6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Comebacks Our Speciality, Walkoffs Our Pleasure: Dodgers 3, Phillies 2 (12 Innings)

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

Comebacks Our Speciality, Walkoffs Our Pleasure: Dodgers 3, Phillies 2 (12 Innings)

So it's way too early to start talking about playoff games, but this game had all the fingerprints of one: tight pitching, a tough opponent, and a pair of division-leading teams going tooth-and-jowl at it with lots of zeros on the board. Andre Ethier got the Dodgers on the board with a solo homer in the fourth, but Ronald Belisario gave up the advantage two frames later when he allowed a two-run single with two out and men on second and third; appropriately, it was to last year's NLCS nemesis, Matt "Wonder Hamster" Stairs.

But the game wasn't over, not by a long shot; the Dodgers narrowly missed an opportunity to tie the game in the seventh, when Juan Castro was picked off second with one out, but Juan Pierre subsequently singled. The run that didn't happen set up an appearance by Brad Lidge in the ninth. Lidge blew his second save in as many games by giving up Rafael Furcal's first career pinch-hit home run (according to the radio broadcast, anyway). Furcal was hitting a pretty woeful .239/.301/.299 coming into the game, and so it was roughly the last thing you would have expected.

The Dodgers had a chance in the 10th with Orlando Hudson and Andre Ethier reaching on successive no-outs singles, but Scott Eyre settled down to get the next two batters, and Chad Durbin retired Matt Kemp, who did exactly nothing in this game, going 0-for-5.

Durbin pitched into the 12th, retiring Hudson and Pierre, but that brought Ethier to the plate, and he crushed a game-winning homer to the center field bleachers for the win. The bookended homers just solidified his value on this team; what a win, and what a way to do it, coming from behind for two straight days.

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