The Dodgers are doing the best they can to remind everyone why they have a big lead in the NL West.
The Giants were no match for the Dodgers on Tuesday night, as Randy Wolf went eight brilliant innings, and Manny Ramirez and Matt Kemp homered for the 9-1 win. Coupled with a loss by the Rockies, the lead is 6 and 1/2 in the West.
Emilio Valez hit an RBI groundout in the third to get the Giants on the board first. Joe Martinez was rolling for awhile, as he was scoreless through four innings. But, once he started to get hit, the Dodgers took this game and ran away with it.
In the fifth, Rafael Furcal started a big inning with a walk. Russell Martin hit a grounder that Martinez somehow backhanded on a great play... then threw the ball away at second. With two on, Andre Ethier hit a long double to plate them both.
Manny lined a double to left that scored Ethier for the 3-1 lead. Casey Blake's grounder advanced Manny to third, and James Loney hit an RBI single. Three hits and an error gave the Dodgers a 4-1 lead.
Fast forward to the seventh, where the Dodgers had another big inning. Ethier singled to lead off, and Manny took a low breaking ball and deposited it into left for his 13th homer of the year.
A walk to Blake and a single by Loney set the table for Kemp. All Kemp did was crush one to dead center for a three-run home run, his 16th this year. The end result was a commanding lead of 9-1.
While the offense struck big a couple of times, Wolf was the true star. In eight innings, he gave up three hits, one run, one walk, and three strikeouts. Along with Hiroki Kuroda yesterday, that's two straight dominating performances by the starters. Combine that with the offense waking up, and it's easy to see why they've had their way thus far.
As for the Giants, it's obviously not the way they wanted to make a statement. They came into this series with the potential of being 2 and 1/2 games back, now they're 7 and 1/2 back. They're one of many teams battling it out in the Wild Card, lead by the Rockies by one game over the Giants. That'll go right down to the wire.
Chad Billingsley is a scratch for today's game because of a sore left hamstring. With the Dodgers winning the first two games, it's actually not as big a deal that he can't start. Don't get me wrong, I wish he was in there, but they can afford to be cautious with a nice lead in the West.
Jeff Weaver will instead take the spot start, and he's a reliable choice. The bad news is that none of this may matter because the great Tim Lincecum starts for the Giants. Lincecum actually has a 4.15 ERA this year against the Dodgers, so maybe there's a glimmer of hope there.
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