Gather Round, Lads and Lasses, Gather Round...

Series Recap—Dodgers vs Pittsburgh

4/20: Dodgers 10, Pirates 2

I took advantage of MLB's 5 day free trial to actually watch some Dodger games, something that's very hard to do here in Red Sox nation. As much as I love listening to Vin Scully describe the game on the radio, there is no substitute for seeing what's happening. That Vin did the telecasts is a bonus. Alas, it's only for five days.

After a bit of a wobbly first inning, Randy Wolf cruised (10 strikeouts in 6 innings), and hit two doubles besides as the Dodgers crushed the Bucs 10-2. A six-run third put the game out of reach, and after that it was fun just to listen to Vin talking about stuff like the proper pronunciation of "Xavier". Another thing he mentioned was Freddy Sanchez's change of position fron third to second after Sanchez couldn't make a play on a Juan Pierre grounder in the first:

When we were giving you the lineups, we talked about Sanchez playing second base. Well you know they statiscalize everybody in this day and age, and as far as the Pirates are concerned they're making a big risk moving Sanchez from third base to second. They figured out last year at third he saved 21 more runs per year than the average third baseman, but 13 runs worse when he moves over to second base. Wellp, a hard ball just got by him, and the Dodgers now first and third, nobody out, and the batter is Nomar Garciaparra.

"Statiscalize" is my current most favorite word ever. He also went on to talk about how a player waiting "in the hole" to hit is a corruption of "in the hold," which is where someone waits to follow the man "on deck." I never knew that.

That last wasn't the biggest surprise I got during the game. The biggest surprise was the discovery that John Wasdin is still on a major league roster.

4/20: Dodgers 7, Pirates 3 (10 innings)

Sloppy game by both teams. Brad Penny pitched okay, except for the third, which hearkened back to last year's second half. The key difference, though, was that he displayed remarkable composure, even when Joe West called a ball on a pitch to Adam LaRoach that looked an awful lot like a strike. Grady got himself tossed questioning the pitch call, in one of calmest manager-umpire conversations resulting in an ejection that I've ever seen. Neither Joe nor Grady appeared particularly exercised as they chatted, nor even particularly angry. Nothing personal; just business.

As I said, sloppy. The Bucs got their first run when Chris Duffy singled, went to third on Penny's wild pitch which Martin then chucked into center field, and then scored on a ground out. It was Martin's second brain spasm this week. Not good. The Dodgers had plenty of opportunities to score, but had only cashed in two runs by the bottom of the ninth. Then the Pirstes returned the favor the Dodgers had given them in the first. Ethier opened the inning with a walk, but Valdez laid down a terrible bunt, forcing Ethier at second. With Olmedo Saenz at the plate, Torres threw a wild pitch that Ronnie Paulino then chucked into center a la Martin, Valdez to third. Two pitches later Torres handcuffed Paulino, the ball got by him, and Valdez scored on the passed ball, tying the game. Russell Martin atoned for his mistake by hitting a walkoff grand slam in the bottom of the tenth to win the game.

4/20: Pirates 7, Dodgers 5

Another sloppy game. Tomko pitched well enough, but there were three errors behind him. The top of the first was almost a duplicate of the night before, with Martin chucking yet another ball into the outfield when Duffy attempted to steal second. Pierre continues to be a nightmare in center, dropping one easy fly ball, and allowing Bautista's sharp grounder in the second (which barely got by Furcal) roll all the way to the wall for a double. Bautista got another ball past Pierre later for another double. I'm not sure I can take five years of this. The Dodgers did get the tying runs on in the bottom of the ninth, thanks to a Pirate error, but couldn't plate them this time. Bother. The defensive highlight for LA was Joe Beimel faking a pickoff on Jason Bay at second, only to discover that Bay had lit out for third. An easy throw to Valdez sent Bay back to the dugout.