"I think it's unfair," Torre said. "There are some clubs that will bring up a handful, three or four, I think we all do that. And then there are other clubs ... It's very tough playing against those teams, especially in our league where part of it is you're trying to run your opposition out of players.
Basically, people get knocked out of the pennant race by people who have played Double-A ball and maybe four at-bats in the big leagues."
This series opens with both the Rockies and Dodgers coming off of sweeps that have pulled them back to within five games of the NL Wild Card leaders. I'm getting the sense that the Dodgers are the relatively weak boss at the end of the first level of a video game. If we can't beat them, there's no sense testing ourselves against the stronger bosses yet to come.
Meanwhile, while Joe Torre is worrying about AA players knocking his team out of contention, Ubaldo Jimenez is focused on a Rockies record for wins in a season, and with a W tonight, he'll have it. Ubaldo's currently tied with Kevin Ritz, Pedro Astacio and Jeff Francis at 17 apiece. At 2.66, his ERA is also currently ahead of Marvin Freeman's 1994 single season franchise record (for starters) of 2.80, and with seven or eight starts left, it's conceivable that Jimenez could pass Astacio's Rockies single season strikeout record of 210.
GO ROCKIES!
Lineups after the bump.
DODGERS
- Podsednik LF
- Theriot 2B
- Ethier RF
- Kemp CF
- Loney 1B
- Blake 3B
- Carroll SS
- Barajas C
- Kershaw P
ROCKIES
- Young Jr. 2B
- Fowler CF
- Gonzalez LF
- Tulowitzki SS
- Mora 3B
- Helton 1B
- Spilborghs RF
- Olivo C
- Jimenez P
Manny Ramirez not in the Dodgers lineup in a key game like this is another sign that Colletti's bluffing about keeping him, I would think.