Although manager Joe Torre insists he will stick with Andruw Jones until he finally breaks out of his season-long doldrums, the question must be asked, at what price? The Dodgers clearly are a better team right now with an outfield of Juan Pierre, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, and it seems counterproductive that Torre continues to go with Jones.
Of course, there are 36.2 million reasons (read: dollars) why Jones remains in the lineup. Torre's rationale is that for the Dodgers to be successful this season, Jones has to produce, and there is no way for Jones to produce if he is watching from the bench.
A more logical statement would seem to be: In order for the Dodgers to be successful, they have to produce as a team, and that is made all that much harder by having a black hole in the middle -- or, in the case of recent days, the bottom -- of their lineup.
Meanwhile, Jones and his .170 average have become such a hot-button issue with fans that even on Sunday, when he was out of the lineup, Jones was booed roundly when he appeared on the big screen in left field between the top and bottom of the first inning to wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day.
Jones told a Los Angeles columnist that week that he doesn't care what fans think of him. There are 36.2 million reasons why he doesn't have to.
Copyright (C) 2008 The Sports Xchange. All Rights Reserved.
Is Joe Beimel in Torre's dog house or did he have an injury that I wasn't aware of? The reason I ask is through the 1st 3 months he led the team in appearances and since the middle of June he hasn't pitched nearly as much.
What's amazing about the Dodger 12-man staff, as composed at this moment, is that FIVE (Troncoso, Stults, Johnson, Wade, Falkenborg) weren't really on the radar 3 months ago, and 2 others (Kuo, Park) were somewhat "iffy." I'm thinking I need to give some credit to the pitching coach, or at least Honeycutt him some slack.
