Northern California Baseball Blog and Q&A

Paul Gutierrez
Raised in Barstow, Calif., where he played community college baseball for two years, Paul Gutierrez has worked at Sports Illustrated and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he covered his alma mater's Runnin' Rebels at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. During a six-year stint at the Los Angeles Times, he co-authored Tommy Davis' "Tales from the Dodgers Dugout." He came to The Bee in October 2005 and is now a Bay Area sports features writer who concentrates on baseball during the spring and summer.

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September 07, 2007

Loaiza's pay-off

Greetings from Dodger Stadium North and Franklin Stubbs Bay, or, as the locals refer to it, AT&T Park and McCovey Cove (remember, with the Dodgers owning the Giants to the tune of an 11-game winning streak here, we're not referring to San Francisco's home on the water by its given name until the Giants break the string).

Anyway, I had a chance to catch up with former A's pitcher Esteban Loaiza, who was picked up on waivers by the Dodgers on Aug. 29. The right-hander, who made just two starts for Oakland this season because of injuries, said he was still "in shock a little bit" over being let go by the A's (he still had some $8 million in contract money remaining) but relished the opportunity to be in a playoff race.

Perhaps more shocking, though, was the bounty Loaiza had to pay Dodgers first-base coach Mariano Duncan to get No. 25 from him.

"I got him a Cartier watch," Loaiza said. "He wanted a Rolex; I had to change it up a little bit. It (cost) a couple thousand dollars. I wanted to get him something nice. Otherwise the whole team here, especially the veterans, would have gotten on my case. I didn't want to be cheap."

He will also chase Dodgers icon Fernando Valenzuela's record for most major league wins by a Mexican-born pitcher, while wearing Dodger blue instead of A's green and gold. The left-handed Valenzuela was 173-153 from 1980 to 1997 while Loaiza, who was born in Tijuana, is 125-108 in a career that began in 1995.

"Records are made to be broken but I don't know how long I'll be playing," Loaiza said. "I want to finish out this season strong and then win at least 15 next year and take it from there.

"But you can't promise anything."

He'll have an interested observer, though, as Valenzuela is a Spanish-language radio broadcaster for the Dodgers.

"What record?" an amused Valenzuela said with a laugh.

-Paul Gutierrez

Posted by Bill Bradley, September 7, 2007 08:02 PM

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