{"id":2796,"date":"2009-05-08T10:38:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-08T09:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2796"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:34:04","slug":"dodgers-can-survive-mannys-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2796","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers can survive Manny’s suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"
Manny Ramirez has been suspended 50 games for failing a drug test.<\/div>\n
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When I read this, my blood ran cold.<\/div>\n
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As a Dodger fan, things were going great. The team was undefeated at home, leading the way in the NL West and although there was room for improvement from some of the pitchers, the deep lineup was working well.<\/div>\n
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Manny was off to a good start, hitting .348 with 6 homers, 20 RBIs and 26 walks already. Ahead of him Rafael Furcal and Orlando Hudson were setting the table for him, while Andre Ethier has been making the most of his RBI opportunities behind Manny.<\/div>\n
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James Loney and Russell Martin were both homerless, but with the power provided by Matt Kemp and Casey Blake, it wasn’t too much of a problem.<\/div>\n
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Things were going really well. The offseason saga of will Manny stay or go seemed to be worth it. Obviously things were going too well.<\/div>\n
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I knew at some point during the year there would be some Manny controversy. Maybe he wouldn’t run out a few grounders. Maybe he’d butcher a few plays in the field or get picked off at a crucial time. But as long as he didn’t shove over Vin Scully in the clubhouse, I could live with the other stuff. I was confident Joe Torre would keep the trouble to a minimum.<\/div>\n
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After hearing of Manny’s suspension, I wasn’t really sure what to think. I was angry he had failed a test. But what caused it? Was it performance-enhancing drugs? An ESPN report suggests it is a women’s fertility drug which boosts testosterone. Has Manny been juicing all this time? Was it genuinely caused by medicine from his doctor, as Manny said in his statement? If it was, how could this happen in a time when players are under more scrutiny than ever before? How long had Manny and Scott Boras known about it?<\/div>\n
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Hopefully we will find out more in the next few days, but the whole thing is a major embarrassment for Manny, the Dodgers and MLB as a whole.<\/div>\n
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Can the Dodgers survive without him? Yes they can. There is enough talent in the lineup to still be favourites to win the NL West.<\/div>\n
OK, replacing Manny with Juan Pierre or promising rookie Xavier Paul is a huge power drop-off. But if Ethier can carry on playing as well as he has, if Kemp can heat up again and Martin and Loney can provide a little more pop, they should score enough runs to win plenty of games.<\/div>\n
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The key man for me is Hudson. He has been absolutely brilliant for the Dodgers, hitting for a high average, with some speed and extra-base pop. All of this has been batting ahead of Manny, a great place to hit. But he has shown he is a real leader on the field and provided the right attitude to go with his Gold Glove defense. I think he is the best candidate to hit 3rd right now, using Pierre’s speed in the second spot in the order.<\/div>\n
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Hudson has hit 3rd before for Arizona, and I would hate to see the rest of the lineup, which had been working so well together, jumbled up due to Manny’s suspension.<\/div>\n
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In Hudson we trust.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manny Ramirez has been suspended 50 games for failing a drug test. \u00c2\u00a0 When I read this, my blood ran cold. \u00c2\u00a0 As a Dodger fan, things were going great. The team was undefeated at home, leading the way in the NL West and although there was room for improvement from some of the pitchers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-2796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2796"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7274,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2796\/revisions\/7274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}