The Dodgers are having their troubles, but Don Mattingly made sure to take care of an important bit of business on Monday.
Go visit Yogi Berra.
“It was a couple of hours,’’ Mattingly said before his Dodgers defeated the Mets 7-2 at Citi Field Tuesday night. “We had the off day so I called him last week. Joe [Torre] told me he was doing pretty good. I knew he was in assisted living but I knew he was doing pretty good. So I called last week, just wanting to go and see him.
“He came over to the museum, [Berra’s wife] Carmen was there. It was good,’’ Mattingly added with a smile.
A visit with Yogi always makes life better. Mattingly wears No. 8, in part, to honor him, and it was Berra, back in 1981, who went out on a scouting mission to Nashville, Tenn., when the Yankees were considering trading a young Mattingly and came back to tell George Steinbrenner not to deal the sweet-swinging lefty. “He’ll be fine,’’ Berra said.
Yogi was right … again.
The 9-10 Dodgers are learning the cold, hard truth that money does not always equate to wins in baseball. Stuff happens. The Dodgers are going through a litany of pitching injuries, but still had Clayton Kershaw on the mound last night to face Jon Niese.
Injuries have devastated the Dodgers staff early this season with Zack Greinke being the key injury, suffering a broken collarbone in his fight with the Padres’ Carlos Quentin.
“Most years you are probably going to need eight to 10 [starters],’’ Mattingly said. “Somebody usually goes down here or down there, but you probably wouldn’t think you need them in the first 20 days, it happened pretty quickly.’’
And Tuesday came word that Chad Billingsley will need Tommy John surgery and is done for the year. Ted Lilly will start Wednesday night for the Dodgers, his first start since coming back from shoulder surgery. Chris Capuano is out with a calf injury.
“We’re disappointed with Chad, we’re getting Teddy back tomorrow, we think Cap is going to back quickly,’’ Mattingly explained. “We’re still in pretty good shape and we’re going to get Zack back. We got a flood of it pretty quick. We just have to move forward from this.
“We’re still in good order,’’ Mattingly insisted. “We’re going to end up with five guys who are accomplished major league starters, plus we are going to have Greinke coming back on top of that. Nobody wants to hear our complaints. We can’t use it as an excuse. We’re going to have five guys and a lot of teams would like to have five accomplished major league starters and that’s what we are going to have. So we’re still in good shape.
“It’s still about getting guys to play the game right,’’ Mattingly added of his team that is not hitting well with slugger Matt Kemp batting .235 with no home runs. “The only thing that’s different is expectation. That’s fine because that means you’ve got a good club. I can sit here right now and be pretty confident that we got a good club; it’s just a matter of us playing better. We have to execute, we got to do the things we have to do to win games.’’
His time with the Yankees prepared him well.
“It’s a little bit of the same,’’ Mattingly said. “Some of the teams I played on early were really kind of star-studded, you had [Dave] Winfield, [Don] Baylor, [Rickey] Henderson and [Willie] Randolph, guys like that. I played on some teams in the middle of my career that weren’t as good and it ended where it was turning in the other direction. Obviously, playing in a city with high expectations and for an owner that had high expectations every year. When I came back to coach it was more like this, this type of club.
“It’s really all about playing well,’’ he added. “If you don’t play well you are going to get beat.’’
Yogi could not have said it better.