The Dodgers came into Tuesday night's game facing some adversity. The Arizona Diamondbacks were suddenly hot, and only down 2 games in the NL West. The Dodgers had not been playing good ball the last few games, and needed to respond. Did they?
Yes, they sure did.
With a new lineup of Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Manny Ramirez, Andre Ethier, and Nomar Garciaparra, respectively, the Dodgers saw their first 7 men reach en route to a 6 run inning to put this one away very early. More runs were tacked on later as they took the victory over the San Diego Padres, 10-1. The other good news was that the DBacks lost to the Colorado Rockies, so the lead is increased to 3 games with 5 to go.
Since Manny was practically being treated as Barry Bonds (nobody pitches to him, hence all the walks), Joe Torre made the perfect move in getting Ethier behind him. Kemp was restored to leadoff to get some power, and Martin back down to 2. For one night anyway, it worked to complete perfection.
The big first inning looked like this: Kemp walked, Martin ground rule double to left, Manny doubled home both, Ethier walked, Nomar 3-run homer to center, Casey Blake singled, Blake DeWitt singled, Angel Berroa popped out, Chad Billingsley RBI sacrifice bunt, Kemp grounded out. Phew... did you get all of that?
Obviously it helped that Jake Peavy was moved back to Thursday and Wade LeBlanc started. This would be LeBlanc's 4th start against the Dodgers this year, and his stuff did not fool anybody. 7 runs in 2.2 innings is not exactly the best way to impress the boss into making the rotation for next season.
On the flip side, Billingsley was solid yet again. He finished at 6 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. He was probably a bit lucky that with 11 runners reaching in 6 innings, only 1 scored. Still, when he needed to, he got the job done. That's now 16 wins and a 3.17 ERA. He was projected as a potential breakout star by all of the fantasy people before the season, and he has undoubtedly fulfilled that.
In addition to Nomar's big shot, the other star was DeWitt, hitting in the #7 spot. He also hit a 3-run tater, and went 2-3 with 2 runs and 3 RBI's. This month, he's hitting a solid .286 with a very good .400 OBP. Getting plenty of PT earlier in the season has really helped him now.
It would be really sweet to wrap up the division at home, and by winning the next 2 days along with 1 loss by the DBacks, it can be done. 2 losses by the good guys and 2 wins by the bad guys would mean a 1 game separation heading into the final series of the season. It's still not over.
Clayton Kershaw has had 3 great starts in his last 4, and he can keep the ball rolling with a big start tonight against Shawn Estes. Estes was not any good in his last start against the Dodgers (5 ER in 5 IP on September 10), so he's looking to bounce back. In St. Louis, it's Max Scherzer against Adam Wainwright, who's been great since coming back from injury.
Let's hope the magic number is at 1 at the end of tonight.
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