Dodgers scoring output as predictable as the lineup

The Dodgers played three in Colorado over the weekend, and the team's offensive performance played out exactly as it has for the last three weeks. The best production came with left-handed hitters stacked against right-handed pitchers. So, why would the Dodgers deviate from a successful approach?

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

We find ourselves on the edge of a Dodgers-Giants kind of thing again, though not the kind on which the glory of this rivalry was built.

Instead, we see two flagging teams, both beset by injury, just hoping their pitchers can miss enough bats to minimize the beatings. The Dodgers have been losing their games and the Giants have been winning theirs, but the general blueprint is the same. However, because the Dodgers have been losing their games and the Giants have been winning theirs, the Giants now are within three games of the Dodgers for the NL West lead.

The Dodgers lost two of three in Colorado during the weekend, extending their losing streak to five games, then ending it there, then losing again. The details are dreary enough, but the predictability of the results makes this losing special. You can tell if the Dodgers are going to score by reading the lineup card.

Suppose you visited our lush offices last Friday and made the following proposition: "The Dodgers are in Colorado this weekend for three games. In one game, they will face a left-handed starting pitcher. In another, they will stack four or five left-handed hitters against a right-handed starter. In the remaining game, the Dodgers will break up their left-handed hitters against a right-handed starter. How will the Dodgers fare in these games?"

Our reply would have gone something like this: "We cannot predict wins and losses. In general, the Dodgers pitch it and catch it well enough to win every game. However, based on recent trends and results, which is the best we can go on with an ever-fluctuating situation like a baseball team, the offense is easy to predict. The Dodgers will produce next to nothing offensively against the left hander, they will score six runs when they stack the left-handed hitters against the right hander, and they will produce next to nothing offensively when they break up the left-handed hitters against the right-handed starter."

That prediction would have come true. That's incredible. Why would we predict that? Because that's exactly what's been going on with this club for three weeks.

The Dodgers lost the Friday night game, 13-3, against left-handed starter Josh Outman, filling in for released left hander Jamie Moyer.  The Dodgers lined up a mighty arsenal of right-handed hitters, starting with Jerry Hairston in the clean-up position, followed, in order, by Scott Van Slyke, Alex Castellanos and Matt Treanor. Guess what? They actually did some damage -- five for 12 with all three runs and RBI, along with a double, a triple and a stolen base. Of course, they did it all against right-handed relievers.

For the middle game against right hander Juan Nicasio, the Dodgers featured their core-and-shell type of lineup so often described by now within this journal. Same guys -- Bobby Abreu, Andre Ethier, Adam Kennedy, James Loney and A.J. Ellis, three through seven. The main component is that the first four are left-handed hitters.

The Dodgers scored six runs, because that's what this core has produced every time it has gone out there since Matt Kemp first went on the disabled list. The Dodgers won, 6-2. The core went seven for 20 with two runs and four RBI, along with four walks, two doubles and a homer. The core hitters were three for six with a double and a homer against Matt Reynolds, the first left-handed reliever of the game.

Closing out the series on Sunday, the Dodgers faced Colorado right hander Alex White with the lineup splitting the left-handed hitters, replacing Kennedy in the order with Hairston. The whole lineup generated three hits in a 3-2 loss.

We say, again, go with the hot hand. The Dodgers can maintain their stack of left-handed hitters and get Hairston into the lineup by moving Tony Gwynn down to No. 5 and putting Hairston in the lead-off position. We don't think Adam Kennedy is some kind of magic ingredient making that lineup tick. We think that when you don't have a dominant right-handed hitter around, a stack of left-handed hitters who are better is the best attack on a right-handed starter.

At some point, we're starting to think, it wears on the pitcher. Look again at Loney, the last of four straight left handed hitters in that middle game. He went two for five with a double. As the last of four straight left-handed hitters since Kemp first went out, in each case batting right behind Kennedy, Loney is hitting .387 (12 for 31). And the Dodgers have won all seven of those games. Every game the Dodgers have lost to a right-handed starter since Kemp went out, the Dodgers broke up the left-handed hitters.

You might say that the sample sizes here aren't large enough for making predictions of the sort we suggested above. But we don't get large sample sizes for making these predictions. The baseball club is always changing. Players are injured, people get called up, trades are made and your combinations of available players are rarely the same from week to week. How would the stacked lineup of these players fare in the long run? There is no long run. So, just ride it while it's hot because it's there and nothing else is.

The Giants were 25-23, 7 1/2 games behind the Dodgers on May 28, when they went home to Pac Bell Park for seven games against two weak hitting clubs, the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants won five of the six games played through Sunday, outscoring their foes, 16-11. The Giants took two of the wins by one run and the other three by two runs.

For doing just that much, the Giants closed their deficit to three games behind the Dodgers. Which shows how precarious and stable is the Dodgers' lead, all at the same time. It also makes the Dodgers’ reticence about using a successful lineup all the more puzzling.

With left approach, Dodgers can solve righties

Matt Kemp is injured again, and the Dodgers were starting to lose their grip against right-handed pitching even before Kemp returned from the disabled list the first time. However, the Dodgers have demonstrated an approach to right handers that works. The question is whether they will go back to it.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Dodgers reached their first three-game losing streak of the season Wednesday night, the same night Matt Kemp's hamstring gave out again following a one-day return.

You might say this is the low point of the Dodgers season. Some low point -- first place, 5 1/2-game lead, best record in baseball. But the low points can plumb much lower, and this is precisely what is feared most in blue heaven.

As we endure the horror of this three-game losing streak, we look back on happier times, when the results were so satisfying despite a very long disabled list that has included Kemp, Jerry Hairston, Juan Rivera, Juan Uribe, Mark Lewis and Ted Lilly. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly somehow held the house together by his mode of tinkering that looks in one light like drawing names from a hat and looks in another light like interesting development.

But even before Kemp's brief return from the disabled list, it appeared this club's offensive foundation was cracking. The one attribute the Dodgers had demonstrated, with or without Kemp, was the ability to beat right-handed starting pitchers. The Dodgers won 20 of their first 25 games against right-handed starters. Since then, though, the Dodgers have lost four of their last five against right-handed starters.

This three-game losing streak is all against right-handed starters. A week ago, it was almost inconceivable that the Dodgers couldn't tack up six runs against most of the world's right handers. Then, just like that, they're being taken to the woodshed by Lucas Harrell and Michael Fiers.

About a week ago, our fascination with how Mattingly transformed the batting order without Kemp led to an analysis of the new lineup against right-handed pitching as a core and a shell. The core was four left-handed batters consecutively -- Bobby Abreu, Andre Ethier, Adam Kennedy and James Loney -- followed by A.J. Ellis in the seven hole. The results were rather impressive.

This particular core has taken six starts against right handers since Kemp first went on the disabled list. That lineup's output: six wins and 40 runs, nearly seven per game. The details of the core's first four games are discussed here. The hitters in the core, within the six games, are hitting .350 (40 for 114) with 22 runs and 20 RBI.

The core played its fifth game together on May 22 at Arizona. The Dodgers won, 8-7. Not a spectacular night for the core, which went five for 17, but it produced runs with just the right amount of tapping. For example, Mattingly decided in the seventh inning of that game, with the bases loaded, to pinch hit for Kennedy with Ivan DeJesus. The last time the Dodgers faced a right-handed starter, Mattingly took down Kennedy for Scott Van Slyke against a left-handed reliever in the sixth inning and Van Slyke hit a three-run homer to beat St. Louis, 6-5. This time, DeJesus hit a sacrifice fly in his pinch at-bat, then won the game in the ninth with a two-run double. Another golden victory.

Then, as always, the dynamics of the club changed. As a most welcomed development, Jerry Hairston returned from the disabled list, and, naturally, the manager wants him in the lineup. And you certainly aren't thinking that the reason your lineup bashes right-handed starters is because you have Adam Kennedy at third base in the No. 5 hole. It's seeming at this point like every time you pinch hit for Kennedy, you score three runs.

So, Hairston goes into the lineup against the next right hander, batting fifth at third base, on May 25. Hairston did fine -- one for three with a walk and an RBI. But the lineup, which was otherwise unchanged, laid an egg. The core was only three for 14 and the shell (the bottom two and top two slots in the order) was four for 18. The Dodgers lost, 3-1, to Houston and Harrell.

OK. So, let's go back to the core with Kennedy included on May 26, with the Astros tossing right hander Bud Norris at Dodger Stadium. And it's another winning performance by the core with four straight left-handed hitters. The core went seven for 19 with four runs, four RBI and a homer. The Astros won, 6-3, on Ellis's three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth.

Monday night, against Milwaukee and Shaun Marcum at Dodger Stadium, Mattingly went back to the version of the core that broke up the left-handed hitters by batting Hairston fifth. The core did a less productive job -- seven for 22  with only one run and two RBI. Again, Hairston was fine -- two for three with an RBI and a walk. But the lineup was terrible. The shell, in particular, finished the night one for 16 with a run and nine strikeouts. The Dodgers lost, 3-2.

The last two nights, with Kemp in the starting lineup, Mattingly has tried some other combinations, including an order Wednesday night that had Loney batting second against Yovanni Gallardo. The Dodgers lost again, 6-3, their fourth loss in five games against a right-handed starting pitcher.

Now, with Kemp back on the shelf for a while, the Dodgers are scuffling all of a sudden, but they need not scuffle too much. At least, we know they have a productive approach with what they have against right handers. The problem with that approach is that lining up four consecutive left-handed hitters clashes with getting Hairston into the lineup at third base.

Look what's happened here. All the manager did was take Adam Kennedy out of the lineup against right handers and put Jerry Hairston in his place. Hairston produced, added value to the lineup, yet, the lineup tanked. Kennedy was nothing special in that slot, just six for 22 (.273) inflated by one four-for-four game. As No. 5, Kennedy drove in just two runs in six games. Hairston matched that in two games.

It doesn't add up. Then, again, it's not supposed to add up. Lineups aren't the sort of things that add up, like ledgers, balance sheets and math problems. Lineups either work or they don't. We might say of a successful balance sheet that it adds up. We say of a successful lineup that it works.

And when something works, you keep working it until it doesn't work anymore, or until you no longer must work it. In times of widespread injury, baseball management operates by the seat of its pants. Long-run statistical samples about this or that player or combination are not here to help. You need to win a game today. You’re past seeking the best probability. You’re down to your best chance, period. It’s good to know that something works.

Here's a tidbit about Loney as the last lefty: In the six games in which Loney batted sixth, right behind Kennedy, in the order against right-handed pitchers, Loney batted .385 (10 for 26) with a .928 OPS. Coincidence? No. Just an indication of how deep that lineup runs against right-handed starters.

But maybe Loney as the fourth consecutive left-handed hitter against a right-handed starter is quite better than the guy we normally see, and if there are reasons why stacking left-handed bats has worked so well, that might be one of them. So, here is a vote to going back to stacking a core of left-handed hitters  against right handed starters. Let’s test that out a little more.

And if you're worried that four straight left-handed hitters will be easy pickings for the other guy's left-handed reliever in the seventh inning, don't be. The left-handed hitters in that Dodgers core are seven for 12 against the first left-handed reliever during those six games.

The shell of that Dodgers lineup against right handers now is on its third iteration, since Mattingly relented and wrote in Dee Gordon as the No. 8 hitter for the May 22 game at Arizona. Here is how Gordon has responded in eight games at No. 8: 10 for 28 (.357 average) with a .400 on-base and a .793 OPS. He has walked a couple times, stolen a couple bases and scored four runs.

With Ellis batting right in front of Gordon, you now have two ways to start the offense from the bottom of the order, because Ellis knows how to get on and Gordon can do damage when he's on. If Gordon starts your inning by reaching, he can steal second, your pitcher can bunt him to third and you score on a sacrifice fly, at worst.

Then, we come around to the leadoff hitter, who has typically been Tony Gwynn against right handers. In his games leading off against righties for the last two weeks, Gwynn is nine for 33 (.273) with five runs and six RBI. Following Gwynn is Elian Herrera, who has 15 strikeouts and 14 hits, but he's also batting .292.

Submitted for your approval, then, is a modest proposal for how the Dodgers should arrange their batting order against right-handed pitching.

First, drop Gwynn from the lead off position and put him in the five hole. Then, put Hairston in the leadoff spot at third base. Playing the game in such a tough, engaging way, Hairston sets a good tone to begin the game for the Dodgers. He knows how to take a pitch and navigate the bases. Follow Hairston with second baseman Herrera, a switch hitter with speed.

After Herrera, march up the core, four straight left-handed hitters -- it actually becomes five straight left-handed hitters because Herrera switches. We'll call the proposed core Abreu in left, Ethier in right, Gwynn in center and Loney at first. After that, it's Ellis batting seventh and catching, followed by Gordon eighth at short, then the pitcher. If Ellis is on or Gordon has something working on the bases when the leadoff man comes up, then you're back to Hairston, who can hit line drives.

This obviously isn’t an everyday lineup, and we haven’t begun to consider how the Dodgers might attack left-handed starters. However, there is enough here, perhaps, to illustrate that the Dodgers ought to hold their own against right handers as they weather the newest storms.

Minus Kemp, Dodgers not down vs. right handers

With Matt Kemp joining the Dodgers' disabled list, the club looked to be in trouble. But manager Don Mattingly has pieced together a productive lineup against right-handed pitching, and the Dodgers only figure to see three troublesome lefties in a 14-game stretch.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

With four players from the Dodgers opening day lineup sitting on the disabled list, Don Mattingly has resorted to managing. Heck, he's the only guy still around who isn't hurt. He has to do something.

Mattingly is left with a cast of old guys, rookies and veteran role players, almost none of whom profiles as an everyday performer at this moment. Thus, an everyday lineup with this group is out of the question. Mattingly has two names that will be in the lineup every day until some other players return -- Andre Ethier and A.J. Ellis. Let's just say it: barring further injury. Everything else is up for grabs.

But the Dodgers keep winning, anyway. They’re up to 28-13 now, the best record in the game, coming off nine wins in their last 11 home games. Just looking at the Dodgers active roster at the moment, it’s hard to see any buttons for Mattingly to push, but he keeps finding a few and they keep opening up the scoreboard.

The most obvious way to view Mattingly's task is to consider two different kinds of adversary -- left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers. When last we checked on the Dodgers, their temporary lineups against left handers shaped up as a problem. In the Dodgers’ last four games, though, their lineup against right-handed starters has been a fascinating development -- and productive, too, cranking out at least six runs in each game.

The lineup against right handers might be divided into two parts. Off the top of our head, we'll call them the core and the shell. The core of the lineup has been constant through the last four games, all of them wins against opposing right-handed starters. It starts with Bobby Abreu batting third in left field, followed, in order, by Andre Ethier in right, Adam Kennedy at third base, James Loney at first and A.J. Ellis catching.

After batting Ellis fifth to break up his left-handed hitters earlier in the week against Arizona right hander Ian Kennedy, Mattingly has moved Ellis to seventh, which lines up four lefties -- Abreu through Loney -- all in a row. The effect on right-handed starters has been startling.

The hitters in the core are 29 for 78 (.372) with 18 runs and 14 RBI in the last four games, through May 20. The Dodgers had 20 offensive innings in which the core hitters were at least half of the hitters who batted. In those 20 innings, the Dodgers scored 14 times for 25 runs.

With that core of veteran left-handed hitters, one coming right after another, the Dodgers are scoring more and at least as consistently as they scored with Matt Kemp in the lineup. Remember, though, this is only against right-handed starting pitchers. Which raises the obvious objection to Mattingly's core; to wit, doesn't he play into the hands of the opposing manager by lining up his left-handed hitters that way? Now, the other side can shut down your core in the seventh with one left-handed reliever, then that core has to deal with the closer in the ninth. One response for Mattingly might be to march up right-handed hitters against the lefty reliever.

But Mattingly doesn't take the bait. By bringing up right-handed pinch hitting that early, he would cook his bench and leave himself without left-handed hitting after the other guys run out of left-handed pitching. If the other side has a good left-handed closer, you might look at it differently. Otherwise,  Mattingly is keeping his left-handed core together, at least through the seventh inning. And that core has responded by scoring against those left-handed relievers. The left-handed hitters in that core are five for nine against lefties in the last four games. In those games, the core has come up for three innings against left handers and the Dodgers scored every time for a total of six runs.

Mattingly will replace Abreu defensively late in games and he'll rest a top guy or two for a couple innings if the Dodgers are winning big. But he likes to leave the left handers in there against a wave of left-handed relief. The hitters have made that the correct decision. Except when Mattingly decides otherwise, and that becomes a correct decision, too.

The Dodgers trailed St. Louis, 5-2, as they batted in the bottom of the seventh Sunday night at Dodger Stadium. The inning began at the top of the order with Tony Gwynn flying out and Elian Herrera singling against Victor Marte. With the four left-handed hitters due up, the Cardinals brought in their left hander, Mark Rzepczynski. True to form, Mattingly stuck with his lefties, who touched up the same guy for a run two nights earlier. This time, Abreu singled Herrera to second, then Ethier struck out.

In the last four days, to this point, Mattingly had not one time taken down a left-handed hitter from that core in favor of a right-handed bat against the first left-handed reliever of the game. The left-handed hitters were validating that approach. But now, all of a sudden, Mattingly changed course, taking down Kennedy for Scott Van Slyke. Kennedy was five for his last 10, including a hit and a walk in his last two ups against left handers. Van Slyke had appeared in five of the last six games without a hit to show for it. Zero for six. So, just to see what happens? Van Slyke hit his first big league homer, a game-winning three-run bomb for a 6-5 Dodgers win.

The shell of the order is the bottom two spots and the top two spots in the lineup. As the lineup begins linear and ends cyclical, the top and the bottom of the order become a shell that surrounds the core. This shell is rather delicate. To this section, Mattingly has deferred all his new problems. The guys in the core are all there to make themselves comfortable and hit. All the mixing and matching takes place in the shell.

Two of the positions to be covered in the shell are injury replacements for Matt Kemp and Mark Ellis. Another position in here is the pitcher, which means you're probably going to give up an out for a base. Next up is leadoff, which has normally meant Dee Gordon. But after you've spent a bunt to put a runner in scoring position with one or two out, you want somebody up there who might drive the ball. So many problems.

In the last four games, Mattingly has used two different shells, the difference coming about after the injury to Mark Ellis. The second shell included Herrera, excluded Gordon and put Gwynn at the top of the order. Justin Sellars at shortstop batted eight in the second arrangement. The first shell no longer is optional because of the injury to Ellis, so we are left with the second.

The newer operation went nine for 32, scoring five runs and driving in three in two games Saturday and Sunday nights against the Cardinals. The hitters within this second shell took at least half of the at-bats in five different innings and the Dodgers scored in only one of them, a four-run seventh on Saturday that ran through eight hitters. There was another inning in which Herrera singled with one out and scored after singles by Abreu and Ethier. That's a core inning.

Looking at the Dodgers batting order as this shell and core, Herrera becomes a transitional figure between them in the two hole. As 27-year-old rookie with eight years in the minor leagues, he's suitable as the last hitter in the shell. As a switch hitter with speed batting in front of the left-handed core, he has a chance to trigger some offense. Herrera's minor league numbers say he's been a pretty reliable .360 on-base guy for the last five years, and he's been stealing about 35-40 bags per year at a 75 percent success rate.

Just as Herrera could be a suitable transitional hitter between the shell and the core at the top of the lineup, A.J. Ellis is the right fit for putting the core with the shell at the bottom. Batting seventh, Ellis can lead off for the shell and put a man on, as his on-base percentage is third across the NL at .446. Or, he can clean up for the core and get a man in, driving in eight runs in as many games since moving up from No. 8.

Flaws and all, you might say the Dodgers' temporary order against right handers is a well-enough wrought urn. The Dodgers seem to have that much of it solved while the big guys are away. They haven't lost to a right hander since Kemp went on the DL. But left handers are another story, and it could be a grim story, but the Dodgers might luck through it.

Mattingly has mentioned that the Dodgers weren't great against left handers even before the injuries. It's true that the Dodgers weren't as good against lefties as against righties. But they were 9-6 in games started by left handers before Kemp's injury. Kemp leads the National League with a .486 batting average against left handers. They were doing fine.

Since Kemp's injury, Mattingly has tried two different lineups against lefties. The Dodgers lost both games, scoring a total of three runs. The first of those lineups, which scored only one run, was discussed in an earlier piece. The next time out against a left hander, Mattingly benched Loney and Gordon, along with the two Ellises. His right-handed hitters that night were Herrera, Jerry Sands, Sellers and Matt Treanor. The Padres won, 4-2, behind Clayton Richard.

So, the Dodgers do have a problem against left-handed starters. However, they also have a lot going for them. In addition to being able to fight through these injuries largely at home, they have stumbled upon a stretch of the season during which they're likely to see only three lefties in a stretch of 14 games, just when we've figured out that left-handed pitchers are going to a problem.

The Dodgers will face Patrick Corbin and Joe Saunders during the next three days in Arizona. Then, they catch a break when Houston comes to Dodger Stadium this weekend, because the Astros are using lefties Wandy Rodriguez and J.A. Happ this week against the Cubs (who are 1-6 against left-handed starters). The Dodgers will miss them. Then, Milwaukee comes to town with only one left-handed starter, old friend Randy Wolf.

Left-handers take about 30 percent of the starts in the National League, so facing only three in a 14-game span during Kemp's injury might end up being worth a couple for the Dodgers. Timing is everything.

How much more time before Kemp returns? The Dodgers are shooting for May 29, the day he is eligible to come off the DL.