Tonight, Joe Torre brought Jonathan Broxton in to pitch the eighth inning instead of the ninth, and Broxton wasn’t happy about it:

Torre brought in Broxton one inning early, flip-flopping him with Sherrill to face the heart of the Cubs’ lineup.

“I couldn’t resist it, really,” Torre said.

The manager said he didn’t think Broxton had a problem with his decision, but the closer’s body language indicated he wasn’t thrilled.

“You still got three outs,” Broxton said curtly.

FYI, Broxton is making $1.825MM this season. Torre asked him to pitch the eighth because there was already a runner on first with no outs and the Cubs had Milton Bradley, Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez coming to the plate.

Torre makes a lot of boneheaded decisions, but asking his best pitcher to pitch in the most important spot in the game isn’t one of them.

Remember when Dodgers won 5 rookie of the year awards in a row in the mid-1990s?  Well, this year it seems like they are trying to win 5 rookie of the year awards in one season. 

Last season the Dodgers were an aging team riddled with injuries that scuffled to a 91-loss season and wound up a distant 4th place in the NL West.  This season, they are an aging team riddled with injuries that has been saved by an astonishing bumper crop of ourstanding rookies.

Despite significant injuries to virtually every established player on the opening day roster, including Nomar Garciaparra, Rafael Furcal, J.D. Drew, Jeff Kent, Kenny Lofton, Bill Mueller, Dioner Navarro, Rickey Ledee, Jason Repko, Eric Gagne, and Yhency Brazoban, the Dodgers have surged into second place in the NL West and have scored the most runs in the National League.

Check out the numbers of some of their replacements, all of them homegrown rookies called up from the minors on an emergency basis:

     C Russell Martin: .271 avg, .822 OPS, team is 20-5 when he starts behind the plate

     3B Willy Aybar: .314 avg, .879 OPS

     OF Matt Kemp: .333 avg, 1.079 OPS

     OF Andre Ethier: .300 avg, .899 OPS

     P Jonathan Broxton: 19.1 IP, 26K, 0.93 ERA