Eric Stults made sure the Dodgers would avoid any kind of slump.
After suffering through 2 bad losses, the Dodgers regrouped in a big way today. Riding a complete game, 4-hit shutout by Stults, they easily cruised to a victory over the Giants, 8-0. It's their first win since that guy in left field got suspended.
The 1st showed just how good the Dodgers can play, and how frustrating their youth can be. Stults got the Giants in order to start it off. Leading off was Juan Pierre, which kind of made me cringe. But he came through today, starting with an unusual double where he lined one off of Jonathan Sanchez's glove, going into left field.
Orlando Hudson followed with a single to send Pierre to 3rd. With nobody out, Andre Ethier came up, hitting in Manny's #3 hole. He got the run in, but by grounding into a double play. Matt Kemp flied out to end it, and right away I found myself saying, "Manny could have done better."
Thankfully for the rest of the game, Manny didn't matter. The 2nd inning brought more runs, starting with a walk to Russell Martin and a 1-out pass to Casey Blake. Juan Castro got the start at short for Rafael Furcal and doubled to score Martin. Pierre came back up with 2 down and came through with a 2-run double to get the 4-0 lead.
That was more than enough for Stults, who was simply fantastic today. Check out his final line: 9 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K. His ERA 2 starts ago was 5.50, now it's 3.58. It's performances like that that will keep him in the LA's rotation for as long as he wants to be.
More runs were added later, starting with an RBI single by Kemp in the 5th to go up 5-0. In the 8th, another double by Castro and singles by Stults and Pierre ran it up to 8-0. Edgar Renteria doubled to open the 9th, but he was stranded as the next 3 hitters did nothing.
The win is a relief for obvious reasons. For the first time since Wednesday night's win over the Nationals, the Dodgers can smile. Everyone will be available tomorrow in the bullpen thanks to being rested today and an off day for travel on Monday.
Coming up in the next 2 weeks are a bunch of tests that will show what the Dodgers can do sans Manny. It starts on Sunday with Jeff Weaver facing Tim Lincecum. They then pack up for games in Philadelphia and Florida, followed by home games against the Mets and Angeles. So basically, the easy teams are done and the challenges await. We'll see how it goes.
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