L.A. Daily News: A scary dropoff for L.A.

Speaking of Wreck-O-Cut tonearms...Jason Schmidt.

For eight weeks, Dodgers officials had tried to convince everyone - and by extension, to convince themselves - that the dramatic dropoff in Jason Schmidt’s velocity was no cause for alarm.

For eight weeks, Schmidt himself had insisted that he wasn’t even paying attention, that there were more productive ways for a veteran pitcher to apply his mental energy than by concerning himself with some ambiguous digital readout.

But on Saturday night, it became painfully clear that the issue could no longer be ignored. Not by the Dodgers, and not by Schmidt.

...Both Giles’ and Kouzmanoff’s homers came on the first pitch, an obvious sign that Schmidt’s pitches had little on them. Not a single Schmidt delivery registered higher than 87 mph on the pitch-speed display board in left field.