One night after Chad Billingsley threw the best game of his season, Hiroki Kuroda decided to get in on the fun.
Kuroda pitched eight masterful innings against the lowly Mets, and Matt Kemp drove in both runs as the Dodgers won their second straight, 2-0. The win gets the Dodgers five back in the NL West.
There wasn't a whole lot of offensive highlights in this game, as the teams combined for only nine hits. Actually, the Mets won the hits battle 5-4. But they also had two baserunners gunned down by Russell Martin and left all three on who were in scoring position.
Jamey Carroll drew a walk from Hisanori Takahashi with one out in the first. Andre Ethier lined out to make it two down. Matt Kemp has been searching for his swing pretty much all season, but he drove one off the wall in right for an RBI double and 1-0 lead. Poor Jeff Francoeur is still twisting and turning trying to find it.
Both teams went down in order in the second and third innings. In fact, Takahashi set down 10 straight at one point. He certainly did all he could to win, finishing with seven innings for three hits, two runs, two walks, and five strikeouts. Maybe he just happened to have a great start, but he sure looks better than his 4.52 ERA shows.
The best scoring chance for the Mets came in the fifth. Francoeur and Chris Carter (not the annoying ex-NFL receiver who acts like he's better than every current player while analyzing for ESPN) both singled with one out. Josh Thole struck out looking. Luis Castillo ran the count to 3-0 before given the intentional pass.
If the Mets were playing well, they probably would've done something big here. But they're a mere 1-7 since the All-Star break, so you can guess what happened next. Takahashi grounded into a fielder's choice for the final out.
Kuroda was pitching very well, but the Mets were still only a swing away from tying the game. Kemp put an end to that, as he led off the bottom of the seventh with a solo homer to left, his 17th. The score read 2-0, but with the way the Mets hit, it may as well have been 12-0.
The Mets went down in order in the eighth, Kuroda's last inning. Hong-Chih Kuo, not Jonathan Broxton, was brought in for the save. Unlike Broxton, there would be no drama. Kuo walked David Wright but struck out two and got Francoeur grounding out to end the game. It was his third save of the season.
Kuroda's shown a great ability to quickly forget about bad starts. It was only four starts ago that he was knocked out in the second inning against the Diamondbacks. Tonight, he went eight strong for five hits, no runs, one walk, and four strikeouts. His stuff was fantastic, as he was in full control from the beginning.
The offense is certainly not setting the world on fire still, which makes these last two games all the more impressive. Billingsley and Kuroda have combined to pitch 17 scoreless innings, giving up only 10 hits and striking out seven. Plus, the Dodgers were in a bad losing streak, so these two put the team on their backs.
It's not realistic to expect them to pitch like this each outing. But, if they can show more consistency, then along with Clayton Kershaw and Vicente Padilla, the starting rotation suddenly looks really good. The Dodgers will need it with their offense struggling to put up runs.
As for Kemp, this is his third multi-hit game since the break. He'll still look lost on many at-bats, but he took his double to the opposite field, and just creamed his home run. It's no secret that the Dodgers need him to step up, especially with Manny Ramirez out of the lineup again. Tonight was a good sign.
Padilla will have a very tough act to follow. Lucky him, he's up against Johan Santana as well. But, Padilla has been just great lately, so I'm sure he'll be ready to go.
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