Chuck's Blog! A Dodger fan's web-musings...

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As sports fans, we really never know much about the players we watch on the field. We get small snippets here and there through the media. We piece together what we hear and read. But we rarely get the kind of personal story that allows you to know someone–especially outside of the super-stars.

 

Jose Lima wasn’t a super-star. He was an all-star during only one year (1999) finishing 21-10 and garnering 4th place in Cy Young voting for the Houston Astros. Lima totaled 170.1 innings for the Dodgers in 2004. He had 13 wins, 5 losses, a 4.07 era, and a 1.245 whip. He did have that one playoff win–the first playoff win the Dodgers managed since 1988. But, is that one win enough to seal Jose’s legacy in the minds of Dodger fans? Are 170 innings during one year enough for Dodger fans to remember Lima as a Dodger and not just another arm that came through town one year?

 

Therein lies the measure of THIS man. During the short period of time we watched Jose Lima, in a year that is notable but unremarkable, we embraced Jose as one of ours. Why?

 

I believe we embrace Jose because he embraced life. Those little media snippets that were amassed over time carried the undeniable intoxicating energy that was Jose Lima. It sure didn’t appear that Jose ever just went through the motions of his life, that he was just existing until it was over. It appeared from our vantage point that Jose reached out for life, he rushed to his next day expecting great opportunities to laugh and enjoy those around him. And he continually put himself among large groups of ppl both in and out of baseball. Jose Lima appeared to us a rare bright soul that made us feel better just watching the exuberance with which he conducted himself. How do you measure THAT man? What is he worth to each of us? All I can say is the world is just a little darker without Jose Lima, but that one guy made my life better than it would have been if I’d never known he existed. For someone whom I didn’t know and barely knew of, that measure is enormous.

 

Thank you, Jose

 

 

 

Milwaukee’s leaving town. Anyone sorry to see them go? They’re 10-15, on a losing streak of their own, ripe for the picking. Surely, we can beat up on the Brewers and push our way back to .500, right? Thank you, Brewers! Oops. The Brewers hang 25 runs on us in a 3 game series and sat an Andre Ethier walk-off home run away from sweeping us at home. Well, that’s hospitable of us. Kershaw was embarrassed, and lasted only 1.1 innings. Bills opens game 2 by meandering through the Brewers order–yeah, the ENTIRE order(!) in the first inning. Billingsley gives up 4 runs in the first, but follows that up with 5 shutout innings. Enter the bull pen–pride of the league a year ago. Our pen serves up NINE earned runs for the series.

 

How about our vaunted Dodger offense? We scored 6 in the first game thanks in large part to Loney’s 4 rbi, and we scored 7 in the 3rd game thanks to Ethier’s aforementioned walk-off grand slam. In the middle game we turned 12 hits and 4 walks into 3 runs. That’s not going to get it done. What kind of pitching did we face in the series? We faced Narverson, Davis, and Bush. We scored 7 runs off of the Milwaukee starters in over 17 innings. Narverson, Davis, and Bush LEFT Los Angeles with eras of 6.00, 8.13, and 4.19 respectively. They LEFT with those numbers. That means they came into the matchup with the Dodgers with higher eras than that. Umm, we’re reeling.

 

Oh, and credit Broxton with the blown save and the WIN in game 3! Yep, he picks up the win for NOT doing his job. Brox gives up 2 runs in the top of the 9th to blow what was a very nice effort by Ely, the kid thrown into the fire with more hope and prayer than expectations. Gutty performance by the guy. Ely walks off after 6.2 innings, giving up 1 run, and leading 3-1. Broxton gets the win.

 

If this series is representative of what we’ll be seeing from the Dodgers this year, wipe the playoffs from the realm of possibility.

 

HOWEVER, thanks to that great start by Ely and another Andre Ethier save, we say goodbye to the Brewers on a one game winning streak and the hope that THIS game will be the one that turns it all around–the game where the true Dodgers find themselves, ride a streak back into first place in the west, and are catapult once again into the playoffs.

 

Whew! I’m exhausted. Dodger fans (I think I can speak for all of us in this case) are exhausted. We supporters of athletics (yes, I did just go there) need a little positive support from our team, a little pat on the back, an affirmation of the commitment our guys have to being better than the other guys. We NEED this, and we thank you very much in advance for meeting our needs. You may start tonight…Go Dodgers!