My latest at Baseball Prospectus ($) touches on the Dodgers ownership mess, Ryan Roberts’ hot start in Arizona, and a bevy of struggling left-handed hitters in the NL West (James Loney, Brandon Belt, Brad Hawpe, Ian Stewart). It also includes references to Greg Laswell, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Makepeace Thackeray, Ayn Rand, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge… if you’re into that sort of thing.

A couple items that I’d wanted to include in the article didn’t have a logical place, so I present them here instead:

• Mat Latos continues to struggle. He has allowed five homers in 16 2/3 innings, including four in 10 1/3 innings at Petco Park.
• Mike Adams recently retired 28 consecutive batters, tying Bruce Hurst’s club record. Since 2008, only the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera has a lower ERA (1.69) than Adams (1.74) among pitchers who have worked at least 180 innings.

On a brighter note, the Padres won Monday night. Hawpe’s 2-for-5 performance lifted his OPS+ all the way up to -6. Woo-hoo, go team!

Tagged as: baseball prospectus, brad hawpe, brandon belt, ian stewart, james loney, mariano rivera, mat latos, mike-adams