Turn Out the Lights so The Roach Can Come Out of the Shadows and Play

As usual, the dodgers are hurting at third base. Strangely enough, the 51's aren't. Andy LaRoche, hampered by injuries at different times in portions of the last two seasons, is red hot in sweltering vegas sporting a .571 slugging percentage and an on base percentage over .500 as well. How long do us fans have to watch this Maza guy? I have nothing against him. Nomar's recovery has stalled, so what's holding the dodgers back now from calling up LaRoche to play third? Oh yeah, that guy that looks like my father-in-law that is tearing things up already. Only Furby has more homers, and he's in the top 5 on the team in almost every offensive category (6'th in hits, walks, and steals). He's practically carrying the team on his shoulders like a superstar would.

He probably cannot keep this up, but how do you take this guy out of the lineup even with LaRoche hitting like a madman? Put either DeWitt or LaRoche in the outfield? The outfield is already crowded and everyone except Andruw is playing well right now. Even Pierre has caught fire, raising his .obp this season to a respectable .352, 5'th highest on the team for guys with over 100 at bats. Torre could try resting Kent more while he's still slumping and play LaRoche at second and keep playing Hu at shortstop until Furcal returns. LaRoche at second couldn't be any worse defensively than the few times the dodgers stuck Young there. There just comes a point where you've just got to find a place for players that are performing well to play and resting the guys that can't figure out how to get it going. That philosophy should mean more rest time for Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, and a demotion to Hu despite anyone to really play shortstop until Furcal gets back, but according to the papers he's supposed to be back pretty soon so I guess that's not a big deal. I just cannot see Nomar, whenever he can actually play, defensively handling the shortstop position any better than Shea Hillenbrand handled third for that ugly period last season. With how well DeWitt and LaRoche are playing, I don't see him having any starting job. He's just a really, really expensive utility infielder with a lot of name recognition who used to win batting titles. Hu really does need time to work out his problems in Vegas. Seems to me he's pressing. Whatever it is, the strikeouts rate has gotta fall and the walks need to go up if he's gonna have anything better than a Cesar Izturis type of career.

Speaking of ugly ex-Red Sox players in the last paragraph, Mark freaking Bellhorn is playing for the dodgers double a club in Jacksonville. Please pray for the health of Jeff Kent, Chin Lung Hu, Delwyn Young, Luis Maza, Angel Chavez, Kevin Howard, Terry Tiffee, and good 'ole Ramon Martinez so that we never have to see Mr. Bellhorn in a white and blue dodger uniform.