September 19th, 2007 by Top Dawg

Every Dodger fan knows that injuries have significantly hurt the Dodgers chances of meeting expectations this season.  During the off-season Ned Colletti apparently wasn’t happy with former head trainer (7 years) Stan Johnston, so he essentially gave him an ultimatum, take a demotion or be fired.  Johnston obviously swallowed his pride and took the back seat to Colletti’s former co-worker, with the Giants, Stan Conte.  The problem is the injury situation didn’t get better, in fact it has gotten worse.  The pitching staff has been decimated. Rafael Furcal’s ankle injury he suffered in spring training is the reason he’s had a very down year.  And Nomar…You get a pass on this one Conte.  So I realized today that I know Stan Conte’s name.  I shouldn’t know the Head Trainers name.  He’s been in the media way too much, which means the Dodgers have done a terrible job with injuries in 2007.  I remember in Spring Training Conte was talking about running before practice and how he has a different approach that’s going to prevent injuries.  Uhhhh no.  Didn’t happen.  I’m sure the strength and conditioning staff needs to be evaluated as well, but Conte, and Colletti (for hiring his hand picked guy) should shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for the injury woes.  Lord knows Grady doesn’t overwork his players (more on that later…)  BTW Broxton blew another one tonight…