Anyone Noticing Exactly How Bad Vernon Wells Is This Season?

Angels outfielder Vernon Wells is struggling. I knew it was bad when I heard he was benched for Wednesday’s game. Wells said he was “trying to do too much.” But I didn’t know how bad it had gotten until I went looking for some numbers on Carl Crawford tonight.

I said after the first game of this season it was evident Crawford was pressing at the plate in an effort to impress his new teammates and prove he was worth the massive contract he signed during the winter. He still hasn’t relaxed. Crawford went 0-for-5 on Friday to lower his batting average to .137. But coming into the day, dude was mashing with his .378 OPS and .174 slugging percentage compared to Wells.

To just look at Vernon’s season through figures entering Friday inspires awe. Or awwwwww. For me, it’s laughter. I engage in much more schadenfreude than I really should.

Pedro Feliciano Won’t Be Able To Face Ike Davis This Season

It looks like Pedro Feliciano’s vow for revenge against the New York Mets will have to wait until next season at the earliest.

The Yankees reliever, who hasn’t pitched all season, underwent an MRI on Wednesday, which revealed a torn capsule in his left shoulder. How bad is that news for Feliciano? It caused Yankees GM Brian Cashman to evoke the name of a former Yankees pitcher who hasn’t seen game action since 2009 for comparison.

“It is a Chien-Ming Wang-like issue,” Cashman said. “And he is still trying to come back with Washington. Some people can come back, but the odds are a lot more difficult.”

Wang is currently on the Washington Nationals’ 60-day disabled list with “right shoulder fatigue.”

So it’s a good news-bad news situation. The good news is for Feliciano. No matter the injury, he got himself paid prior to this season to the tune of $8 million over two seasons. I hope he enjoys it. It’s like what they say: Money for nothing and the chicks for free. Except for the chicks part in this case, I guess.

The bad news is for the Yankees, who may see that money spent on a pitcher who didn’t play in one game while under contract. And that talk from Cashman about how the Mets handled Feliciano in “abusive” ways during the past three seasons turns out to be bulls-eye.

Call me crazy, but I think this kind of motion repeated had a lot to do with this injury. God, pitching is just not right.

Boone Logan remains the only left-handed reliever in the Yankees’ bullpen right now. That’s less than good if you are a Pinstripe fan like me. With the way he’s been pitching in 2011, he may as well have a torn left shoulder capsule.

This Just In: Dodger Stadium Is Still A Fine Place To Watch Baseball

What a week for a guy’s computer to give out. Manny retires; Barry Bonds is found guilty but scores a big legal victory in the process; Kobe Bryant’s different kind of foul; The Masters is won by … some guy. I’ve missed the timeliness boat for those stories, although I still want to talk about Manny being Manny being done. I will do that later.

For now, I’ll talk about last night. Specifically, last night at Dodger Stadium. I was there with all of the police officers on foot, in squad cars, riding horses, bikes and motorcycles.  I took a bunch of photos, none of which I can upload because, again, my PC is dead. But I do appreciate the officers never minding me as I snapped shots of them like an overzealous foreign tourist.

The increase in force was certainly noticeable. But that’s the point, right? Of all the games I’ve been to at Dodger Stadium — and I’ve been to a couple hundred in my time — I don’t remember an occasion when more than one officer was in sight of a ticket gate at the start or finish of a game. Maybe the increased publicity heightened my attention as opposed to those previous nights, but at least three officers were posted outside of every gate that I saw as fans entered. When I left at about 10:30 p.m., I counted 11 men in blue within a quick 180-degree head turn, none of them more than 30 feet away from the stadium. I wondered if some knucklehead would start trouble just to create some personal attention on a night where the police presence overshadowed the actual game. I guess not. I didn’t hear about any scuffles.

I found the scene more odd than comforting. That’s probably because I have never had a problem at Dodger Stadium. I have never felt unsafe or that my well-being was in jeopardy. I felt unsafe while my father driving through Downtown L.A. after a Dodgers game on the night the ’92 riots erupted, but hey, I’m getting off topic.