Thursday, April 3, 2008

Rain falls, and the Dodgers pack it in

It was a weird sight on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium. Rain was falling harder than I can remember, and a 1-hour, 14-minute rain delay ensued. Both Chad Billingsley and Tim Lincecum were scratched from their starts, and then came out of the bullpen anyway. The Giants were able to get the edge in this one, 2-1.

The new Giants starter, Merkin Valdez, was overpowering, and the Dodgers flailed away without much success. After K'ing 4 in 2 innings of work, Jack Taschner pitched 1 scoreless inning before giving way to Lincecum. What was really unusual was that Lincecum not only pitched before the delay, but after as well. The Dodgers could only manage a bloop single to left from James Loney as the only run off him in 4 IP. Brian Wilson pitched the final 1.1 innings for the save.

Billingsley only recorded one out, but did give up a sac-fly RBI to Aaron Rowand. Esteban Loaiza came on to pitch 2.2 innings, and surrendered a run-scoring sac-fly to Randy Winn, which proved to be the difference in the game. The Dodgers are now 2-1 going into an off day today before a 3-game set in San Diego starting Friday.

While I commended them for having a deep lineup after Monday's game, they really haven't been too good yet. They've had chances to score, but have left an amazing 48 men on base already. Yikes! Of course, having Russell Martin strike out looking with the bases loaded to end the 7th didn't help, especially when James Loney and Blake DeWitt both doubled in the inning AND NEITHER ONE SCORED! That's hard to do. Needless to say, that will have to change to beat better teams.

If people actually did make it through the rain delay, I'm sure more fuel will be added to the Juan Pierre fire when they saw him pinch-hit in the 9th, reach on a fielder's choice, then get caught stealing as Furcal struck out to end the game. Pierre is definitely not having his best moments as a Dodger right now.

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