Sep 27

Dodgers defeat Pads 8-4

Mark Saxon leads his ESPN LA game story for the Dodgers’ 8 – 4 win over the Padres tonight this way: “Maybe the Dodgers have finally snapped out of the maddening, month-long hitting slump that virtually swallowed up their season. Now, they have one last homestand to prove it matters.”

Hard to argue with that. When I went back into the kitchen with our dinner plates and switched the TV in there to ESPN for the scores I saw the Dodgers had 8 runs for the second night in a row and said to myself “why couldn’t they have been doing that for the last month?”

I note that Luis Cruz had more hits (3) than either Matt Kemp or Adrian Gonzalez (2 apiece) and Cruz and A.J. Ellis each had two RBI. Where would the Dodgers have been without Cruz? Do you realize he’s got a higher batting average than Kemp (.308 to .305) and Kemp’s OBP is only .035 higher (.370 to .335). ‘Course, the OPS numbers are significantly different (Cruz: .777; Kemp: .900). Capuano gave the Dodgers a good 5 1/3 innings, giving up just one run. He and Harang have been a lot better than most Dodger fans expected at the start of the year, I think.

I suspect it’s too little too late; a three-game deficit to the Cardinals with only six games to go will be awfully hard to make up unless the Redbirds completely collapse, which seems unlikely. It’s not entirely impossible, though, since their opponents for their last two series are the playoff-bound Nationals and the also-playoff-bound Reds. The Dodgers need to win all six of their games against the Rockies and the Giants to give themselves a real chance. If they keep hitting the way they have the last two nights, it’s not out of the question. Is it?

Sep 27

Game Thread 9/27/12

It’s Capuano v. Kelly and the devil take the hindmost!

Maybe more later. There’s a medical problem today which may entail a trip downtown, so I thought I’d put this up before anything later kept me from doing so.

Lineup:

Punto, N, 2B
Ethier, A, RF
Kemp, M, CF
Gonzalez, A, 1B
Ramirez, H, SS
Victorino, S, LF
Cruz, L, 3B
Ellis, A, C
Capuano, C, P

Gameday

Oh, by the way, the Reds beat the Brewers in the ninth with a walkoff triple after a home run tied the game 1 – 1 and a single followed that. That leaves the Brewers 1/2 game back of the Dodgers and 4 back of the Cardinals for wild card #2.