The Dodgers battled back from an early deficit to get the game within a run. That's as close as it would get, as the Rockies pounded Hong-Chih Kuo to easily take the game, 8-3. The Arizona Diamondbacks nearly blew a big lead against the Padres, but held on, and they are now up by a game in the NL West.
Hiroki Kuroda came into this game with 3 straight strong starts. That would not carry over into the 1st inning, as the Rockies got 2. With the bases loaded and a 1-2 count, Ian Stewart hit a low breaking ball into left for a 2 run single. Give credit to Stewart for a good piece of hitting. Jeff Kent hit a ground-rule double to score Matt Kemp in the bottom half, getting the score to 2-1.
The 3rd inning would be costly, as Brad Hawpe launched a 2 run homer to score Matt Holliday and increase their lead to 3. Holliday and Hawpe combined to score 5 of the team's 8 runs, so they could not be stopped at all.
The bottom of the 4th saw the Dodgers make some noise, and all with 2 outs. Nomar Garciaparra singled and Casey Blake doubled. Nomar scored on a wild pitch, and Blake came around on Matt Kemp's double. With 2 runners in scoring position, though, Andre Ethier K'd to end the threat.
The Dodgers again had a big chance to score in the 7th when they loaded the bases off of Manny Corpas. Russell Martin then flew out to right, and that would be it for the Dodgers on this night. Holliday hit a solo shot and Stewart hit a 3 run shot in the 8th, and that's all she wrote.
The most disappointing part of this game was Kuo's shaky performance for the 2nd straight time. In his last 2 games, he's pitched 1 inning and given up 5 runs, with 2 homers. Ugh. I've got to wonder if he's been overused lately. Earlier in the year, he was getting about 3-5 days off in between appearances for the most part. Since August 10, he's been in 5 games. Maybe it's time to scale back a bit.
As poorly as Kuo performed, the Rockies 'pen pitched 4 innings of shutout ball, only giving up 3 hits and a walk. The Dodgers did have 11 hits, but left 9 on base, which is always killer. Oh ya, and 7 of them were in scoring position with 2 outs. Ouch.
The good news for Dodger fans is that after a loss, Chad Billingsley tries to put them back on track. He's opposed by Jeff Francis, who used to be good, but now? Uh, not so much.
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