Sunday, May 04, 2008

Game 31 Thread: May 4 @ Rockies, 12p

Round and round they go....


Derek Lowe (2-1) vs. Aaron Cook (4-1).

COMMENTS: Eight straight, baby! The Dodgers' winning streak now lies in the hands of Lowe; unfortunately, his wonky delivery mechanics—and the resulting runs allowed—in his last start in Florida suggest Lowe isn't completely healthy. Meanwhile, Cook has been the Rockies' true ace, leading their staff with four wins. Pitching advantage: Colorado.

But! The Dodgers have scored 23 runs in their past two games, and there's no indication they're going to slow down. The Denver weather is getting warmer and the Dodgers' offense is bubbling over like a chicken pot pie served at the Marie Callender's in hell. They're scoring runs in scads (James Loney had six RBIs yesterday); although another double-digit outburst is unlikely today, the Dodgers will score enough runs to give Lowe a chance to win. Batting advantage: Los Angeles.

So who wins today, the arms or the bats? Let's see, the Dodgers have won eight straight. The Rockies have lost 11 of their last 13. Momentum advantage: Los Angeles.


Photo by Jon SooHoo/Dodgers. No, not the chicken one.

87 comments:

Orel said...

Epale, boys & girls! The lineup:

Furcal, SS
Pierre, LF
Kemp, CF
Loney, 1B
Martin, C
Ethier, RF
DeWitt, 3B
Hu, 2B
Lowe, P

Andruw sits, starting our strongest OF of Pierre, Kemp & Ethier (never thought I'd be saying that). Hu starts. And where did that great third baseman go?

Steve Sax said...

Soohoo is vegetarian, so he wouldn't have taken that pot pie picture.

Hey, are we sticking an "s" on the plural form of RBI? I don't have my SoSG Style Guide here at home.

Orel said...

RBIs
RBIs

Orel said...

Hey Sax, did you hear that Jon Weisman is co-hosting Dodger Talk tonight (with Steve Lyons and Ken Levine)?

Steve Sax said...

Hmm, Dodgers for 30 mins, then Lakers?

Pre-game show has the Denver Post Rocies beat writer calling it a season, and extolling the Dodger kids' virtues.

Erin said...

I always use RBI for both the plural and singular. It drives me crazy to see it as RBIs, though I am not knocking anyone who chooses that form. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Erin said...

I mean, the link you provide has one guy getting mad because he thinks they might as well just call it RsBI. But, the UN, despite the fact that the "N" refers to a plural noun, doesn't call itself the UNs.

Hell, we're not the USsA, either.

Orel said...

Already down 2-0? I can see Lowe is up to his usual tricks.

Erin said...

Lowe doesn't seem to have any command right now, which is always refreshing to see. He just doesn't want us to win nine in a row.

Erin said...

Wow. Two runs in, bases loaded, nobody out. This is not going to end well.

Erin said...

51 pitches for Lowe in one inning. With Loaiza and Kuo going yesterday, I suppose that means some extended time from Chan Ho Park.

Since we're playing at Coors Field, it's a good thing Park doesn't give up a lot of home runs.

Orel said...

I can feel the sarcasm dripping from your comments, Erin. But I can hardly blame you, although Lowe made it out of the second unscathed.

Orel said...

Lowe has the worst body language in the world.

Erin said...

Yeah, Lowe looks like a sad sack the instant something goes wrong. Suck it up, buddy! Come on!

If he can get through the next three innings on ten pitches each, he might make it through five.

Orel said...

Why is Joe Torre drinking from two paper cups when one would suffice?!

Erin said...

Don't worry, Orel. My post on the Dodgers' recycling issues will be up sometime soon. I'll mention Torre's use of two cups, too. No one is above the law!

Erin said...

Thank god for Rafael Furcal.

Orel said...

Nice play by Furcal!

Orel said...

Lowe with 76 pitches through three.

Erin said...

Pierre still standing on second with two outs. I'd sure like to get at least one run here, just to get things going.

Orel said...

Dodgers waste a double by Juan Pierre. Guess we're finding out what momentum is good for: jack shit.

Orel said...

Oh no, a CarMax text message question with no Dodger as an answer! What ever will the homers do?

Orel said...

Iron Man made $101 million!

Erin said...

Again, thank god for Rafael Furcal.

"He is a team photo all by himself." --Vin Scully

Orel said...

Rafael Furcal saves the day—again!

Orel said...

Lowe with 89 pitches through four. Your prediction may be exactly right, Erin.

Erin said...

I have to say, I only just realized that it's "Iron Man" and not "Ironman," which is annoying.

It's not "Super Man" or "Bat Man." "Spider-Man" is a hyphenate at least, officially.

But $101 million? Good. It's a great movie. Who's seen it, other than me?

Erin said...

Ethier golfed that one out of here! There we go! That's just the spark we needed.

Orel said...

Just what we didn't need, Hu. His DP means the pitcher's spot will be batting first next inning.

Then again, if Lowe gets through the fifth, it allows Torre to PH for him. Hmmm.

Steve Sax said...

Wow, Iron Man did a lot better than I thought it would. The marketing always seemed to be on the quiet side to me, and it appeared to have no hooks for the female gender. Still, $101MM: check out Marvel's stock tomorrow (which has already run up over the last month)...

Orel said...

Ironman is the triathlon. I haven't seen Iron Man yet, although it's on my list.

Erin said...

Just a little aside, for fun:

I've always thought, when calling something a box office record, they should go by number of tickets sold, not just the money. I mean, it's fine to talk about the money, but if you're going to have a top ten list of all-time biggest movies, there has to be something more quantifiable there than just the money.

I've heard that if they judged it based on tickets sold, Gone With the Wind would still have the lead, since people just kept going back to see it again and again.

Or maybe it should be based on profits, although I doubt we can expect studios to be honest about what it cost them to make a movie.

Orel said...

If MM=million, what does m=?

Steve Sax said...

Four pitch walk, men on first and second. Omar up now with a chance for RsBIs.

You know, when I saw Holliday getting hits, I knew Lowe would be in trouble.

Orel said...

Uh oh, it's first-inning Lowe again.

Steve Sax said...

Sweet play by Lowe-ster the Toaster to get the force at third.

Erin said...

Yeah, throwing to third seemed dangerous there, but it worked out. I'll feel better when he gets Holliday.

Steve Sax said...

Orel: The technical abbreviation for million should be "MM", as in the roman thousand thousand. But most people just abbreviate it now to M, which is confusing with talking with people who don't use "K" for thousand (e.g., most Europeans).

By the way, nice ankle-tag by FJL.

Erin said...

Wow. If you just missed that play that gave Colorado another damn run, I don't even know how to explain it to you.

But DeWitt should have held on to the friggin' ball, and we'd be out of this inning.

Orel said...

4-1? Um, how did we score?

Steve Sax said...

For someone who has started as slow as Holliday, one would think he wouldn't be caught rounding first too aggressively.

Orel said...

Ethier homered?

Steve Sax said...

Erin, Omar Q came barreling into DeWitt and I think he knocked the ball out of DeWitt's glove (but I may have missed the call).

5-1 Rockies. Well, as long as we can get 11 runs again, we'll still win.

Erin said...

I know the logic of leaving Lowe in is so we can pinch-hit for him easily in the next inning. But it won't really matter if we keep letting the Rockies add on runs. And Lowe isn't stopping them from doing that, so leaving him in seems rather counter-productive.

Steve Sax said...

Orel, yes he did.

Okay, back to moving boxes for a while.

Orel said...

Lakers up by 13 in the 2nd quarter.

Erin said...

Yeah, Ethier homered last inning. I saw the guy hit DeWitt hard, but still. Think about how nice it would be to have been out of this inning without another run scoring.

Orel said...

Dodgers don't stand a chance if they can't knock Cook out of the game. Right now he could pitch a CG.

Erin said...

We know they can get to the Rockies' bullpen. We just need to get there first. Cook only needed 62 to get through five, so let's make him throw some pitches this inning.

Young leads off with a single. That's a start.

Erin said...

Vin confirms my suspicions, as Park is warming in the bullpen.

Erin said...

Okay, I flipped away for a second and the inning is over. What just happened?

Orel said...

Found this list of top ticket-sellers. Unsure of its accuracy but it's interesting regardless:

1. Gone with the Wind 283,100,000
2. Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs 225,300,000
3. Star Wars 176,900,000
4. E.T. 158,000,000
5. 101 Dalmatians 143,100,000
6. Bambi 140,800,000
7. Titanic 130,900,000
8. Jaws 128,600,000
9. The Sound of Music 119,300,000
10. The Ten Commandments 117,800,000

Erin said...

It's probably hard for them to be accurate, since there weren't a lot of computers operating back in 1939 when Gone With the Wind came out. But I bet ticket prices were more uniform, so whoever came up with the list just did a little division to figure it out.

Orel said...

Young singled. Furcal grounded into a DP. Pierre grounded out.

Damn that Furcal! He's useless!

Erin said...

72 pitches for Cook through six. Yeah, we might be looking at a complete game.

karina said...

Hi everybody!

i hope Jonathan Herrera doesn't get on base. It's obnoxious and he always scores :(

karina said...

would someone explain to me why people liked so much Titanic?

The art direction and cinematography were outstanding, beautiful and evocative, but i think the script was corny and it's not very well directed.

Erin said...

Dodgers go down 6-1 because Chan Ho Park is a bad pitcher. Meanwhile, the Mets just took a 1-0 lead over the Diamondbacks.

Orel said...

Hi Karina! What can you say, people like corny.

Orel said...

It hurts me to say it, but go Mets!

karina said...

Go Gocho!

Orel said...

Diving catch by Juan Pierre. If Andruw Jones didn't have such a good glove, Juan might be stealing more playing time from him.

Erin said...

Titanic was corny. I consider it a guilty pleasure, but it certainly didn't deserve fourteen Oscar nominations and eleven wins. It was most certainly not a Best Picture Oscar kind of movie, and I think most would agree that L.A. Confidential should have been the winner that year.

karina said...

watching the Mets-Dbacks game, wanna updates?

Erin said...

Time for a big rally. Here comes the fall of Aaron Cook.

karina said...

Curtis Hanson. That's a guy who knows making movies. LA Confidential is one of those perfect films. Review: simply brilliant (as Wonder Boys)

Orel said...

Dammit! Dodgers mounting a rally and Loney hits Kemp with the ball. Kemp's out.

karina said...

Let's go Baby Blue!

Erin said...

Oh, man. Another baserunning blunder from Kemp. Can't jump to avoid the ball. That ball would have gone through the hole, leaving us with two on and nobody out. My big rally theory is looking less likely.

karina said...

El Gocho Santana is nasty tonight, good news.

Orel said...

Charge him, Russell!

Erin said...

Even better news for the Dodgers is that we don't have to see Santana in the upcoming series.

Orel said...

Love seeing the good clean hard slide by Loney to break up the DP.

karina said...

My prayers were answered, though if Santana was facing the Dodgers, i could get to see the Dodgers game. In Venezuela, they always broadcast the Gocho and Big Z games.

Orel said...

Urk! No runs. How's Santana doing, Karina?

karina said...

Solo HR by David Wright! 2-0 down Arizona. Santana has 4 K's in 3 innings.

Erin said...

It would make me feel better if we could at least score more than one run. I don't want this game to start another pattern like they had going before this winning streak.

Erin said...

Does a loss today mean someone other than Orel has to write tomorrow's game thread, and at something other than four minutes past the hour?

Erin said...

DeWitt, Hu (maybe Kent, if Torre is so inclined), and a pinch hitter for the pitcher coming up in the ninth. Who pinch hits? Sweeney, Jones? The options are endless.

karina said...

I guess and my profile pic is dissapearing too.

Erin said...

Guess Torre has given up. Hu is batting for himself, and Sweeney is next.

Erin said...

After three batters, two of them reaching, I have only just realized that it's actually the eighth inning, not the ninth.

karina said...

Uptin scored. Mets 2, Arizona 1.

single, wild pitch, bad defense curtesy of Moises Alou.

2 out.

karina said...

Random: today was Audrey Hepburn birthday...just saying...

karina said...

Juan Pierre singled, Dewitt scored. 6-2

Orel said...

And thus endeth the streak. Time to start another one with the Mets—after they beat the D'backs today, of course.

Orel said...

Mets break open a 2-2 tie in the 9th! 5-2 Mets and they're still batting.