The NLCS Thread

Hanley Ramirez hopes to play
By Arash Markazi | ESPNLosAngeles.com
Updated: October 13, 2013, 9:46 PM ET


Hanley Ramirez (AP Photo)

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers were hoping to have shortstop Hanley Ramirez and center fielder Andre Ethier back for Game 3 of the NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday, but won't know the status for either player until game time.

Ramirez, struck by a Joe Kelly fastball in the first inning of Friday's 13-inning loss, was scratched from the lineup less than an hour before Saturday's game with bruised ribs. X-rays came back negative. He underwent a CT scan on Sunday, the results of which were not available when Ramirez and manager Don Mattingly addressed the media.

Ramirez said he would try to play Monday if he can deal with the pain.

"Even if it's cracked or something I'm going to be out there," Ramirez said. "We're just working on taking the pain away so I can go. It's uncomfortable. It's never happened before to me. It's an uncomfortable injury, but I'm going to try to deal with it."

As much as Ramirez wants to play, Mattingly said he and the medical staff would make the final decision.

"If this thing (the CT scan) comes back and it's something that he just can't play, there are certain things that you're not going to be able to play with," Mattingly said. "So no matter how much Hanley wants to play, there are certain things you're not going to be able to play with. You've got to be able to swing the bat."

Ramirez said he'd been told the only way he could make the injury worse by playing is if "I got hit there again [by a pitch]. Hopefully, it won't happen. But if it happens, it happens. This time of year, you've got to do what you've got to do."

He said the Dodgers medical staff was meeting to discuss potential options to help him deal with the discomfort, including a pad that could be sewn into his shirt to protect the rib cage and some sort of pain medication that would at least enable him to get through the game.

Ramirez batted .345 in the regular season and is hitting .444 with a home run and six RBIs in the playoffs. He was replaced in the lineup by Nick Punto. Ramirez had difficulty swinging the bat on Saturday and said that he wouldn't even attempt to swing one again until he came back to the ballpark on Monday.

"I'm just trying to let it rest right now," Ramirez said. "I want to get some treatment and get the pain away. I'm going to stay positive and do whatever it takes to be in the lineup."

Mattingly said he would monitor Ramirez and see how he looked on Monday before deciding whether he can play.

"It's probably going to be a pain thing," Mattingly said. "We're just going to have to wait and see with him. I know Hanley wants to play. He keeps continuing to tell me that he's going to play, and that can only go so far though. He's got to be able to play."


Andre Ethier (AP Photo)

Ethier was held out of the Game 2 lineup a day after making his first start in center field in more than four weeks. Ethier moved slowly around the bases Friday and missed a Carlos Beltran line drive that went for a two-run double in the Cardinals' 3-2, 13-inning win in Game 1. Ethier said after the game he felt like he should have caught it.

Ethier said he would try to play on Monday but was not sure if he would be able to.

"I'm not sure, we haven't made that decision yet," Ethier said Sunday. "We're not there. We're trying to get to that point where I can make those plays where it's not a question mark on the defensive side. We'll figure it out tomorrow."

Ethier was replaced in center field by utility man Skip Schumaker, who played the entire NLDS in center field, batting .231. If Ethier can't start, he would be available to pinch hit, with Schumaker again starting in center field.

"He says he feels better," Mattingly said of Ethier. "We'll just kind of see how this thing goes, and if he's going to be able to go tomorrow also. He's going to be day to day. We probably won't make the decision until we get here tomorrow and see what he's going to be able to do."

There had been talk of the Dodgers possibly going with Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw on short rest or possibly leaning on their starters out of the bullpen if they lost Game 3 and were facing elimination. Mattingly, however, said those options have not been discussed yet.

"We haven't talked about Kershaw out of the bullpen," Mattingly said. "We haven't talked about anybody on three days' rest. ... It always makes sense anytime you mention those two guys' names, but it's something we haven't talked about at this point."

__

 

this
that veteran leadership doesn't mean shit if you can't produce

 

Dodgers have bigger problems than payroll
Tim Brown | Yahoo Expert -- 13 hours ago

LOS ANGELES – The National League Championship Series took a small break from its debate over the preferred method of team building, a conversation that had gone on for too long anyway. They need ballgames this time of year to break up the prattle, you know. Besides, unless St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers baserunners were assigned the weight of their clubs' payrolls, then had to wheelbarrow it ahead of them on the basepaths, the details of how one's 25 came upon another's 25 at this time of year, including measuring the moral decency of it, seems rather pointless.


Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig is 0 for 10 with six strikeouts in the first two games of the NLCS. (USA Today)

Granted, the Cardinals are what they've always been, and are what the Dodgers were. And the Dodgers, for their brand and their market and their wealth, have paid through Guggenheim's nose to become what they were and what the Cardinals are, at least as far as standing here on this day with Game 3 of the NLCS ahead of them. Granted, now, two games back, their best hitter not sure he can swing a bat and their scheduled Game 3 starter – Hyun-Jin Ryu – quoted Sunday as saying, "Truthfully, if I'm out there for five innings I'd be more than happy."

Easy there, tiger.

Pick your right and wrong, your means of finesse or sledgehammer. One may be America's baseball franchise, the other an evil Yankees knockoff. Everybody plays his part around here. The end result is a best-of-seven, go-to-the-World-Series, your-guy-against-their-guy thing in which there are no whip-out-your-paycheck tiebreakers, which meant the Dodgers would need Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw to pitch well and maybe even that wouldn't be enough. Besides, the Cardinals were one phone call from being on the hook for something like $200 million to Albert Pujols, so let's not get ourselves too carried away.

When all of that fell away this weekend, and the people of St. Louis waved their white towels, and the Cardinals started running those young, live arms to the mound and scoring just enough to hold off the wheezing Dodgers, well, this was less about what the Cardinals had done yesterday – impressive as it is – than their uncanny ability to execute today.

The venue changes for Game 3, to Dodger Stadium, before a crowd that might not recognize the club it sent off to St. Louis less than a week before. The Dodgers spent the aforementioned aces on two one-run losses, had their best hitter – Hanley Ramirez – fall out with a possible rib fracture (he'll play Monday night if able, but optimism for that was difficult to find on Sunday), saw the rookie Yasiel Puig submit to the emotional rigors of October and the entire offense contribute a single hit with a runner in scoring position. The Dodgers haven't scored in their last 19 innings, it having submitted to the tactical rigors of Cardinals pitchers and their catching muse, Yadier Molina.


Hanley Ramirez missed Game 2 after getting hit by a pitch in the NLCS opener (AP)

The series turns in Game 3 to what appears to be a pitching mismatch, that being Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright against Dodgers left-hander Ryu, whose proficient rookie season flattened in the season's final weeks, including a less-than-efficient start in the division series. He allowed four runs in three innings to the Atlanta Braves and bungled a couple defensive plays, all while ignoring suspicions he could be hurt or plain wrung out. Wainwright, on the other hand, is an undisputed ace with the heart and stuff to nudge the Dodgers toward a quick elimination. In 48 2/3 career postseason innings over 15 appearances, his ERA is 2.03. The Pirates scored two runs on him in two starts, both of which Wainwright won. His complete-game eight-hitter beat them in Game 5.

"He's our guy," third baseman David Freese said. "Our ace. Adam Wainwright is who you want on the mound."

In a series thus far defined by its pitching – the Dodgers are batting .184, the Cardinals .134 – the Cardinals have done just enough to win, the Dodgers just enough to lose. Unless the Dodgers find a way back to their aces, or choose to pitch one or both on three days' rest, the NLCS feels like it is rolling downhill for the Cardinals. Kershaw was brilliant on short rest in the division series and perhaps better on his scheduled turn Saturday. Greinke could go Game 4 in place of Ricky Nolasco, who was skipped in the division series and hasn't pitched in two weeks, but that has not been decided. By late Monday night, Game 4 could be an elimination game.

"We haven't talked about anybody on three days' rest," Mattingly said. "It always makes sense any time you mention those two guys' names. But it's something, as I said, we haven't talked about at this point."

So, they wait on Ramirez's diagnostics, and Andre Ethier's health, and Ryu's disposition, and a conversation about who may or may not pitch Game 4, and then what the continuation of an ugly series for them might mean for Mattingly's future on that top step. So at least the Dodgers are no longer forced to defend the methods by which they built their team. Now they're asked how, overnight, they managed to build all this tension.

__

 

amen
having broken ribs/torn cartilage before, i can tell you...
it is more than just uncomfortable
sneezing hurts, coughing hurts, even breathing
and getting up out of bed is no picnic