Odor’s speed on basepaths a spark for Rangers in win
Second baseman has three hits, scores three runs.
He knows life as a big leaguer, and he is learning that life as a big league pitcher there is no better place than the National League in Dodger Stadium.
On Wednesday night, Darvish will make his home debut for his new team. Since being traded by Texas to L.A. for three minor leaguers, he’s 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA.
If he can’t succeed in the game’s biggest moments now, he never will. The Dodgers are not asking him to be anything other than what he is, which is good. The Rangers were asking him to be something he was not.
If the Dodgers do not win the World Series this year, it will not be merely a Yu bust. It will be a bust the likes of which pro sports has never seen.
“He just has to be himself. Nothing more,” Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said Sunday afternoon after yet another victory. “He will be one of the pieces to help get us to where we want to go.
“He is not expected to come in here and be the ace. Kersh’ is the ace.”
At present, left-hander and the pride of Dallas Highland Park, Clayton Kershaw, remains on the 10-day disabled list with back issues. He is expected back where he will resume his role as the No. 1 ace on the most expensive team in baseball.
What Darvish has joined is the single most expensive team ever assembled. The Dodgers’ payroll of $256 million is $30 million higher than the New York Yankees.
An entire book has been written about the Dodgers’ futility of spending money yet failing to win the World Series, “The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse” by Molly Knight.
The Dodgers have not been to a World Series since 1988. Then Kirk Gibson hit a home run, pitcher Orel Hershiser could not be hit, and the Dodgers upset the heavily-favored Oakland Athletics in five games.
These Dodgers are 83-34, and could potentially break the record for wins in a season set by the 2001 Mariners and 1906 Cubs, when both won 116. Neither team won the World Series.
The Dodgers did not need Yu Darvish, but the team is taking zero chances.
“A move like that coming from a front office is a push all the chips in, we’re behind you. It’s huge,” reliever Brandon Morrow said.
“You acquire that talent and it’s for you, but it means you also don’t have to face that talent.”
No one has ever questioned Yu’s talent. It’s both God given, and harnessed and enhanced through Yu’s own efforts.
Joey Gallo hit another impressive home run. The Texas Rangers played some small ball, too.
Rougned Odor had three hits and scored three times in a 6-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Monday night, including the go-ahead run after he reached on a bunt single and scored when Delino DeShields executed a safety squeeze that he did on his own.
“I only do that when I know there’s guys on third base that can run, who expect me to do it, and Rougie, he’s an instinctive guy,” DeShields said. “I was confident if I just got it down, he’d get there . ... It wasn’t the greatest of bunts, but it worked out.”
DeShields hesitated coming out of the box, thinking the bunt would go foul, and still almost beat catcher James McCann’s throw to first. Odor, who had gotten to third with a steal after McCann threw behind him trying to pick him off second, raced home to break a tie at 2 in the second and put Texas ahead to stay.
“I think Mac didn’t think he was coming,” bench coach Gene Lamont said. “It wasn’t a real good bunt, but we didn’t execute well on that play. They put pressure on you because they have speed.”
Gallo’s 33rd homer overall and eighth in August, a shot to center in the third that made it 4-2, was estimated at coming off the bat at 112 mph and going 428 feet.
An inning later, Odor had a
The question about Yu, established with the Rangers, was his ability on the game’s biggest stage to put a team on his arm and win a game by himself. To make a 1-0 lead enough. That is what the best starters in the games do, and it was just something that consistently eluded him.
Often a victim of erratic run support, he too had a terrible tendency to blink. Or to rack up such high pitch counts the manager had no choice but to pull him.
My contention is that mentally something was missing.
As a member of the Dodgers, he will pitch behind Kershaw. Or should.
And the Dodgers rank fifth in MLB in runs scored.
And the Dodgers play in the pitcher-friendly park that is Dodger Stadium.
There is no reason not to win.
“No. 1, we have a good team. We had a good team before we got him,” Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt said.
If anyone knows what this transition is like, it’s Honeycutt. In 1983, Honeycutt was leading the American League in ERA for the Rangers and dealt to the second-place Dodgers. The Dodgers wanted him because they thought he would be the guy to catch the division-leading Atlanta Braves.
(BTW: The player-to-benamed leadoff double, went to third on a sacrifice and scored on Drew Robinson’s single.
Odor singled again in the sixth, got to third on a steal and throwing error by McCann, and scored for the third time on a single by Robinson Chirinos.
Martin Perez (7-10) had a second straight solid start for Texas. The lefty made it through six innings without giving up any more runs after Justin Upton’s 23rd homer, a two-run shot in the first.
Perez had lost four straight starts before going eight innings at the Mets last Wednesday, limiting New York to one run and three hits.
Tigers starter Michael Fulmer (10-10) walked the first two Texas batters he faced. Nomar Mazara then drove in a run with the first of his three singles, and Adrian Beltre had a game-tying sacrifice fly.
“I was just out of sync. I think I got better as the game went on, but I felt every pitch was either a ball or right down the middle,” Fulmer said. “They had some hard hits and some soft hits. They bunted, took extra bases.”
Highlight catch: Drew Robinson had a spectacular catch to end the top of the first. The center fielder ran a long way before diving, then had his left arm fully extended with his glove only inches off the ground when he caught the ball hit by John Hicks.
First-timer: Texas reliever Ricardo Rodriguez made his major league debut with two strikeouts in a perfect seventh after replacing Perez.
Rodriguez, who turns 25 on Aug. 31, has been in the Rangers organization since the 2011 season, and had never pitched above Double-A. later in that deal was pitcher Dave Stewart, who would later go on to post four consecutive 20-win seasons, and win a World Series MVP. OK, so that was in Oakland, but the point is the Rangers at one time acquired a dominant starting pitcher.)
After starting 2-0 with the Dodgers, Honeycutt suffered an injury, but the Dodgers caught the Braves and reached the NLCS before losing to Philadelphia.
He’s been on this similar Yu path, and sold as “The Guy.” The Dodgers are not advertising Yu as that.
“It’s also going to help him by changing leagues. He saw the National League a little bit, but they had not seen him on a regular basis,” Honeycutt said. “He doesn’t have to come in here and be anything other than a piece.
“This is a guy who already made the hardest transition he’s going to make and that’s moving from Japan to the U.S. That’s a lot harder than going from one team to another.”
In talking to the members of the Japanese media in L.A. now, they seem to think Yu is content and his family likes it. There is virtually nothing not to like.
“Especially right now,” Morrow said.
All Yu needs to do, per the Dodgers, is to be himself. On this team, that had better be enough. On the Rangers, it wasn’t.