[PilotMan]

May Recap


This was a great month. The best month that we've had in a long time. The team turned in a 17-9 record , pushing us to 30-19 on the year. That's good enough for first place by 1.5 over the Astros, for now. It could've been even better if we hadn't dropped our last 3 games.


This team has been a strange one. Our record at home is 22-5, while our road record is 8-14. We're pretty much as good against lefties as righties. I'm not really sure how our season is turning out right now, but I have a theory.


Every team in the NL West is .500 or better. The last place Braves are only 5.5 games behind us, so a bad run and we could be looking up very, very far. I think we did well this month because we played a lot of teams from the weaker East. We beat up on them, and we took a break on the West teams. We might not be as good as we thought we were.


The strength of this team right now is on the mound. Up until the last couple days, we were first in every single pitching metric in the NL. The only one's that we are in 2^nd in right now are starters ERA, and hits allowed. Oh, and we're 3^rd in K's. Everything else is tits.


Then there's the field. Goodness. This is a power team. All power, all homeruns, all the time, and we play in a pitchers park. LA is 2^nd in the NL for HR's powered by DeCinces and Stubbs. We got guys back who had been hurt and I think that helped too. The glaring shortcoming though is that this team is the worst team in avg, and we're 11^th in nearly every other hitting stat. It's really incredible that we are even having any success at all. Thank god for pitchers. If they stop performing we're going to really be screwed. We're still the best defensive team in the NL.


May was the month for both Steve Sax and Mike Marshall. These guys were the best players. Sax roared up from the minors to hit .330/.405/.379. He added 14 stolen bases and is the only real speed threat on the team. He is really helping us to forget Randolph. If he can keep this kind of performance. If Sax set the table, Marshall did the heavy lifting. For May, Marshall was .352/.379/.565 with 5 HR's and 18 RBI's. It's a nice rebound from his crappy April. On the downside, we've got a ton of guys who are really not pulling any weight at all. From Scioscia (.155/.268/.226), to Bream (.167/.237/.226), to Fred Lynn (.246/.324/.361). Even Doug DeCinces crashed out in May (.240/.307/.375 and 4 HR's).


You know the pitching staff had a good month. None better than Tanana. Tanana won the NL Pitcher of the Month. He was 5-0 with an ERA of 1.08 in his 5 starts. The best month of his career. I hope he never slows down. John Denny might have had the worst. Denny went 1-3 with an 8.25 ERA in 5 starts. In the pen it was Alejandro Pena who wasn't doing so well. In 5 games, he allowed 3 HR's, the same number of strikeouts, and posted a 7.27 ERA.


As we turn toward June, the team has to decide if the starters that aren't performing are worth keeping on, or if it's time to move on. Scioscia's only saving grace is his arm. He was great last year, and he's terrible with the bat this year. BJ Surhoff is getting regular playing time, but it's clear that pitchers like Scioscia better. There's really nobody in the minors who might be getting called up, based on performance. There's not a lot of high level talent down there and the talent that is there is in the outfield, which as we can see, isn't short of talent. So that means that maybe there's some trades on the horizon. LA has the 3^rd highest payroll and a few million to spare even now. There's room for more, at the moment. I'm sure the GM is just itching to move the rest of those 2 star prospects.