Sunday, May 30, 2010

Rockies slap around the Dodgers

Hiroki Kuroda struggled mightily on Saturday night, as the Rockies easily beat the Dodgers, 11-3. For whatever reason, Kuroda simply cannot beat the Rockies, as he's fallen to 0-3 with a 7.57 ERA in five career starts against them.

The Dodgers put up a threat in the first inning against Aaron Cook, but came up empty. Rafael Furcal singled and Garret Anderson walked. Manny Ramirez just got under one in flying out deep to right, allowing Raffy to tag to third. Matt Kemp, though, grounded into a double play.

The lack of a clutch hit immediately hurt the Dodgers, as Kuroda scuffled his whole start. Carlos Gonzalez was beaned to lead off, and Seth Smith singled. Todd Helton then hit a fly ball just in foul territory to Manny, who somehow managed to not catch it. I know Manny isn't a good fielder, but make no mistake about it, that ball should have been caught.

Helton then drew a walk to load the bases. An RBI fielder's choice by Troy Tulowitzki and sac-fly RBI from Brad Hawpe made it 2-0. Kuroda actually recovered pretty well, but it would be short-lived.

Gonzalez added a solo homer in the second to make it 3-0. After the Dodgers wasted their first two hitters reaching base (mostly thanks to Kuroda inexplicably being picked off of second), the Rockies got back-to-back RBI singles from Clint Barmes and Cook to run the lead to 5-0.

Kuroda was lifted in the fifth, where Scott Elbert gave up a bases loaded walk to Gonzalez and a two-run single to Smith. If the game wasn't already over before, it definitely was now at 8-0.

About the only positive to come from this game was in the seventh, where the Dodgers at least scored some runs. Kemp tripled to lead off and scored on James Loney's single. A.J. Ellis and Raffy added RBI singles, cutting the lead to 8-3.

But, the Rockies got those runs back in the eighth thanks to a two-run triple by Miguel Olivo and RBI single from Ian Stewart.

This was one of those games where little to nothing went right. Manny couldn't catch a ball in left, Raffy committed his seventh error, Kuroda was picked off of second, and the offense couldn't get anything going against a guy with a 5.40 ERA coming in. It was just an ugly night all around.

One person who actually did play well was reliever Justin Miller. The game was already decided when he came in the fifth, but he got all four men he faced out, including a strikeout of Brad Hawpe.

As for Kuroda, while I wouldn't say I'm worried about him, his ERA has slowly been creeping up his last four starts (2.66, 2.87, 3.03, 3.55). Despite walking just one, he didn't have his best control. When he was in the zone, he was whacked around. Hopefully this is just a little lull for him and nothing more.

The Dodgers will attempt to lick their wounds and bounce back on Sunday. Clayton Kershaw will get the ball, and he's been lights-out lately. He's just the guy the Dodgers want on the mound after a blowout loss.

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