A Monster Quietly Grows, and A Buffalo Is Shot Down

Andre freakin' Ethier looks like he is back in Vegas on the 51's in his at-bats of the last two games. He looks so determined, like he's on a mission and whatever he's planning to do he will get done. So he runs up another pitcher's pitch count and ends up whacking the ball and would have had two rbi's if not for a slow, shot down buffalo in Matt Kemp.

You figure the manager or Donnelly would have had a talk about not running through signs and encouraging less aggressive base running decisions after being thrown out at third base twice on great throws. We know Werth has a good arm. We also know that Rowand has a gun too. I love hustle and all but can we please stop taking the extra base until the mojo is back on the team? It reminds me of the Ty Cobb saying about not stealing bases unless you can afford making an out on the play. Same should go for general base running. Hopefully it only takes one felled buffalo to corral the rest of the heard to make better baserunning decisions.

Back to Ethier. Of course guys go through hot streaks but Ethier is still young and maybe he has turned some kind of corner or is just playing especially hard to make the at bats he has count instead of pouting over a lack of playing time (not that I don't agree that he was totally robbed--he was). If he can keep having at bats like this he may become Gwynnish or Ted Williamesque. Alright I doubt it, but if he keeps on producing like the last year with a marginal level of improvement he will be a slightly more than adequate starting outfielder, and that's quite a bit of alright.

Let's hope Ethier's bat and Lowe's arm can will the dodgers to win tonight.