Sunday, July 27, 2014

Post-Game 106 Thread: Burger Time!

DODGERS 4, GIANTS 3

You would always hate to drop the last game of a three-game series, when said last game is on national television (versus the first two games, in which the Dodgers outscored the Giants by 12 runs to regain possession of first place in the NL West). With ESPN pundits like Buster Olney pontificating from the sidelines, this game held relevance even though the Dodgers had already secured the series. In fact, the Giants (and ESPN) would have liked nothing more than the narrative of newly acquired Jake Peavy, serving as the white knight to save the orange and black.

Alas, the power of Dodger burgers was just too much for the Giants to resist. The Dodgers went in-n-out of the Bay Area storming away, sweeping the Giants out of first place, and, more importantly, showing some offensive power that demonstrated well-sequenced barrages of hits in each of the three games.

Today's breakthrough game in the fifth inning, when (after trading runs with the Giants for three frames), the Dodgers broke the game open on the back of Oyster Pubes' defensive missteps. First, Dee Gordon Kd for what should have been the second out, but reached first safely on the wild pitch. Yasiel Puig then walked and both runners advanced on another Peavy WP. Adrian Gonzalez than fanned for the second out, but the ball squirted free from Pubes yet again, and instead of checking Gordon back at third, Pubes threw to first, allowing the fleet-footed Gordon to charge home ahead of a Peavy tag for the tying run.

With Peavy rattled and Pubes in another world, Hanley Ramirez singled to center to score Puig; Carl Crawford tripled to right to score Ramirez from first; and Matt Kemp had a shot at prolonging the barrage but flied out to right (Kemp went 2-for-3 tonight, with two singles and a walk; and aside from that AB, looked pretty good from the plate tonight). A 2-1 Giants lead turned into a 4-2 Dodgers lead, and though Oyster Pubes hit a solo HR in the bottom of that frame, that concluded the game's scoring.

Hyun-Jin Ryu wasn't spectacular tonight, but he was fine, going 6.0 IP with 6 H and 3 ER (7 Ks and 1 BB). J.P. Howell gave up a leadoff single but escaped the inning with only five total pitches: Brian Wilson walked one but had a scoreless eighth with one K; and Kenley Jansen dutifully struck out the side in the ninth to preserve the victory. Dodgers are now 1.5 games up (having entered the weekend 1.5 games back) and are tied with the Brewers for the second-best record in baseball (behind Washington).

Jake Peavy drops to 1-10 on the year, and is 0-1 as a Giant. Dan Uggla, the Giants' other recent pickup, went 0-for-3 with 2 Ks and is batting .152 on the year. Uggla, a three-time All-Star, was batting .162 with a miniscule OPS+ of 33. He is now 0-for-8 as a Giant. And he does not get fries with that order.

5 comments:

Orel said...

Uggla also had two errors. He might be the Dodgers' MVP for the game

Paul said...

Can we win 4 in a row?

Dusty Baker said...

@Paul

Usually not.

Steve Sax said...

Next up is the Braves at home, after a day off, right? Doubtful...we serve up Beckett, vs. old hand Aaron Harang

Steve Sax said...

From the AP wrap:

San Francisco suffered its first three-game sweep in the rivalry since June 24-26, 2013, at Dodger Stadium. The last Dodgers sweep at AT&T Park came July 27-29, 2012.