Home Sweet Home
It's all balloons and bunting at the Ravine today as the Blue open their 2007 home schedule against the Rockies, in front of what will be a packed house of people (assuming they can get into the parking lot), most of whom should technically be at work or school. Everything seems about the way it should for a home opener. Plenty of fans in the park early, some guys from the Navy are parachuting into the outfield as I type, and an appropriately random opening musical act (Taylor Swift, a country singer) finished a set of four or so songs about ten minutes ago. The only thing that's a little different? The names on the uniforms, and Nancy B on the organ has replaced her normal repertoire of happy-go-lucky ballpark fare with obscure Frank Zappa B-sides.
The good news is that Grady Little is in midseason form, at least as it comes to not really answering questions of importance, but doing so with a genuinely friendly disposition. Regarding the outfield situation, for the time being, it seems that Matt Kemp will continue to hit against lefties, Andre Ethier against righties. But that doesn't mean they'll platoon, or that Ethier, who hit well against lefties in '06, won't hit against them this year. Or that Kemp won't have a chance to play everyday. Or that one will be bumped when Rafael Furcal comes off the DL.
Confused? Can't say I blame you (and the following audio won't really clear anything up). But while it makes for an interesting discussion early in the year, the Dodgers have the luxury of choosing between a variety of reasonably good options. It's always better to have too much talent than too little, and I'm not all that concerned about what they do over the first 25 games or so. In the long run, I think Ethier and Kemp, in one form or another, need to get consistent at bats, and I'm not a big believer in unnecessarily limiting players you anticipate being everyday guys down the road to only hitting against lefties or righties. If in two months we're still trying to figure this out, that could be a bigger issue.
Download grady_little_4.9 on OF situation.mp3
Download grady_little_4.9 on OF situation, Valdez, Martinez.mp3
LINEUPS- Hey, it worked yesterday.
DODGERS
Juan Pierre- CF
Russell Martin- C
Nomar Garciaparra- 1B
Jeff Kent- 1B
Gonzalez- LF
Matt Kemp- RF
Wilson Valdez- SS
Ramon Martinez- 3B
Jason Schmidt- P
ROCKIES
Willy Tavares- CF
Kazuo Matsui- 2B
Garrett Atkins- 3B
Matt Holliday- LF
Brad Hawpe- RF
Jeff Baker- 1B
Troy Tulowitzki- SS
Chris Ianetta- C
Jeff Francis- P
BK
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