May is about halfway over. Just a few things…

If I was Chad Billingsley, I’d be a little angry at Jonathan Broxton. Two blown saves, and two wins that should have been Billy’s. He should be 7-1 by now.

Great time for Russell Martin to start turning it on. His average went from pathetic to respectable (and still growing) in just a couple short weeks. This is exactly the kind of thing we really need to see right now.

Andre Ethier on the other hand, has done the exact opposite. He’s gone from stellar to mediocre in the same short amount of time. It’s pretty understandable though. With Manny gone, I’m sure Ethier feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Look around, Andre. The rest of the lineup is doing great, so that should take some of the pressure off.

Speaking of Andre, I think that until he can get his confidence up again, he should drop down in the lineup a bit. Let’s give Casey Blake a chance to hit in the 3 or 4 spot. Apparently he has more power than we realized.

Speaking of sock in the middle of the lineup, great to see Loney turning it on in Philly. Let’s hope he can keep that up in some parks that aren’t quite as hitter-friendly.

Going from punch to poke, let’s give it up for Juan Pierre. He’s showing that while he’s no Manny, he can definitely get it done in his own way. I think i might get that JuanPierreWood shirt after all. (No really, they have those.)

Still waiting on Hiroki Kuroda. Let’s just hope he can come back strong.

Speaking of injured pitchers, is Jason Schmidt even still alive?

And finally, one last thing about the whole Manny situation. It’s interesting how this has affected us in Los Angeles. We’ve felt some things that the rest of the baseball world didn’t. We’ve lost our innocence, first of all. We really haven’t had to deal with anything like this yet. There were a couple Dodgers in the Mitchel Report, but they’d already come and gone. Then there’s the crushing disappointment for the loss of our hero, of course.

But the other thing that we have to deal with that no one else does is that…this could potentially ruin our season. This was supposed to be our year to just dominate, and while the Manny-less Dodgers haven’t exactly looked pathetic, it’s clear that they’re just not the same. We have to deal with the fact that for 50 games, we’re not going to be that crazy-good team we thought we’d be.

Because of that, we’ll cheer for Manny when he comes back. Even people who hate him now will turn around when he hits a huge home run in September to clinch the division. I know I will.

Just makes me feel a little guilty, I guess…