Astros' pitching stifles Dodgers

Manny Ramirez made his long-awaited return to Los Angeles on Thursday night. He hadn't played there since a May 6 win against the Nationals. Yes indeed, "Mannywood" is back.

But somebody forgot to wake up the offense, as the Astros had their way in a 3-0 win. The Dodgers had a handful of chances, but nine men left on base and two double plays were too much to overcome.

The start of the game was a nice pitcher's duel between Randy Wolf and Wandy Rodriguez. Neither team could push a run across through four.

In the fifth, the Astros broke the ice with a solo homer from Humberto Quintero. He's now up to a whopping... one for the season. Figures.

Down by one, the Dodgers had a golden opportunity to get on the board. James Loney singled to lead off, and Orlando Hudson doubled into left for two runners in scoring position. Randy Wolf hit a soft grounder to second, but it wasn't good enough to score a run. With one down, Rafael Furcal walked.

So now the bases were loaded with one down, and Andre Ethier stepped up to the plate. It seems like every time he gets in one of these situations, it's either a huge hit or a double play. What happened here? A soft grounder to short for the 6-3 DP. Ouch.

The Dodgers never really had a big threat after that, as Rodriguez and the bullpen didn't give much to them. The Astros tacked on two more in seventh, as Wolf gave up three straight hits to start the inning and load the bases. Guillermo Mota came in and did a pretty good job, only allowing a couple runs to score.

In the bottom of the seventh, Loney and Hudson again reached to start, but two strikeouts and a groundout washed away any scoring chance. Jose Velverde came on and got his ninth save to close it out.

Wolf was pretty good for most of the game. He finished with six innings, five hits, three runs, one walk, and six strikeouts. Unfortunately for him, a bad seventh inning really made his final line look ordinary. But with no run support, there's not much he could do.

As for Manny, he ended up going 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. He singled in the eighth, but Casey Blake grounded into a double play. The only one who really did well was O-Dog, who was 3-for-4.

Chad Billingsley will, once again, look for his 10th win tonight. He's been a little off lately, including giving up the tying run in the All-Star game. In fact, if not for Albert Pujols' two diving plays, who knows how many runs would've scored. He'll go against the always dangerous Roy Oswalt.