T.J. Simers: It’s not tough to translate Chad Billingsley’s body language

He’s such a good kid too, as fine a young man as there might be in the Dodgers’ clubhouse. But toughness seems to get someone further at this level, Billingsley beating himself up worse than the Giants, and they were pretty tough on him.

“I honestly don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I left the ball up. Mid-thigh, belt high, not good. It’s frustrating. I just got to figure it out.”

Maybe so, but at this point in his young career, most folks expect more. “I expect it out of myself too,” he said.

A little more spring in his step might help. It’s almost as if he’s expecting things to go wrong these days, walking around the clubhouse as if everyone is down on him, or will be the next time he takes the mound.

“I want to win so badly,” he said, but shaking off the losses and poor pitches a little quicker might make him more imposing.

It’s working for Penny, who left the Dodgers with bad feelings and then bombed in Boston. Rather than dwell on what went wrong, though, “I’ve decided to be more positive,” he said.

While Billingsley likes to keep the emotions bottled inside, Penny lets them fly, which suggests Larry Bowa has some explaining to do.

Bowa questioned Penny’s toughness when he was with the Dodgers. It got under Penny’s skin.