Game 119 Thread: August 14 vs. Astros, 7.10p

Dodgers start Brett Tomko, RHP (2-9, 5.49) vs. Matt Albers, RHP (2-5, 6.20).

Dodgers: 60-58 (4th place NL West, 6.5 GB, L3)
Astros: 53-65 (4th place NL Central, 9.0 GB, W2)

From Dodgers.com, the scouting report on the starters:

Dodgers: Although he still has only one win since May 9, Tomko provided a quality start against the Reds. Tomko let two leads get away with his typically shaky early innings, but he kept the Dodgers close enough with four scoreless innings and left with a no-decision.

Astros: Albers will move back to the rotation for this game after having his slot skipped the previous week because of an off-day. Albers has thrown well out of the bullpen but has struggled in the rotation, and his last start was no different, allowing five runs on five hits in 4 1/3 innings on Aug. 5 at Florida. This could be his last start before Chris Sampson returns from the disabled list to reclaim the No. 5 spot in the rotation.

From Inside the Dodgers:

I know the Hillenbrand move confused some people yesterday, but there was certainly reasoning behind signing him and then bringing him up. Nomar Garciaparra, who has been dealing with a strained left calf for a while, has finally had to go on the disabled list and knowing that he was hurting, adding a third baseman made the most sense. Of course, no one knew that Nomar would get ejected last night for the first time in his 1,300-game career, but so it goes.

So coming up from Triple-A today will be Eric Hull, who will join the bullpen. And there should be another move coming on Friday when we add a starting pitcher for that night's game.

There's not much I can really add about the play on the field these last two weeks. We're all disappointed that it hasn't been better and there's not a person in baseball operations who isn't spending every waking minute trying to figure out how to fix it.

Here's today lineup:

Furcal, SS
Pierre, CF
Kemp, RF
Kent, 2B
Loney, 1B
Martin, C
Ethier, LF
Hillenbrand, 3B
Tomko, P