In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective.
The St. Louis Cardinals may have beaten themselves in getting swept by the Dodgers, but Game 3 left us with a classic question. Was Vicente Padilla's strong pitching performance all him or the opposing lineup's doing? On this particular night, there was probably little the Cardinals could have done to stop him.
Padilla brought the raw stuff of an ace to the hill, touching 97 mph and sitting around 93-96 most of the night. Most importantly he was able to locate his fastball inside to righties with some running action.
In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective.
The Dodgers have gotten by down the stretch and in the playoffs despite a less than dynamic Manny Ramirez. While still productive, it's becoming blatantly obvious to opposing teams that Ramirez isn't as dangerous as he once was. The reality may be that he is a diminished player.
Of course, a diminished Ramirez is still a well above-average player. He's just not the out of this world hitter we've come to know.
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games.
Of all the things Ripken discussed Tuesday, the most intriguing subject, not surprisingly, was one Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is an oft-maligned regular season superstar, in that he's put up extremely gaudy regular season numbers throughout his career, yet has never played in a World Series and has pretty sub-par numbers in the playoffs overall -- especially of late.
In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down each of the playoff teams from a scouting perspective.
With a bullpen loaded with power arms and an assortment of pitchers who can shut you down in a variety of ways, the team to vanquish the Dodgers would likely want to do their damage early. The key is to remain patient and try to wait out their quality starting pitchers to get them out of the game by the middle innings.
If you begin to run into the back end of the Dodgers 'pen, chances are things will not go well. Young pitchers like Clayton Kershaw can fall victim to high pitch counts in a playoff atmosphere, so his starts in particular could be turning points in the series.
The 1997 Cleveland Indians have finally been reassembled on the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers, and it is up to venerable Dugout protagonists Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez to lead them through the playoffs and to the promised land, whether they've been there already or not.
If you have not been reading our end of the season special event and want anything you're about to read to make sense, please catch up by reading the first seven parts linked conveniently below. Part "The End" is after the jump.
But besides his fine season -- 89 runs scored, 96 RBI, .823 OPS -- Abreu seems to have passed on his patience at the plate to the rest of his Angels teammates.
"He's got the younger players understanding patience isn't a bad thing," Chone Figgins told FanHouse. "It's not about not being aggressive, but being patient, getting a pitch to hit. There's nothing wrong with being 1-1 and hitting, or 1-2, or 2-2.
"It's not something simple to do, but I think we did a good job of it in spring training and have tried to bring it into the season and have so far done a good job."
The "youth movement" continues in Los Angeles, as Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez continue their countrywide trip to reunite the championship hopeful 1997 Cleveland Indians on the championship hopeful 2009 Dodgers. If you've missed where they've been so far, check out the numbered links below. If you haven't, and you are still somehow entertained by caps lock and typos, continue after the jump to read part seven of our epic special event.
The Dugout favorites Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez have taken a break from danging dingers together on the playoff-bound Los Angeles Dodgers to travel the country and possibly fictional dreamscape lands to reuinte the 1997 Cleveland Indians and right the wrongs of the 97 World Series. The quest is almost complete, and now we learn what happened in the MLB Journeyman Chatroom, and where the dynamic twosome are headed next.
Part 6 of The Dugout: It's Tribe Time Now is after the jump.
SAN FRANCISCO -- This is the problem with doing what Manny Ramirez did last year.
It's an awful high bar to reach again. Ramirez may be hitting .305, but it's not enough.
Because Manny hasn't been Manny.
"Honestly, he hasn't been as good as he's capable of," Dodgers hitting coach Don Mattingly told FanHouse. "He's been pretty good lately, but it comes and goes. Lately he'll have a good game and then slip back."
Welcome to part five of our apparently 30-part series about how Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez play for the same team, just like when they were part of the 1997 World Series challenging Cleveland Indians.
Once you have caught up on the previous four parts, remember that none of this is newsworthy and that we've ingratiated ourselves enough at Fanhouse by this point to occasionally make the casual reader here to discuss how he feels about Prince Fielder's baseball-disgracing shirt tuck think we are on crack. Is this a real chat??? Part 5 of 30 is after the jump.
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The 1997 Cleveland Indians have finally been reassembled on the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers, and it is up to venerable Dugout protagonists 
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Welcome to part five of our apparently 30-part series about how 
