Dodgers News: Early Results Don’t Match Friedman’s Expectations
The Los Angeles Dodgers had another come from behind win Saturday, fighting back from a deficit to the Arizona Diamondbacks three times on a night when most eyes were on the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in Las Vegas.
The home win was the Dodgers’ 12th of the season, which leads the Majors heading into play Sunday, and they’ve lost only twice at home. A key factor in jumping out to the strong record at Dodger Stadium has been the waves of home runs
While a 15-8 record is largely par for course for a team with a payroll in excess of $270 million, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the on-field results don’t match his expectations, via Bill Plunkett of the OC Register:
I know what I expected and what I’m seeing don’t match up,” Friedman said. “But the fact that I haven’t been here for past seasons makes that less meaningful.”
Friedman went on to praise the depth on the roster and effective bullpen that was a question mark heading into the season:
We’re just playing good baseball. It has been a well-rounded attack. We’ve gotten contributions from our entire roster. .. The bullpen has been pitching really well and that’s allowed us to come back in games or tack on runs when we’ve had a lead.”
If there’s been one disappointment for the Dodgers this season outside of the injuries that ravished the starting rotation, it’s the club’s 3-6 road record. Included in that is being swept during a three-game series by the San Francisco Giants, who at the time were 1-9 in their last 10 games heading into the series between the storied rivals.
After concluding their home series with the Diamondbacks Sunday, the Dodgers hit the road Monday for a seven-game road trip that will take them to Milwaukee and Colorado without a day off.
[divide]Andrew Friedman Press Conference
Tell him we expect to be able to watch the games.
If he had been a little less interested in spending money on veterans on the downward slope of their careers and more interested in fostering the quality members of last year’s team, perhaps things would have been different. Instead he’s created a questionable pitching roster (outside of Kershaw and Grenkie), a bullpen of pitchers who can’t keep a lead and force the offense to step up and thank goodness they have. Using statistics and algorithms to build a team may be where baseball is these days, but simply watching and making some “gut” decisions is what baseball is about. The new management made a lot of mistakes in spring training and those mistakes will come back to bite them as we head down the stretch. I bleed blue and want nothing more than to have a winning team and play in October. I just don’t know if this front office can make that happen. Hell, the die hard fans that can’t afford to come to the stadium for every game can’t even watch the games on TV. Ownership and the front office have screwed up big time. They need to take care of the fans – because face it, without us die hards, what have they got?
What on earth are you crying about, do you even follow the team? Have you looked at the standings? The whole freaking team is contributing, the bull pen is amazing, the bench is epic, the offense is the best in the league, the depth they built has made them just about invulnerable to all the injuries they have suffered. And they haven’t traded a single top 10 prospect.
Yep. Well said.
What are you talking about? I should have stopped reading when you said the bullpen was no good. They’ve been amazing. So has the rest of the team….surely you are trolling.
Fostering quality members from last year! Like Kemp and Ramirez who are the two worst defenders in the league! Haren with a 4.50 FIP! A horrible bullpen with a 1.90 ERA! Ok, you had me with Gordon batting .430 but we’ll see how long that lasts. Are the Marlins winning anything? Lol, they lost some good pieces in that trade. Austin Barnes will be a great backup (did we really want to “foster” FedEx and Butera??)
I’m in Kauai, Hawaii and I can watch every Dodger game on TV. When I’m in SoCal I can’t see a televised Dodger game. The people responsible for that should be ashamed. Stop this travesty!