Time to go find some 1964 Phillies anecdotes to pass on…
Maybe the headline should just be “Three Ls in a row” because “Three LLLs in a row” could mean 9 Ls. The mathematics on this is unclear.
Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus three weeks wrote about the potential value of Billy Hamilton just as a pinch-runner. It’s quite likely that Saturday’s win by the Reds may be the only one that could be chalked up solely to his speed.
Both Mat Latos and Zack Greinke pitched well, but neither were dominating. J.P. Howell who had the dreaded BL on his record yesterday, picked up the BS. Brian Wilson gave up his first run as a Dodger and took the loss. If Wilson is hurt, it’s not like the Dodgers don’t have plenty of other arms to replace him. And remember that Chris Withrow pitched very well on Friday.
The Dodgers bats need to get going in order to salvage a game in the series. The last team to sweep the Dodgers in a series? The Angels, in a two-game set in Anaheim on May 29-30, which was right after the Dodgers had beaten the Angels twice at Dodger Stadium on May 27-28. The last three-game sweep was May 17-19 in Atlanta. The Dodgers have also been swept by the Giants, Diamondbacks, and Padres.
Arizona plays at San Francisco tonight at 6:05 pm. Brandon McCarthy facing Matt Cain. Atlanta is at Philadelphia and Pittsburgh plays at St. Louis for the NL Central lead in the 4 o’clock hour.
Sunday’s game will be a 5 pmish start on ESPN. National broadcasts like that serve to make everyone feel like their team is unappreciated by John Kruk and Orel Hershiser. Interestingly, ESPN is not making America watch another Yankees-Red Sox game. Instead, TBS will show that game.
Little known fact: you can go to an art house theater and watch a marathon show of “Berlin Alexanderplatz” and still get home to catch the last three innings of a Yankees-Red Sox game.
RBI
Rooting for the Gnats and Phillies? In…con…theevable, but true.
Bob_in_Vegas
Yep.
But I also feel like I did pre-June 22 — Dodgers have to get their own act together and not worry about the other teams.
RBI
They can leave the other-team-watching to me!
David Farinella
“in…con…theevable” AWESOME reference!
RBI
I’m ridiculously pleased you got this.
Bob_in_Vegas
And I’m sure it DOES mean what you think it means.
KT
one of my favorite movies beside “Oh brother where art thou”
package206
I have witnessed the 1st 2 games of the Red series and believe me the bullpen is not doing the job.
ASW1
The bullpen has worked 10+ innings and given up 5 runs in the 2 games, so yeah, not the greatest – but when you score 2 and 3 runs in 2 games in that ballpark, you aren’t going to win those games very often. The bats need to wake up.
btimmer
NL Central standings at the moment
PIT 81-59
STL 81-60
CIN 81-62
The Cubs (60-81) lost to the Brewers 5-3 so that means that the can only make the playoffs if the team that loses tonight between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, loses every other game. Among other things.
ASW1
I’m going to take the view that the Reds are much more motivated in this series and that the Dodgers have kind of hit one of those proverbial walls – they know they have the division wrapped up – this inevitably leads to a subconscious letting the foot off the gas. Having this view is better for my morale and much more preferable than thinking they all of a sudden just can’t hit good pitching.
When the playoffs start, I’m sure they will play with much more urgency than they have shown in this series so far.
Bob_in_Vegas
I like the optimistic take and would whole-heartedly embrace it except . . . it happened in Boston . . . and it reminds me too much of what happened the first 2 1/2 months (and now this is happening WITH Puig and Hanley).
Still . . . for the sake of sanity, back to Door #1.
Linkmeister
A mild surprise in college football: Halftime score U of Hawai’i 14 — Oregon State 14
RBI
Braves just lost.
KT
I would really like to win tomorrow’s game so we have the tie breaker over the Reds
Bob_in_Vegas
And to stop the losing streak.
And to give Kersh a win.
And to show them . . . and us . . . they can beat a playoff team.
And to lower Magic’s #.
WBBsAs
It’s bizarre that, after AGon’s leadoff single, Mattingly chose Punto instead of Dee to run. Punto stayed put, while Dee could have stolen a base and caused a throwing error, and change the way the pitcher worked. I can’t say that would have happened, it could have, and it makes sense to use your fastest baserunner in that situation. Mattingly continues to be a poor strategic manner.
Linkmeister
Maybe Mattingly thinks that Punto is a better baserunner than
Gordon? Gordon is certainly faster, but Punto’s got years of experience
on him.
My point really is that Mattingly probably didn’t use Punto on a whim. He had a reason for Punto instead of Gordon.
Bob_Hendley
My guess is that he wasn’t going to run anyway with Hanley up and maybe not with Dre either and didn’t trust Dee not to get picked off.
Bumsrap
Back to Mattingley’s thinking–should he have been trying to steal the base? Dusty was doing it with his speedy guy.
Bob_Hendley
Not sure that emulating Dusty is the way to go and Hamilton seems to be at another level above Dee (in the minors 82% success rate versus 77%). With a single, Dee has a chance to go to third (with no outs) and to score with a double.
Bumsrap
I wasn’t expressing my preference, just extending previous commenter’s line of thought.
btimmer
NPUT