Thursday, July 08, 2004 |
Night Of The Living Bloggers: Dodgers 7, Astros 2
To the game. Jackson pitched as good a game as I think we could have reasonably hoped for. Even though he only threw 64 pitches to get through the fifth, I have to believe -- as one of our members suggested -- that given the arm pain he reported in his previous short start, there was no way Tracy would let him go beyond the minimum tonight. Mostly, he became a flyball pitcher, recording eight flyball outs and only five ground outs. Despite it, the real work the outfielders got was in the eighth, when Giovanni Carrara got consecutive flyball outs on simply outstanding catches by Bradley and Werth. Dreifort had a particularly awful outing, walking the bases loaded after getting pinch hitter Orlando Palmiero, the former Angel, to pop out. Tom Martin, on the other hand, continued his late streak of masterful pitching, and Tracy's gamble to give him more innings seems to be paying off. I've never seen him this in control before.
Helen says this game really exposed the weaknesses of the Houston team, and in particular, Jimy Williams' proclivity to pull his starters at the drop of a hat. Duckworth had thrown a lot of pitches by the bottom of the fourth, but he wasn't truly out of control; the game was only 3-2 and Duckworth had thrown 76 pitches, 41 for strikes. Duckworth, the dubious return on the Billy Wagner trade in the offseason, begins to look like something of a bust with his 7.53 ERA. Minus Dotel and Wagner, Houston's bullpen begins to resemble interstellar space. Not only is Williams overworking his relievers, the ones he's got to work with are of decreasing quality. Hence, the Dotel trade may have been a huge mistake. Regardless, the noise about Houston is that if the Astros don't win this series, Williams is out of a job, and possibly, Carlos Beltran -- and other pieces -- may become available yet again.
The Astros' "Killer B's" -- Berkman, Biggio, Bagwell, and now Beltran, were a collective 2-13. The Dodgers got their licks in -- 12 hits in all -- but curiously, the bottom of the order was particularly productive tonight, with half the RBIs coming from Werth, Cora, and Jackson (of all people).
Update: Two items of note: one thing I noticed during the game was the lack of velocity on Jackson's pitches. The fastest we saw was 92 MPH, but that seems low for a guy who's noted for his velocity. The other question mark was noted by poster Rick on Jon's gameday entry yesterday. The umpires apparently awarded a fifth ball to Dreifort on a 3-2 pitch. Darren then got Orlando Palmiero to pop out after the gift. I saw it as a scoreboard error, but apparently Vinny caught it and the broadcast audience was therefore not fooled.
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