Tagged: Sweep
Dodgers Sweep The Reds On Manny’s Grand Slam
Reds 2 – Dodgers 6 | Box Score | MLB | LA Times | ESPN
Manny was out of the lineup on his bobble head night. Disappointing? Yes, but at least he wasn’t still suspended. None of that mattered in the end though. With the bases loaded Manny hammered the first pitch of his pinch hit at bat straight into Mannywood to make it 6-2. The sellout crowd could not believe it and Manny was forced to do two different curtain calls because of all the excitement.
Chad Billingsley kept the Dodgers in the game through 6 despite giving up the tie runner on a wild pitch in the end before Manny’s big at bat. He finally got to the 10 win mark after reaching 9 pretty quickly and then stalling out over the last handful of starts.
Andre Ethier tied his season high in homers with his 20th shot tonight in the 1st inning. Ethier has plenty of time left to add to a new personal best.
The Dodgers have now won 12 straight in LA against the Reds and extended their current winning streak to 5 games in a row. They are 27 games above .500 with their majors leading 61-34 record. They have swept 7 series now so far this year and this wrapped up their 19th series victory of the season.
Colorado won today but San Francisco lost again. That keeps the 2nd place Rockies at 9 games back while the Giants fell back to 10.5 games. The Dodgers get tomorrow off while the Giants finish up the ATL series. The Rockies are off too before they play the Giants starting on Friday.
Actual Power Outage Spells End Of Dodgers Power Outage
The Dodgers went 22 innings without a run scored before the sun sat and made the dead bay of lights at the stadium an issue that delayed the game over an hour. As soon as the lights were back the Dodgers ended their scoreless streak and plated Juan Pierre.
Both starters were brilliant through 5 but couldn’t make it through the delay. Briefly Randy Wolf was in line to win after Pierre scored but Andruw Jones’ solo shot dashed those hopes and gave Randy Wolf yet another no-decision.
Matt Kemp’s 2 run blast gave the Dodgers the lead again and strong pitching from end to end held the Rangers to that 1 run and the Dodgers forced a rubber game today.
The Dodgers won their elusive 41st game and kept pace with the Giants who took the first two against their rivals from Oakland. The Dodgers will try to win the series today and gain back the game the Giants gained on them night before last. The Giants look to sweep and cut away the Dodgers lead further.
So the rubber game is set.
Dodgers Bombard Rockies With Singles, Sweep The Series
In the 3 game sweep of the Rockies in Colorado the Dodgers team was a singles machine. The Dodgers scored 31 runs on 43 hits in the series. Only 8 of the 43 hits were for extra bases and the Dodgers didn’t hit a single home run in the series. This power shortage may worry folks down the road but after the onslaught of hits and runs the Dodgers put up against the Rockies I think the concern can wait another day or so.
The Dodgers bring their season series record with the Rockies to 8-1 on the year and their division dominating record to 23-8. They hold the best record in baseball still by 5 games with their 33-15 record. They are at least 8½ games in first place in the National League West.
I will miss most of the Cubs series due to travel but I’ll try and get my series analysis, graphs, and predictions put up before I go. When I get back from my trip I’ll try and summarize the first two months of baseball for the Dodgers after they’ve hopefully won or split the Cubs series to finish out May.
Take notice of the poll I’ve placed in the right hand side of the page. It is experimental so if you see any issues let me know.
Dodgers Keep Mets Cool, Extend Division Lead
The Mets might have been one of the hottest teams in baseball heading into LA but they left the city anything but hot. Starting the series in 1st place, the Mets ended the series back 1 game in 2nd place to the Phillies in the East and with a 4-6 losing record in the last 10 games.
Almost universally fans and commentators going into the series said this was the biggest challenge for the Dodgers so far. While the Dodgers didn’t play the best ball of the season they were able to capitalize on the Mets’ mistakes and on key opportunities to score in order to secure a series sweep and extend their lead in the west to 8 ½ games.
The Dodgers as usual scored in the 1st inning each of the 3 games but they somehow managed to prevent the Mets from scoring in the 1st themselves. This has to be the most important aspect of the series I think. Game 1 and 3 were 1 run victories for the Dodgers and Game 2 was a 2 run victory. With that in mind you can see how important it was to keep the Mets from scoring early. Also of some importance is that the Dodgers only let the Mets score 1 time in the 8th inning, an inning I’ve noted several times now is a bad inning for LA. The bullpen faltered a bit in Game1 but in Game 2 and 3 they protected the Dodgers slim leads and Broxton picked up 2 more 9th inning saves.
Pitching matchups helped the Dodgers a lot in this series. Starting their 2 best pitchers and having a strong start by Weaver in game 3 was pretty good. The Mets brought good pitching and kept the Dodgers from getting a ton of hits but missing the start of Johan Santana by just 1 game helped the Dodgers.
The Dodgers have to really be silencing some critics who have said the their success is only because of their weak division. The Dodgers have now played and beaten several of the toughest teams outside the NLW both at home and on the road. This Dodgers team is the real deal and I don’t think many critics can refute that anymore.
It’s a long season though and even this month isn’t going to finish any easier. They’ll face the Angels at home this weekend then head back out on the road to face the Rockies and the Cubs to finish up May.
The Dodgers have earned a day to rest now though and can reflect on what is shaping up to be the one of the strongest season start for the team in decades, certainly in my lifetime.
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