Ted Lilly and John Ely were locked in a good old fashioned pitcher's duel on Thursday afternoon in Wrigley Field. The first team that blinked would come up the loser.
In the eighth inning, the Dodgers blinked.
A one-out double by Tyler Colvin scored Mike Fontenot, and the Dodgers' offense was nowhere to be found as they dropped one to the Cubs, 1-0. The Cubs took two of three at home.
Being a day game after a night game, Joe Torre rested Rafael Furcal and Manny Ramirez. The result was a team that collected five hits, and two were by Casey Blake. Simply put, Ted Lilly had little to no trouble in mowing them down.
But then again, Ely was equally as effective for most of the game. Alfonso Soriano got a day off, and Ely took full advantage of that. On the day, Ely went 7 1/3 innings for four hits, one run, two walks, and four strikeouts.
It's too bad that the one run he gave up would hang him with an L. After Fontenot tripled to lead off, Geovany Soto struck out swinging. Colvin then hit his double and went to third when Xavier Paul had trouble playing the ball cleanly. Jeff Weaver did a nice job in keeping the score at one.
Carlos Marmol was brought on in the ninth, and he struck out Raffy before walking Blake DeWitt. Manny pinch-hit and struck out. Garret Anderson pinch-hit and struck out. My guess is if there wasn't three outs, the next person would have pinch-hit and struck out. Marmol now has 11 saves.
It's hard to say if the Dodgers really had many threats to score. They certainly didn't through four innings. In the fifth, Reed Johnson walked to lead off. After DeWitt fanned, Jamey Carroll walked, and both men advanced to scoring position on Ely's bunt. Russell Martin was given the intentional pass before Paul flied out.
The only other scoring opportunity came in the eighth with the game still scoreless. With the top of the order up, Martin walked. Paul struck out, but Matt Kemp singled for two on. It didn't matter, as Blake lined out and James Loney grounded out.
Maybe if Ely was more experienced at pitching deep into games, he would have put up another zero in the eighth. But, it wasn't meant to be, and it's certainly not his fault that his record dropped to 3-2. He now has five straight great starts after a rocky first one. His ERA stands at 3.00 with a 1.00 WHIP. That's very impressive.
The good news is that the Dodgers claimed the middle game to get at least one win. The Cubs have won 8 of 11, so it's not like they're a lousy team like last year. I don't think they'll make the playoffs, but who knows.
The Dodgers just couldn't get that one big hit to give themselves the lead, much like Tuesday night's game. They were able to hit around a mediocre pitcher in Tom Gorzelanny, but couldn't do anything against solid ones in Ryan Dempster and Lilly.
What will help is Andre Ethier's return. From all indications, he'll play rehab games over the weekend and be back on the field in L.A. on Monday. That's much quicker than people thought, so that's great news. After watching the offense get blanked twice in three days, his return is a welcome sight.
Carlos Monasterios will get another spot start on Friday night in Coors Field. He'll go against Jeff Francis, who looks like his old self and them some two games back from his arm injury. So, the offense needs to wake up if they want to win this one.
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