Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hitting (or not hitting) is contagious

What a night Monday was. The Dodgers came ready to play from the first pitch of the game. Rafael Furcal led off with a home run, Russell Martin was 3-3, Matt Kemp had 2 doubles, James Loney had 3 RBI, and Nomar Garciaparra hit his first home run of the year. Yup, it was quite the exciting night.

So of course that meant that the Dodgers would then revert back to their old ways 1 night later.

Up 1-0 in the 3rd inning from a Furcal RBI-double, it was all downhill from there as the Cincinnati Reds took the last game, 8-1. The Dodgers could only gather 5 hits, but did collect 6 walks. But, they then hit into 3 double plays. It was lousy, un-clutch hitting once again.

This was the kind of game you'd watch and just constantly roll your eyes at. Put a man on base? Good. Ground into inning-killing DP's? Bad. Hit 3 doubles? Good. Leave 4 runners in scoring position on with 2 outs? Bad. Allowing the other team to have 4, 2-out RBI? Bad. Lousy starting pitching? Bad. Striking out 9 times? Bad. Looking lifeless, clueless, and utterly pathetic for nearly the entire night? Bad, bad, bad.

Quite simply put, it was a pathetic effort from a pathetic team. The Dodgers are just incapable of stringing together solid innings and beating teams they should be beating. Instead, they are a free-swinging, low-hitting, completely beatable team. They are the worst team in the NL West and deserve to be there. Even the San Francisco Giants are better than them. That's really sad.

If the Dodgers ever want to prove they can be a contending team, then they need to man up and beat the Arizona Diamondbacks the next 2 games. It won't be easy with Dan Haren taking the mound tomorrow, but I don't care. They have to win a couple of big games in a row at some point. The next 2 days are the perfect time to do so.

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