September 18th, 2012 at 4:01 am 
by Ron Cervenka Everyone will forever remember that it was John Ely who suffered the painful 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in Sunday’s marathon 12-inning matinee at Dodger Stadium – this in spite of Hanley Ramirez’s ridiculously weak (and late) toss to second baseman Nick Punto that allowed a still salvageable one-run game to get completely out of reach on what should have been a routine 6-4 force play to end the inning.
Everyone will remember Mark Ellis standing on third base as the winning run with one out in the bottom of the 10th inning and Shane Victorino couldn’t even hit a ball past a drawn in infield and instead hit a weak grounder to Cardinals second baseman Daniel Delscalso, who caught Ellis in a rundown for the second out of the inning.
Everyone will even remember the horribly slumping Matt Kemp following Victorino with Adrian Gonzalez now standing on third base with the winning run with two outs and the best that Kemp could do was hit a soft can of corn fly ball to center field, thus ending the threat and preventing what should have been the third Dodgers walk-off win in as many days.
But the one thing that few Dodger fans will remember is that 25-year-old right-hander Stephen Fife started the game almost four and a half hours earlier in place of the ailing Clayton Kershaw, went 5 innings, allowed 2 runs on only 4 hits, walked one while striking out 9… yes NINE – and those 9 strikeouts came by way of striking out the side in the first, second, and fifth innings. In fact, had Fife pitched the first inning as he did the subsequent four, he would have shut out the Cardinals and picked up his well-deserved first win of the season.
Almost lost in the sheer length (and 95 degree temperature) of Sunday’s 4 1/2 hour marathon 12-inning game was Stephen Fife’s career-best performance in which he struck out the side in three of his five innings of work. (Photo credit – Mark J. Terrill)
Yes, Stephen Fife absolutely positively pitched a Kershaw-like game worthy of his first win of the season (in four starts), but instead has absolutely nothing to show for his brilliant performance because of an anemic Dodgers offense that was unable to score even one lousy run after the 3rd inning.
What did the quiet, polite and humble Boise, Idaho native have to say about his career best game? “I was a little anxious, a little hyped up. Striking out the side in the first and second innings… I don’t think I’ve done that this year; but obviously Kershaw deserves to pitch. If he was at 80 percent, he’d probably be out there.”
I apologize to you for your team’s ineptitude, Stephen. You deserved better than this. You deserved to win this game and your teammates failed you miserably. You did your job every bit as good as Clayton Kershaw would have done – unfortunately, your teammates did not.
Even though Fife pitched only 3 innings for the Big club during spring training, he showed even then that he had great control allowing only 1 run and 2 hits while striking out two. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)
I will remember your stellar performance this past Sunday, Stephen, and I ask you… I beg you to please continue to pitch like this for the remainder of the season in Kershaw’s absence.
Help us, Stephen Fife… you’re our only hope.
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I noticed how well Stephen Fife pitched on Sunday and how well he has pitched since the Dodgers brought him up. With the recent trades the Dodgers have made giving up young pitching it’s good that we have someone like Fife. If Kershaw, Billingsly, and Lilly all have surgery in the off season, we are certainly going to need Fife to pick up the slack.
You opened a whole new can of worms with that one, Will; one that I am very passionate about.
Over the years you have read several spirited debates between Harold and me regarding when to bring kids up from the minors. I have always been a very strong proponent of bring ‘em up now and let them sink or swim and Harold has always been a little more protective of them and tends to favor letting them develop a bit more before bringing them up. I guess this is one case where I’m a little more old school than he is.
As you well know (since it was you who turned me on to Don Drysdale’s outstanding autobiography “Once a Bum, Always a Dodger”), Drysdale was 19 years old when he made his MLB debut; as was Sandy Koufax – and during that era, they weren’t the youngest. That’s just the way things were done back then… back when ‘the Dodger Way’ prevailed.
Unfortunately, there is no one left in the Dodgers front office today that even has a clue about what the Dodger Way is/was, aside from Don Newcombe and Tommy Lasorda, of course. Don’t think for one second that Ned Colletti has a clue what it is either, because he absolutely does not. Colletti is new school all the way. He’ll direct Logan White and De Jon Watson to go out and acquire some of the best young players in the world and then use these kids as trading chips to acquire veteran free agents (many of whom are well past their prime) rather than actually focus on developing these kids to eventually become Dodgers. Granted every now and then a Kemp or a Kershaw comes along, but you don’t have to look very far to see how many great players in the past 20 years (or so) were traded away by the Dodgers as prospects. It is no coincidence whatsoever that this is just about the time that the Dodger Way died.
With Kershaw, Billingsley and Lilly on the shelf for part or all of next season, three fifths of the starting rotation is down. But I bet you a hundred bucks that Colletti will go outside and get replacements for them rather than bring up Stephen Fife, John Ely (who is a starter, not a reliever by the way), Zach Lee, Chris Reed, or several other minor league starting pitchers. Unfortunately, ‘the Ned Colletti Way’ is the farthest thing from the Dodger Way and the team will end up with a rotation full of Aaron Harangs and the 2013 Dodgers will once again be a mediocre .500 team.
As much as I hate the Giants (and I REALLY hate the Giants, in case you didn’t know that), the bulk of their very good pitching staff is home grown – and look at them now (uggh!). You would think that with Colletti’s affection for the Giants (can you say Jason Schmidt and Juan Uribe?), he would have a clue about this, but he absolutely does not.
My point here is that the Dodgers have several kids in the fold who are top of the rotation-type guys (and Stephen Fife, Zach Lee and Chris Reed are at the top of that list) and the Dodgers would be better served bringing them up for 2013 and letting them sink or swim rather than going out and trying to find a bunch of old guys who are nothing more than back of the rotation has-beens. There simply aren’t any good top-tier free agent starters available – period.
It’s hard to leave a reponse here as you said all there is to say. All I hope for is that the offense begins to hit in these vital situatons so that more runs can be scored.
I feel that the offense is the team’s last hope to make it to the post season.
It’s going to be very tough to succeed if we don’t have Kershaw but what can we do?
We will sign a free agent pitcher: Greinke, Shields, Jackson. I hope Ned doesn’t go after any of the older guys who have gone by their glory days.
In my opinion, after Rubby and Eovaldi, Allen Webster and Ethan Martin were our MLB most ready pitchers. However, they are all gone. If Martin’s control continues to improve as it did this year, he is going to be a good one.
This would be a golden opportunity for Aaron Miller to get a shot but it appears he and Chris Withrow will make it as relievers.