Friday, August 13, 2004 |
Thanks, Kyle: Dodgers 8, Cubs 1
Maddux still makes Cub fans raucousAm I the only one who thinks Kyle Farnsworth looks more like he should be a bicyclist than a pitcher? He's all legs, for one thing, and his thighs are tree trunk sized. Most power pitchers look like Clemens or (until recently, anyway) El Ladrón, guys with a big ol' barrel chest and a mean streak. Helen says he's famous for spending late nights with the ladies in the Wrigleyville bars, and maybe last night was one late night too many.
When he ascends the mound
He'll try to keep the Dodgers knockless
And the hits all on the ground.
Dreifort walked a leadoff batter on four straight, but got Moises Alou to GIDP; for $11.5M/year, he oughta be better than that. Whatever, we won, we won, but man, does the bullpen ever look rickety minus Mota. (On the other hand, Mota's post-All Star splits shows a guy with a 3.77 ERA; still, it pales next to Dreif's 5.91 ERA.)
Outside of Dreifort's control-free zone in the eighth, both sides pitched well up until the 9th. Maddux was his usual stumping self, not the dominator of years past, but even the ghost of greatness can still get his K's and groundouts when he needs them. It was a good sign for the Dodgers that Dusty had to reach into his rickety bullpen early. One wonders that the jeers Farnsworth left the mound to could be aimed at Dusty in the not so distant future. Some San Francisco fans complained that Dusty acquired from his mentor, Tommy Lasorda, an ability to get less from a lot of talent than anybody else in baseball.
Tomorrow will be interesting, Ishii vs. Wood, a matchup I expect the Dodgers to lose. On the other hand, Wood lost his last start, against San Francisco, principally because (so they say) he's working on his changeup, a pitch he had abandoned in 2003. If he continues to work in an ineffective third pitch (he normally throws a fastball and a slider, both hard), it might be to the Dodgers' benefit. On the other hand, Ishii plus Wrigley plus late in the season equals complete randomness with an emphasis on kablooey.
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