Clayton Kershaw Does It Again

I would hate to think that Clayton Kershaw has to throw a shutout every time he takes the mound for the Dodgers this season but that has been the case thus far. He pitched 7 shutout innings against the Pirates on Saturday night in his second start of the season extending his scoreless innings streak to 16 and Mark Ellis drove in the lone run in the third inning to give him all the run support he would need. Matt Kemp went hitless for the fourth time in 5 games but I am sure he will snap out of it. I remember the year, I believe it was somewhere around 1980 or '81, that Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and I believe it may have been Dave Lopes that all started the season in something like 1 for 20 slumps. Carl Crawford is the only Dodger that has really been hot at the plate hitting .438 to this point. The Dodgers go for the sweep against the Pittsburgh pirates tomorrow with Hyun Jin-Ryu on the mound in his second start of the season.

Dodgers Potential Ownership Groups Part I

The Dodgers ownership looks like it is finally going to be settled. At least for the time being. The plan is for the sale of the Dodgers to be finalized by the end of April. They accepted somewhere in the neighborhood of ten bids and Frank McCourt predicted that the final sale price will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion.

All of the ownership groups have a face in front of the money. I am not familiar with the man behind the money so I am going to concentrate on the faces.

Joe Torre- This is the least attractive of the Dodgers ownership options. Although he is a career baseball man, I have never been a Joe Torre fan. I believe he and Ned Colletti are the biggest reasons behind the on field mess and the depleted minor league system (currently ranked #22 in a Minor league Ball website posting). I doubt there would be any improvement if he was the face behind the new ownership group.

Orel Hershiser and Steve Garvey- These two icons of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball are attractive as an ownership option for that reason. Steve Garvey was fired from his public relations position by Frank McCourt in the middle of last season because of his desire to own the Dodgers. Orel Hershiser is still actively involved with baseball as an anouncer for ESPN. Once again, the money behind the faces may not have enough clout to pull this off.

What A Mess

Alot has happened in Dodger world since my last post and not much of it has been focused on the field. Major League Baseball taking over the day-to-day operations of the Dodgers would have to top the list. Commissioner Bud Selig's concern was whether the Dodgers could function on a daily basis with Frank McCourt in charge. This almost immediately followed an announcement that Frank McCourt had been given a $30 million loan just to make payroll for the month.

It looks like the divorce between Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball is going to end up in court as well and it may even be uglier than his matrimonial divorce. It seems that a closed door meeting was held between Frank McCourt and Major League Baseball and Frank McCourt decided to take his cause up with the members of the press which has always been a baseball no-no.

From the reports I have read, it seems that former Dodger great Steve Garvey is trying to put together a group to buy the team and that has to be better than it is now. What is going on now is bad for baseball and bad for the Dodgers.