28 and counting

Can't blame Grady for this one. Kids and Vets all in funk. What next?
David

WOW......The DOdgers actually played KEMP & EITHIER in the lineup at the same time!........And u would think id be cool with that right?.........WRONG.......now Grady LIttle benches GONZO LOL..........man........what is up with this guy...........HE'LL PLATOON KEMP & EITHIER........HE'LL BENCH GONZO............But he puts in PIERRE almost everyday as if he was his son

AND NED COLLETI KEEPS LETTING GRADY PLAY PIERRE OVER THE OTHER 3.......AND THE MCCOURTS keep letting this happen

Cam,

I understand your desire for the bunt with Kemp, but generally guys aren't asked to do things they've not done before (I know there has to be a first time).

Teams have slumps, although rarely this extended/protracted. Actually, if you check, after the Dodgers won the first game in Houston (Billingsley shutout?), they stopped hitting there (a hitter's park), went on to Colorado (another hitter's park) and continued to scuffle. Then, they came home, won 1 from SF and got swept by AZ. This is now approaching 3 weeks with very poor hitting.

A team with this mix of veterans and rookies shouldn't fall into this. Where is the experienced leadership to help thru the rough spots? We know Forrest is incapable of providing it. Kent, Gonzo, Nomar, Pierre, Furcal? Saenz, Lieberthal on the bench? That should be enough. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

how pathetic. you know whats funny too, cant blame the players. none of them. this manure is all the coaching staff. from littleleague to honeybutt and all the way down to warthog. no motivation, accountability, or encouragement only coddeling. they need to work the good pitchers to high pitch counts and be really aggressive to weaker pitchers. thats what the other teams are doing to us. no aggression on the bases, or stupid decisions (prob the base coaches). grady sits on his ass when the guys need a kick in the ass during the game. just sad. i spend all my time studying the lakers cuz my favorite team looks like horsesh*t. the whole coaching staff needs to go. bring in joe giardi!!!

A fish stinks from its head -- and it's Grady. This man has so demoralized his team that it is paralyzed like a deer in the headlights. From top to bottom, they have become a collective mental case.
In football, a coach watches films until midnight. Our guy plays hunches. Watch an Angel game and see how a real manager plays the percentages and motivates his team.
Here are my thoughts. Pierre works the count to three and two of them will foul off three or four Ball fours and then hit a weak ground ball for an easy out. He should be told his job is to get on base and if he continues to swing at balls and avoid walks at any cost, he sh will benched for a few days. I guarantee you he will then get the message. Rafael over swings all the time. He should just be trying to make solid contact. Both he and Pierre should choke down and try to make solid contact. Pierre hits so many weak fly balls in the outfield, you wonder what the hell he is doing.
Andre is a natural hitter who has been demoralized by being relegated to number eight in the batting order and a part time player He is a proven 300 major league hitter and will eventually find a home elsewhere or after his contract runs out. He needs to learn how to pull the ball by standing closer to the plate and opening his stance. He hits too many weak fly ball to left field. He has enormous potential. Nomar has seen better days as has Luis.
Finally, I would have traded both James and Matt for Teixara. These two guys are just prospects who have not really proven themselves. Matt strikes out 25% of the time and his fielding lapses cost us two games against the Mets. Moreover he can't hit anything other than a fastball, which he will rarely see any more. Same thing for the tomato. Mark on the other hand is capable of hitting 45 home runs and driving in 140 runs.
They've missed it big by not making that trade.
At the end of the day, our manager is incompetent. He batsfthe tomato number four in the lineup even though he is batting 180. Grady was even ba tting Martinez ahead of Andre., a guy who is batting 400 in July.
I could go on, but what good does it do. That idiot will just go on on managing until he is fired. But, management extended his contract. What idiots!

This is my first comment. I have been a Dodger fan since a young lefty won 20+ games for Montreal, and I wondered why he wasn't brought up to Brooklyn. I wonder if the present team is trying to match the Bulldogs scoreless innings record by not hitting. I don't think that Coletti is to blame for this, he has done his best and couldn't forsee Schmidt's injury as well as the others, he is only mortal. Most of the blogs were for keeping the youngsters, which he did. Now you are blaming him for not making a trade, which makes him wrong whatever he did. I think he did well, it isn't his fault that the overpaid old guys have decided to quit all at once. As for the manager, what about Dusty Baker, he is no longer an enemy with the Giants. I do beleive that the manager must be blamed for the actions of the players as he has the say in who plays and who sits. By the way, it was Joe Garagolia, when he was an announcer who said "The Dodger pitchers are the only ones in baseball who have to throw a shutout to get a tie", also he said that Drysdale was in DC for some reason and was told that Koufax had thrown another no-hitter, Drysdale's comment was, "Did he win?"

CrzyFan -

The Dbacks have young, mostly home-grown talent. Enough of it that they were able to send down the prospect who was supposed to be their everyday right fielder for the next few years (Quentin) - the 20th best prospect in all of MLB last year and bring up a 19 year old replacement (Justin Upton) who was either the 1st or 2nd highest prospect in all of MLB this year. Can't cheer you up, because in order to duplicate what the Dbacks are doing, you would have to wait for the Dodger's Farm system to produce enough quality players to field about 2/3 of an everyday team. If you can't do that, then you have to do what Coletti has done and go out and spend a lot of money on leftovers who are in their late 30s or higher. Sometimes that works (Dbacks World Series win 2001) - and sometimes it doesn't (Dodgers slipping from 1st to 4th in the span of 11 days)