Except, that is, for when I have thoughts longer than 140 characters (not often).
Anyway, the Dodgers stand 6-4 after ten games, and I have some thoughts.
1. I'm still worried about this somewhat patchwork roster. Of the 25 men to make the roster, I'm still at unease with five of them.
Hector Gimenez had a good spring, but, frankly, he's looked overmatched more than a few times in the major leagues. He's on the DL now, with a phantom knee injury and I'm in no hurry to get him back.
Aaron Miles. I don't get the point. He's not a good hitter, not a great fielder. Jamey Carroll does everything he does and does it better. I guess with health questions hanging over the heads of both Rafael Furcal (who, as I'm writing this, it turns out has a broken thumb) and Casey Blake, you need another utility infielder around. I just wish we had better options than Miles. I'm no big fan of Ivan De Jesus, but at least he can provide the club some defensive value. And Mattingly won't be tempted to bat him leadoff or second.
Mike MacDougal and Lance Cormier. MacDougal was good at one point, but that was many moons ago. He's been ok so far in his relief appearances, giving up just a homerun over three innings of work. Cormier isn't a great option, barely squeaked onto the roster at the end of Spring Training, and has already given up four runs in four innings. I'm guessing Vicente Padilla, whenever he returns, kicks out Cormier and we just end up hoping MacDougal doesn't blow up in our faces, but that's really less than ideal.
AJ Ellis/Dioner Navarro. Ok, so this is more a technicality. Navarro wasn't really on the Opening Day roster and he's the one I have more of a problem with, but this is my blog, so deal with it. I'm not a big proponent of AJ Ellis. I like his on-base skills, but he has the power stroke of a four year old girl. Still, he seems to call a pretty decent game, and he's more than comfortable with our starting pitchers. And it's not like Dioner Navarro, who hit .258/.294/.323 in Spring Training (and .194/.270/.258 last year) is really a guaranteed offensive improvement. If Mattingly is intent on catching Rod Barajas almost every day (though in fairness to Mattingly, the way his roster was built, he has little choice), then I'm ok with Ellis as backup. Again, this is really less than ideal. It's an unfortunate by-product of the way this roster was put together.
2. If this team wants to continue to do well this season, we're going to need some players to not regress too much, and others to progress a whole lot more.
I love what Matt Kemp has done this first week and a half. He's been a man on fire. It's fantastic. But before we all freak out too much, let's not forget that Kemp, in his first 10 games last season, hit .333/.385/.756 with five homeruns, four doubles, and five walks. And we all remember how last season turned out. I'm not trying to be a downer, but I'm just reminding everyone that the .441 batting average Kemp has right not is almost certainly going to drop.
The key is making sure it doesn't drop too much.
The same goes for Tony Gwynn. He's had a pretty solid start to the season. And I really like the defense he provides in the outfield. But I have doubts we can trust him to continue hitting .333 like he has so far. However, if he can stay somewhere in the high .200s and continue with his excellent defense, I'll be ok with him taking a majority of the starts in left field.
On the flip side, Juan Uribe and James Loney are killing me. Both are hitting in the .100s (.129 and .154 respectively) and neither is drawing walks or getting extra base hits (0 BB, 1 2B for Uribe; 2 BB, 1 2B, 1 HR for Loney). These were the two guys expected to battle it out to be the third option behind Ethier and Kemp on offense. Instead, it feels like the entire offense is resting its hopes on Ethier, and more so Kemp to get anything done. The 5, 6, 7 spots in the lineup have been a black hole.
If these two can turn it on, I'll feel a lot better about our chances in 2011.
And isn't how I feel what really matters?
