Today In Dodgertown – June 20th, 2012
The Dodgers are not getting any luck with the Oakland Athletic’s this week. For a pitching staff on a sub .500 team, we have run into two incredible pitching performances. Tommy Milone, pitched a 112 pitch complete game and only allowed one run in nine innings, and at one point, retiring 14 batters in a row. To prove this was no fluke…after just allowing that one run, his home ERA actually increased. Ridiculous, right? I thought the same thing.
In the second inning, the Dodgers took the lead with a two out double by Juan Uribe that scored Juan Rivera. Dodgers lead “Juan to nothing.” ….Sorry, that was terrible, but I had to. From then, I was thinking to myself that this could be the day that Nate Eovaldi could finally get his first victory after some great outings. Nope. In the fourth inning Nate gave up the tying run with a double by Seth Smith that scored in Yeonis Cespedes. In the fifth inning, after not getting any help offensively, Nate began to show his youth and inexperience on the field. With runners on first and second with no out and a man with a lot of speed comes to the plate, you can almost guarantee a bunt will be called. When this happens, it is the pitcher’s job to focus on the ball and let his catcher tell him where to throw it. Weeks bunted the ball straight to him, and Nate decided to look to third after he fielded the bunt instead of going straight to first. This gave Jemille Weeks plenty of time to reach first safely, and no outs were recorded. This gave them the bases juiced with a lot to work with. Nate did get Josh Reddick to ground into a double play, but that also allowed a run to score. Dodgers trailed 2-1. With a runner on third and two out, Yeonis Cespedes hit a sharp double that scored Coco Crisp. Dodgers then trailed 3-1 and that would remain the score when Eovaldi came out of the game.
Scott Elbert came in to relieve him and was facing Yeonis Cespedes when he barely missed a homerun. This was a towering shot to left that Bobby Abreu jumped to make the catch at the fence. I was relieved for a brief moment, until the next batter, Brandon Moss, hit a solo shot to the other end of the park and extended the Athletic’s lead to 4-1.
Clayton Kershaw looks to end this weird skid and get the Dodgers out of Oakland with a win. The game for tomorrow is scheduled for 12:35 pm PT.
Then the team will travel to Anaheim to play the Anaheim Angels for another three game series, then head back up to Northern California to play the hated Giants.
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