It's not too often you can say that you lost a game while giving up one hit. So congratulations, Dodgers, you can now say what so few else can.
Despite giving up only a double to Stephen Drew the entire game, a botched pickoff throw ultimately led to the Dodgers' downfall as they fell to the Diamondbacks, 1-0. The last time the Dodgers lost while pitching a one-hitter was 1914.
19. 14. Wow.
All of the offensive highlights for the night came in the second. Drew led off with a double against Chad Billingsley, who was awesome once again even without getting the W. Billingsley then wheeled around to try and pickoff Drew. Good idea, right? Apparently not to Jamey Carroll, who never covered the base, allowing Drew to scamper to third. A sac-fly RBI by Melvin Mora made it 1-0.
The Dodgers certainly had their chances to at least scratch and claw their way to one run, but couldn't do it. In the eighth, James Loney hit a ground rule double to right leading off. Yes, Loney actually showed some sign of power. Whodathunkit? Rod Barajas of all people sacrificed pinch-runner Tony Gwynn over to third with one down.
Dioner Navarro pinch-hit for Jerry Sands, who was 0-for-2 to drop his average down to .200. Navarro, though, struck out. Jay Gibbons then pinch-hit for Billingsley and flew out to end the inning. The funny thing was that Bills actually doubled earlier in the game, one of the Dodgers' four hits on the night.
In the ninth, the Dodgers again had a chance to score and came up with blanks. With J.J. Putz in to seal the deal, Carroll singled to start. After Aaron Miles struck out, Andre Ethier worked a walk to set the table for Matt Kemp. We've already seen two walk-off homers from Kemp this season, so he was the perfect man for the job.
What did Kemp do? Grounded into the 6-4-3 double play to end the game.
One day after just holding on to beat the Diamondbacks, a loss like this shows why the Dodgers aren't yet a .500 team. There's just no way they should have lost this one, especially considering they were facing a guy named Josh Collmenter who was making his first career start. He was fantastic, but I would like to think the Dodgers could've done better than being shutout. I guess I thought wrong.
Like I said before, Billingsley was terrific. He went eight innings for one hit, one unearned run, two walks, and eight strikeouts. After giving up four runs in six innings to the Marlins on April 27 to put his ERA at 4.46, Bills has turned in four great starts in a row to lower it to 3.36. His 50 strikeouts this season have placed him among the league leaders. He's really doing all he can do to help his team win.
So when you see that he's sporting a record of 2-3, that speaks volumes about the Dodgers' offense, or lack there of. They're now 24th in the majors in runs scored, even as their .256 batting average places them in 13th. Obviously, that shows a lack of timely hitting, which has burned them all year long. And it's not getting any better.
The month of May has been a bit unkind to Kemp, who has taken his average down to .336. Of course, that's still a great average, but in 12 games this month, he's at .256. He started the season off so red hot that he really had to come back to Earth at some point. Still, if he had the same situation on Saturday occur earlier in the season, I think he would've come through. He's just going through a small slump right now.
Ethier's walk in the ninth extends his streak of reaching base safely to an amazing 37 games. Like Kemp, however, May has been a bit unkind in that he only has one extra-base hit, a homer on May 8. Before the season started, it was speculated that for the Dodgers to win, they needed Kemp and Ethier to hit home runs. Ethier only has four at this point, which is his only flaw right now. He's getting his hits, but they need him to be the one driving people in, not setting the table for others.
Sunday's game will be the the rubber match. Ted Lilly takes to the hill. He has gone 3-1 in his last five starts, so there's a positive. He's going against Ian Kennedy, who has an ERA of 3.23 after five straight terrific starts.
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