And for the Dodgers, it's time to wake up. Guys, you don't have enough pitching!

   It's a truism in baseball that you can never have enough pitching. But the Dodgers have only two pitchers who are really capable of starting games and pitching enough innings to be meaningful: Chad Billingsley and Randy Wolf. Kuroda is still on the DL (ribcage strain), and Kershaw, Stults and McDonald are, at best, erratic. Kershaw struggled – no, let's say disappointed – in his last two starts. The boy is only 21, I know, but he's pitched a lot of ball games in his 21 years. If he doesn't know he has to throw strikes, and good ones that don't get hit out of the park, then he doesn't belong in the starting rotation of a major league team.

   The Dodgers lead the National League West right now. But if the pitchers don't step up and do the job, they won't lead it for long. And if the current roster of pitchers can't do the job, well...

   Don't lie to yourselves, Dodgers. And don't lie to us fans. You have a problem. Fix it!

The game of baseball is bigger than any one person can see, even one who is playing the game. Two cases in point: Sunday's game, Dodgers @ Diamondbacks, and Monday's game, Giants @ Dodgers.

Sunday: top of the second, Dodgers batting, one out, runners at second and third. Batter slaps the ball back toward the pitcher. Runner at third, leading off, breaks for home at the crack of the bat. Pitcher catches the ball on the fly for the second out and throws to the second baseman, who misses the base. Runner from third steps on home plate; second baseman tags the runner at second before he can get back to the base. That's the third out. Diamondbacks congratulate themselves on making the double play and leave the field. Dodgers bench coach Bob Schaefer told manager Joe Torre that the run should count, because the Diamondbacks didn't make an appeal play to third. Torre went out and talked to the umpires, who ruled that the run counted.

If the Diamondbacks had made the appeal play – pitcher gets the ball, steps on the pitcher's plate, steps off and throws the ball to the third baseman, who then touches the base, the runner would have been called out for not tagging up. It would have been the fourth out of the inning, technically a triple play since all three of the final outs resulted from a single swing of the bat. But when the Diamondbacks left the field they lost the opportunity to make the appeal. The run counted.

Hardly anybody in the park – players, fans, broadcasters, writers – knew what had happened. Some of 'em still don't know, I'm sure.

Monday: Dodgers vs. Giants, the Dodgers home opener. Orlando Hudson hits for the cycle: a single, double, triple and homerun all in the same game. First time a Dodger has done it since 1970.

"I had no idea," Hudson said. "I didn't know until the other guys in the dugout told me!"

"It's not a game for kids, is it?" asked Cecilia.

"The Dodgers lost three of their first five games?" Cecilia asked.

"Yeah," I said. "They still haven't resolved the starting pitcher situation."

"Who pitched tonight?"

"Some kid named James McDonald. Pitched two perfect innings, then gave up a homerun, three walks and hit a batter. Didn't finish the third inning."

"So..."

"So the Dodgers lost again." I huffed and puffed. "They tried to come back, but the bullpen couldn't hold on. NIne to four, Diamondbacks." 

"Oh," Cecilia said.

"And Kuroda went on the seven day disabled list because of a strained muscle in his rib cage. They call that an oblique injury, just so you won't know what it is. He pulled a muscle on his left side."

"Wasn't he scheduled to pitch tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but he won't. They brought up Stultz from the minors. He'll pitch tomorrow."

"Charley!"

"Yeah, I know."

Some people think the games played in the first month of the baseball season aren't important. "Oh," those people say. "The team is just getting itself organized. It takes time. It's still very early."

Okay, I say. Yes, it is still very early, and yes, the team is still getting itself organized. But the games you win early in the season count just as much as the games you win later. In some ways I think they count for more, because if you can win games before you know what you're doing, think how well you can do later!

Opening Day

The Dodgers open the season with twelve, count 'em, twelve pitchers. Okay, Joe Torre, I'll accept that.

"Why do they need so many?" asks Cecilia.

"Because they all have potential but none of them have really proven themselves."

"So...."

"So Joe and all the rest of us are waiting for somebody to step up."

"Dodgers won their first game of the season."

"Yep. Kuroda did a good job, and the bullpen did a good job, too. But it's only the first game."

"And?"

"Teams are only allowed to have 25 players. And if you have 12 pitchers you only get 13 more to fill the other 8 positions on the field."

"The Dodgers have a good starting lineup. But I have a bad feeling about this."

Cecilia laughed.

"You're funny, Charley," she said.

Spring Training

"When does baseball season start? my wife Cecilia asked.

"Next Monday, april 6," I replied.

"How are the Dodgers this year?"

"They need more pitching. They need a fifth starter.

Cecilia looked blank.

"A fifth starting pitcher," I said.

"Five starting pitchers seems like a lot," Cecilia said.

"Teams play five, six, sometimes seven games a week," I told her. "Current thinking is that a starting pitcher needs four days off between starts."

"I know you listen to baseball everyday during the season...."

I do. Living in Southern California, I can hear the Dodgers, Angels, Padres and sometimes the Giants on the radio, and of course I can hear every game on MLB.com.

"Was it always like that?" Cecilia asked. "Five starting pitchers on a team?"

"No." Spahn and Sain and pray for rain, I thought. "Most teams had two or three good starting pitchers and did the best they could the other days. But that was the old days. Now there are twice as many teams, the season is eight games longer and they have two series of playoffs before the World Series.

Cecilia said "So if there's twice as many teams and more games – are there enough good pitchers to go around?"

"No," I told her. "Each team needs five starters. Plus, you have to assume or at least allow for the possibility that one of your starters is going to get hurt for at least a few weeks during the season. So you need to have someone available, either in the bullpen or in the minor leagues, who can step up. Between the major league team and the AAA minor league team, you need six or seven pitchers who can start major league games."

"So that means...."

"Baseball needs 224 major league-quality starting pitchers each season. Or more."

"Two hundred and twenty-four boys who can throw fastballs...."

I smiled. "And curves and sliders and slurves and split-fingers and change-ups and knuckleballs and anything else that will get by a good hitter or make him hit it foul or hit it right into a fielder's glove."

"Oh," Cecilia said.

"And the boy has to be able to field his position: catch a line drive coming right back at him, stop a hot grounder up the middle, charge in for a bunt in front of home plate, back up a throw in from the outfield, cover first base when the first baseman gets pulled off."

"Oh."

I put my hands up, palms facing my wife. "I'm sorry," I said. "Too much information."

Cecilia smiled. "It's okay, Charley," she said. "I enjoy seeing you get enthusiastic about baseball. Maybe you should write a blog."

So maybe I will. Haha!

But it won't be just a baseball blog. It'll be a life blog. Cooking (recipes and experiences), music, romance (ha!), stamps, travel and opinion.

All told for our own entertainment, Cecilia.

Cecilia giggled when I told her that.

"Charley," she said. She grinned at me and flashed her pretty eyes. I grinned back at her.

And for your entertainment too.