All juiced up about giving Dodgers a necessary boost

SAN FRANCISCO â€”  I’m taking steroids, so I probably have a better chance of driving in runs now than any of the Dodgers.

I’ve had this cough ever since the Lakers began the playoffs, and while it sounds like I’m gagging and trying to blend in with the Choking Dogs, I called the doctor.

Instead of the doctor, they sent me to an Amanda the Paranda, or something like that, who gave me a business card identifying her as a PA.

Who better, I guess, than a public address announcer to deal with an irritated throat?

She gave me steroids, and all these years I wondered why Ralph Lawler always looked as if he was in better shape than any of the Clippers.

As soon as I loaded up on the steroids, I couldn’t wait to tell Manny Ramirez where he could score some.

He’s in Arizona, you know; he had to go away for a while. A female fertility clinic, I presume.

In the meantime, I rejoined the Dogs here, and knowing my performance would be enhanced, I volunteered to write an extra column. Aren’t you lucky?

But I got to thinking, if only I could catch, I could replace Russell Martin in the lineup now that I’m juiced up and maybe give the Dogs a boost.

Don’t know if you’ve really noticed, but Martin has been playing the game like someone who goes to home plate without a bat.

This was an All-Star player, but since the All-Star break in 2008 -- and that’s a long time -- he’s hitting .250, which almost qualifies as an automatic out. That’s 15 home runs in his last 297 games, 100 runs batted in, and so it was time to remind him before the Dogs’ first game with the Giants this weekend that he stinks and best start smacking the ball.

First time up, matched against the two-time Cy Young Award winner, Tim Lincecum, he singled up the middle to drive in a run.

Don’t know what the McCourts are paying hitting instructor Don Mattingly, but what’s he been doing since the All-Star break in 2008 to turn Martin around?

“I’ve guess I got to go to Wooden and say, ‘I’m not teaching unless he’s learning,’ � Mattingly said.

He said he has tried to get through to Martin, “but it’s like the movie ‘Days of Thunder.’ He’s a burn-up-the-tires kind of guy, so I’ve told him to run 50 laps his way and then how about 50 laps my way.�

Both Mattingly and Manager Joe Torre maintain Martin has the capability to be a .300 hitter, but Torre said he’s too impatient and Mattingly said Martin wants to hit home runs and more often than not aborts the plan put in place going into each game.

Martin said he has no answers for why he can no longer hit, while Mattingly said part of the guy’s problem is he’s such a competitor -- telling the story how he prepared Martin to hit against Lincecum in an earlier meeting.

He said he told Martin to lay off the inside pitches, Lincecum making it very tough on right-handed hitters, and Martin replied, “I’m going to kick his butt.�

Mattingly told him to wait and force Lincecum to bring the ball to him and Martin said, “I’m going to kick his butt.�

So Mattingly told him, “You go kick his butt,� and as you might have already guessed, it didn’t go well for Martin. I wasn’t really interested in anything Martin had to say. I just told him to hit the ball, and he did.

In fact I told Rafael Furcal the same thing before the game, pointing out he has been dropped in the lineup from No. 1 to No. 2 because the Dogs traded for some guy with an impossible name to pronounce.

“Just hit the ball,� I told Furcal before the game, Furcal firing back, “I will because I don’t want to be sitting on the bench,� Furcal then hitting a home run. Why Mattingly never thinks of this stuff -- I do not know.

Now I know what you are thinking: Why not tell Matt Kemp to just hit the ball? I never claimed to be a miracle worker.

The Dogs began Friday night having scored 14 runs in their last eight games, and yet I got them two runs off the two-time Cy Young winner in the first three innings. Let me tell you, steroids do make a difference.

The problem, of course, I’m not sitting in the dugout, and although getting the Dogs more runs than they had scored in the previous eight games, these guys don’t have very long attention spans.

I wonder if it would help if Torre was on steroids.

I know this, Jeff Weaver needs something more than just his arm to get anyone out anymore, and if the Dogs have any interest in pursuing a wild card -- now 4 1/2 games behind the Giants, they better load up on the relief pitchers by the 1 p.m. trading deadline.

Or put a call in to Amanda the Public Address Announcer.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Andy Purcell:

“I live in Knoxville, TN, and I am a college football fan; further, I am a registered nurse, a student, and a husband. . . . I happen to think Lane Kiffin is one of the luckiest, smuggest mush mouths to ever back into a head coaching job. I have way more to think about every day [than Kiffin], and for you to make such a comment about people of this state [having nothing else to do], is not only insulting, but also just dumb.�

Yeah, I see what you’re talking about.

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