Saturday, July 10, 2004 |
Paulie Rocks The Rocket: Dodgers 3, Astros 1
Alvarez cruised; Clemens, while hardly having a bad outing, sweated through his outs. Alvarez faced 22 batters and used up 82 pitches doing so, or 3.73 per opponent; in his six innings pitched, it amounted to 4.55 pitches per out. Clemens, on the other hand, got through seven innings and used up 109 pitches, for 5.19 pitches per out. Though Clemens lassoed eight Dodger strikeouts, the positively dominating Clemens of yore didn't show up for today's game. Instead, we got a very good but still hittable version, though interestingly, his single-game 6.45 H/9 is actually lower than his career 7.73 or even his 8.46 H/9 from last year, maybe an expected result considering the Dodgers still-dodgy offense.
Dodger "D" shone brightly again, as both Bradley and Cora showed the phenominal diving plays we simply take for granted, Cora robbing pinch hitter Carlos Beltran of an RBI at least. Green had a brilliant 3-6-4 double play on Clemens' bunt attempt, so if Shawn's hurting at the plate, it's not affecting his getting the job done on defense. He's turning into a better-than-average defensive first baseman, and who'd have thought that would be possible when the season started?
Green's stick, on the other hand, wasn't getting it done for the second time in a row, but neither was that of a half-lineup of Dodgers. Paulie got a nice pitch, and the Dodgers got the win, though by far the Dodgers put much more pressure on the Astros than in the reverse, as the line score (5 hits, 2 walks, 3 stolen bases for the Dodgers, vs 3 hits, 2 walks, 1 HBP for the Astros) testified.
Update: One last item of note, but a biggie: despite both my and Jon's tut-tutting, it looks like that crazy Joe Morgan might just be on to something. Bringing Gagné in for a two-inning close, to face the pitcher's spot and the first five batters? Inspired. This is a team struggling to find its feet, and who knows but that they'll explode against Dodger pitching in an inopportune moment. Though perhaps with Gagné getting yesterday off and Dodger starters essentially running on vapors (who knows how long Lima will last tomorrow), it's best to let Gagné work harder today and let Mota absorb up to three innings tomorrow.
Overall, a great game and a wonderful time. I hope we can all do this again soon. Incidentally, you might want to check out Tommy Naccarato's game summary on Jon's blog (scroll down to the bottom or so).
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