Notes From the Weekend
Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi!
The chants at Dodger Stadium kept getting louder and louder this weekend. As a Twins fan, it was painful to watch. As a Hee Seop Choi supporter, it was nice to see.
Choi is putting together one of streakiest seasons in recent memory, but at least he’s making it easy to fill column space across the country. When Choi began the season in a funk, hitting .200 through the Dodgers’ first 19 games, the mainstream media in Los Angeles was all over him. Then he went on a tear at the plate, hitting .365 over a 23-game stretch, and I conveniently decided it was time to write something in his defense.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Choi then immediately went into another extended funk, dropping his totals from a season-high .312/.407/.570 on May 16 to .243/.323/.410 on June 9. About midway through Choi’s second lengthy slump of the season, the e-mails starting rolling in from people who found it humorous (among other things) that he went in the tank as soon as I wrote something taking people to task for criticizing him so much.
And then came this weekend’s series against the Twins.
Friday night, Choi hit a two-run homer off Minnesota starter Joe Mays in the bottom of the first inning to put the Dodgers on top 2-1. Then, after the Twins came back from a 4-1 deficit to tie the game, Choi hit a game-winning, walk-off homer off lefty reliever Terry Mulholland in the bottom of the ninth.
Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi!
Saturday night, Choi hit a solo homer off Minnesota starter Carlos Silva in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi!
Sunday afternoon, Choi homered off Minnesota starter Brad Radke in the bottom of the first inning to put the Dodgers up 1-0. Then he homered off Radke in the bottom of the fourth inning to tie the game. And then he homered off Radke in the bottom of the sixth inning to put the Dodgers up 4-3.
Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi! … Hee! Seop! Choi!
TIME PERIOD AVG OBP SLG OPS AB HR RBI Through 6/9 .243 .323 .410 .733 144 6 19 This Weekend .500 .500 2.000 2.500 12 6 7
Torii Hunter wrapped things up nicely after Sunday’s game: “I’ve never seen that with my eyes. Six home runs in three games. That’s very impressive. I’ve never seen that, even in Little League.”
Or, as Choi explained: “I swung good this weekend.”
In three games, Choi doubled his homer total, increased his RBI total by 37%, and raised him OPS 140 points. He also hit his first homer of the season off a lefty and raised his overall season totals to .265/.337/.535. And while it is silly to say that any baseball player, particularly a hitter, can single-handedly win a game, Choi came about as close as you can come both Friday and Sunday, as the Dodgers took two out of three games from the Twins.
Some other notable weekend performances …
He went 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs Friday night and 5-for-5 with a double, two homers, and four RBIs Sunday afternoon. Even with an 0-for-3 Saturday in between, Chavez was 7-for-12 with three homers and six RBIs during the three-game series. He’ll need a few more five-hit games this month to make my preseason MVP pick look anything other than silly, but Chavez has at least brought his season totals back into the realm of respectability at .253/.318/.423. He’s even on pace for 25 homers and 95 RBIs.
G IP W L ERA SO BB HR 26 34.0 3 1 3.97 27 10 2
And then he imploded against Chavez and the A’s yesterday:
IP H R ER BB SO HR 1.0 5 6 6 1 2 2
So much for that. Bernero’s ERA for the season is now 5.40.
G IP W L SV SVO ERA SO BB HR OAVG 13 12.1 1 0 8 8 1.45 19 3 0 .159
He’s not going to get to 82.1 innings pitched for the fourth straight season (seriously, go look at his innings totals from 2002-2004), but Gagne is still very much Game Over.
IP H R ER BB SO HR 4.1 15 11 11 2 2 3
Early on this season Greinke was the victim of poor run support, starting the season 0-4 (with four no-decisions) despite a 3.09 ERA. Greinke has been a mess of late, however, culminating with his disastrous outing against the Diamondbacks this weekend.
Here’s what Greinke has done since holding the Devil Rays to one run over 6.2 innings in a no-decision May 15:
GS IP W L ERA SO BB H HR 5 23.2 1 3 11.79 14 9 43 7
Wait, here’s where it gets really interesting. Greinke gave up 11 runs in 4.1 innings and didn’t even lose. Down 11-2 after five innings, the Royals scored once in the sixth inning, six times in the eighth, and then tied things up and took Greinke off the hook with two more runs in the top of the ninth.
Sadly, it was all for naught when Troy Glaus hit a walk-off solo homer on the fourth pitch Mike MacDougal threw in the bottom of the 11th. And as if all of that weren’t enough, Greinke also hit his first career homer (in just his fourth career at-bat) off Russ Ortiz in the fifth inning, after he had already given up seven runs.