Return of Kuroda Brings Stability To Dodgers Rotation

Hiroki Kuroda returned to the Dodgers rotation on Monday after missing nearly 2 months with an oblique strain. He had not pitched since his start on Opening Day. It was a welcome sight to Joe Torre and the rest of the Dodgers brass who had been forced to give starts to Eric Stults and Jeff Weaver among others in Kuroda's absence. Kuroda pitched well going 5 IP and striking out 6. He allowed just 2 earned runs but got no run support from the offense and ended up taking the loss in a 3-2 game. It was still a very encouraging night for a rotation that has been in an almost constant state of flux after Kuroda got hurt and projected 5th starter, James McDonald crashed and burned and was sent back to AAA.

Kuroda's return, along with the emergence of Eric Milton as the 5th starter, has the Dodgers rotation suddenly looking like a strength. Chad Bilingsley, Randy Wolf and Kuroda form a strong trio at the top of the rotation and allow youngster Clayton Kershaw to slide down to the 4 spot and take an extra day off here and there to protect his young arm. It also takes some pressure off him knowing that there are 3 proven commodities ahead of him. Milton rounds out the rotation and brings a veteran addition to what was an extremely young pitching staff on Opening Day.

The bullpen is also starting to round into shape with Ronald Belisario and Ramon Troncoso emerging as effective setup men and Jeff Weaver bringing an ability to eat innings and keep the Dodgers in games to the long man role. The only glaring weakness is the lack of an effective loogy. Will Ohman was signed for the role but battled injuries and is currently on the DL and youngster Brent Leach has been mostly ineffective. Eric Stults figured to get a shot in this role when Kuroda returned but he too was sent to the DL with an injury to the thumb on his pitching hand.

All in all though the pitching staff is looking better than it has since the start of the season and will hopefully be able to pick up the offense on occasion as it did last night in a 1-0 victory over Arizona.

After taking 2 of 3 from Arizona the Dodgers lead in the NL west currently stands at 9.5 games. Far and away the largest lead of any 1st place team in baseball. They look to improve on that in a rematch of the NLCS with the Phillies that starts tonight.

Bullpen Mismanagement?!?

Given the many pitfalls overcome by Joe Torre and the Dodgers this season, it has been hard to be too critical of his decisions. After all they have managed to maintain their amazing start even with opening day starter, Hiroki Kuroda on the DL, projected 8th inning setup man, Hong-Chih Kuo also missing significant time and.. Oh yeah.. Something to do with a 50 game suspension for performance enhancers. Torre has had more on his plate in a couple months than many managers deal with in an entire season.

Despite all that, one does not remain bulletproof forever and you can't help but wonder what has been going through his head the past week in regards to his bullpen management. To this point in the season it is almost beyond argument that the top 3 Dodger relievers have been, Jonathon Broxton, Ramon Troncoso and Ronald Belisario, in that order. So one would assume that those 3 pitchers would be used in the most urgent and close situations. But if you assumed that.. Well you'd be wrong.

On May 27th against the Rockies, Torre asked Belisario to try and go 3 innings despite the Dodgers leading by 5 runs and numerous less valuable options available including Mota, Ohman, Leach etc. After seeing Belisario was out of gas he let Ohman pitch to exactly one batter before quickly giving the ball to Broxton despite a 4 run lead. Broxton, who clearly didn't have his best stuff, labored through the remainder of the 9th throwing 38 pitches before securing the win. So that left both The Ox and Belisario unavailable for the series opener against the Cubs the following night. With his other top 2 relievers unavailable, Torre was forced to asked Troncoso go 2 innings in a 2-1 game and hit for himself with 2 men in scoring position in the top of the 9th. He played with fire but in that instance he didn't get burned.

Fast forward to last night. In the final game of the Cubs' series, Torre used all 3 of his top relievers with a 6 run lead against the Cubs knowing that Hiroki Kuroda was making his first start in almost 2 months the following night and would likely need heavy bullpen support. But with his top 3 bullpen arms having gone the following night he was forced to ask Cory Wade, Brent Leach and Guillermo Mota to keep the Dodgers in a close game with the Diamondbacks. While performing admirably the bullpen allowed Arizona to squeak across what would end up being the winning run in a 3-2 loss.

Now I certainly don't claim to be as smart as Joe Torre and I admire the job he has done. But it seems fairly obvious that with a 6 run lead you use your guys needing to get work in and keep your better arms rested. In this instance it came back to bite Torre and the Dodgers.