March 31st, 2019 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka On January 26, 2019, the Dodgers officially backed out of the Manny Machado / Bryce Harper free agent sweepstakes when they signed 31-year-old free agent outfielder A.J. Pollock to a 4-year / $55 million contract, with a $10 million player option for a fifth year.
Machado ended up going to the San Diego Padres on February 21 to the tune of 10 years / $300 million and Harper to the Philadelphia Phillies one week later on February 28 for 13 years / $330 million.
Although the sample size is ridiculously small, Machado is 3-for-11 (.273) on the new season with zero home runs and five strikeouts; Harper 1-for-6 (.167) with one home run and two strikeouts; and Pollock is 5-for-12 (.417) with one home run and one strikeout. For good measure, he also has four RBI on the young season.
Again, although the sample size is ridiculously small, the (very) early returns have the Dodgers leading in the ‘money well spent’ race … with 159 games remaining in the 2019 regular season.
On Friday evening, Pollock hit that (thus far) one home run in what would end up being a record-setting (timewise) six-hour and five minute / 13-inning loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. And then on Saturday evening he went 1-for-3 with an RBI single as part of an 18-5 shellacking of those same Dbacks, in a game in which the final pitcher for each team was one of their catchers; for the Dbacks, 27-year-old John Ryan Murphy, whose ‘fastball’ topped out at 58-MPH, and for the Dodgers, 36-year-old veteran backstop Russell Martin, who tossed a 1-2-3 top of the ninth inning and received a standing ovation from the biased Dodger Stadium crowd of 50,626.
“He was our most efficient pitcher these three games,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts kidded with reporters after the game.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)
“I want to know what my spin rate was,” Martin asked, after his 10-pitch (eight-strike) outing. “Everybody’s talking about spin rate. I want to know if I have a good spin rate or not.
“It would have been really tough to blow that lead. It would have been really, really tough to blow that lead,” he added.
Fun stuff indeed … when the Dodgers win, that is.
Play Ball!
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Posted in 
So far, so good. Except for Saturday morning’s loss. Of course.
Definitely better than all the bad stuff he used to do to our guys.
Pollock and Verdugo defensively are not the equal of Bellinger and Puig, you could see it yesterday. But overall, the addition of AJ is going to make the Dodgers a better team because he HITS for average……we have too many free swingers on this team….we needed someone who is willing to take base hits and not just swing out of their shoes.
I reckon it’s good then that we still have Bellinger.