6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

This was just an incredible game, and not least because my better half was using blue expressions that I'm usually responsible for. The Cubs, in case you hadn't heard, are the worst club in the Senior Circuit, and so the Dodgers should have won this one in a walk.

They didn't, but the road to finding that out was a long way from the first couple innings. A lot of the reasons why the Cubs lose can be laid at the feet of Dusty Baker, who has famous penchants for playing veterans over youth, but somehow, he has fallen in love with the speedy but otherwise useless Freddy Bynum. By the time J.D. Drew had come up to bat in the top of the second, Bynum had already made three errors...

Charlie Steiner: Drew at .277 with 15 home runs, leads the Dodgers with 82 runs batted in.
J.D. Drew: taps the ball to second.
CS: And he spanks one up the middle, here's Freddy ...
Steve Lyons: Uh oh ...
Freddy Bynum: throws the ball two feet over Derek Lee's head, allowing Drew to reach safely when Lee leaps off the bag to catch the errant throw
CS: Oh, no...
SL: Oh, he ... the umpire called him safe because he pulled him off the bag, and if that's true, they're going to have to give him another error.
Cue instant replay.
SL: And this ball takes a funny little hop on Freddy right at the end — watch him have to — up to get it — that's gotta be another error, Charlie.
CS: Let's put it this way: if they call it a hit ...
SL: ... that's a mercy hit right there ...
CS: ... if this was hockey, and Freddy Bynum was a goalie, they'd change goalies.

They didn't give him four errors, but it was, as Lyons suggested, a mercy hit. (Incidentally, isn't it kind of pathetic when even the opposition broadcaster feels sorry for you?) It was one the Cubs shockingly recovered from in the fifth, when a chink in the Dodgers' defense opened the door to a five-run inning, as Rafael Furcal threw away pinch hitter Buck Coats' grounder. That led to three consecutive Cub singles, and a two-run Matt Murton RBI double to get the Cubs back in the game.

It was absolute irony time, as one infield gave back what the other's had coughed up. The scorer later on gave J.D. Drew an error when Ryan Theriot — Bynum's eventual replacement at second — hit a long flyball to right that should have been an easy out. But Drew missed it, allowing Theriot to reach third safely in the bottom of the eighth. Was Drew being mindful of his knees in the tricky, wet fielding conditions at Wrigley? Did he lose the ball in the sudden transition from light to the dark right field corner? Whatever happened, Derek Lee's sac fly drove in a run to give the Cubs a one-run lead that Designated Closer Ryan Dempster would surrender in the top of the ninth.

The final irony, of course, was Cesar Izturis knocking in the final run with a walkoff RBI single in the bottom of the eleventh, but that wasn't a shock. Looking at the Cubs roster changes, showing off Dusty's love of the double-switch, 24 players entered the game on the Chicago side; the Dodgers posted 20. If I've watched a worse game lately, I don't know what it was (although the Angels victory later on came close in sheer frustration).

Finally, I get a sense, from the comments around here lately, that there exists a certain contingent of Dodger fans who anticipate a return of the Dodgers to primacy, the better to rub it into the face of Angels fans, so impertinent of late now that they've had a couple of good teams to cheer for. Today's game was a reminder to such arrogant rabble that there's a long road to a ring, and this club has just enough stupid, injured, and clumsy in it to lose another four straight. In the postseason, that's all you need for a first-round knockout.

Clarification: My point was that if you can lose four straight in the regular season (remember that 13-1 stretch in July?), you can sure as heck lose four straight in the postseason. And yes, if you lose three in the Division Series, you're out. Duh.

Update: Takashi Saito got to watch as the Cubs knocked in the winning run. For all that Grady has been willing to experiment, his bullpen utilization is crazy at times; Saito was well-rested. And, 17 runs scored by 17 different players, the most since 1974 with no runner scoring more than once.

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