Ted Green: Dodgers’ power is deep with Casey Blake in lineup

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Casey Blake has hit 20 or more home runs four different times in his career.

I’ve now heard this stat tossed out there maybe half a dozen times already this season. I’m sure you have too.

It sounds like one of those stats the old numbers whiz, Ross Porter, used to throw out there to fill air time when he was announcing Dodgers games, so I didn’t pay much attention to it ... until, out of idle curiosity, I looked up a certain Bengie Molina.

You remember Bengie. Used to catch for the Angels. Well, for a better, deeper perspective on how superhero strong your everyday lineup has to be for the No. 8 hitter to be a four-time, 20-homer guy, I went to Bengie.

And how sharp a contrast is this -- Molina is hitting cleanup for the Giants, and he has NEVER hit 20 jacks in his career.

Not once, not ever. And he’s the Giants’ 4-guy! He did hit 19 twice.

Now I called the keepers of the flame, MLB’s own Elias Sports Bureau, to ask how many current big-league teams have no one on their entire rosters who has ever hit 20 homers even once. They told me there was too much research involved, but I’ll bet the answer is at least five entire teams with no 20-home run guys at all.

The veteran Blake is certainly the only No. 8 in baseball who has done it even once.

Now, before you think I’ve gone off the deep end, this is not to even begin to suggest that Furcal-Hudson-Ramirez-Ethier-Kemp-Loney-Martin-Blake are going to be mistaken for the great 1 through 8’s in baseball history. Not now and certainly not yet.

The famous old Yankees’ Murderers’ Row, starring Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel and Lazzeri in the middle of the order, now THAT was a lineup. You wouldn’t dare compare the current Dodgers to the Yankees of the ‘60s with Maris, Mantle, Howard and Moose Skowron. I remember the imperious Pinstripes had a No. 8 hitter on that team who also hit 20 homers and played third base, like Blake does. His name was Clete Boyer.

Are you old enough to remember the Giants with Mays, McCovey, Cepeda and the Alou brothers? Or the Big Red Machine featuring Joe Morgan, George Foster, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Davey Concepcion and Ken Griffey Sr.? That may have been the best lineup ever. Morgan, for one, says it is. His bias is forgivable.

But when Matt Kemp, with light-tower power, and a professional hitter with pop like Blake are hitting seventh and eighth, respectively, especially with baseball’s top-to-bottom talent as thin and watered down as it is now with 30 teams, then you have got yourself one deep, imposing lineup, one that does not afford opposing pitchers any breathers where they can take a hitter or two off to regroup without consequence.

The Dodgers are white hot right now, so it’s fashionable to front-run, jump on the Big Blue bandwagon, save up for playoff tickets, dream of a Blue October. That’s what April is for.

Instead, I’ll simply tell you that theirs is the best 1 through 8 in the National League. It’s not as good a lineup as when, say, NBC had ‘The Cosby Show,’ ‘Cheers’ and ‘Seinfeld.’ I’ll give you that. But if the pitching holds up, even if Trader Ned has to go out and bring in a Jake Peavy or Pedro Martinez in midsummer, there’s no reason this lineup with the Mighty Casey at the Bat in the 8-hole shouldn’t be playing deep into October.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green formerly covered lots of basketball and tennis for the L.A. Times, but he is secretly a huge baseball guy and currently senior sports producer for KTLA Prime News.