Aug 16-18: Aargh matey. The woeful Bucs come to town. We need to sweep.
Game 1- Figures, after scoring 14 the day before, the Dodgers can’t hit the next night — going scoreless until the 7th. That’s when the Dodgers’ most unlikely hitter, who was 0 for last 5 games and just castigated on Dodger Nation posts, went from perdition with rendition to redemption with a mighty blast to tie the game at 1. Cue Mad Max come to bat in the 8th, after being plunked the last AB, turned on a fastball for 413 feet of Air Muncy — and a first lead of 2-1. And oh yeah, yet another couple of errors: Trea chunked a grounder at SS, and Belli threw a bunt into RF. That play was a horrible non-call by all the umps, as clearly the runner was inside the 1B line and interfered with the throw. Still, we all practice that throw as having to be well inside, with the 1st baseman yelling “inside” and setting up way inside.
Pitching: Crazy bullpen game. Buihl was a 1st inning opener, followed by yet another unknown rookie in the callup parade named Andre Jackson for 4 scoreless. The dude looked pretty confident and had a great change for a number of K’s. Followed by scoreless innings from Vesia, Graterol who got a bases loaded last out bailout from shutdown Treinen, and a save of the 2-1 win by a rejuvenated Jansen.
Game 2- Roberts seems to not take this game seriously enough by sitting his hot 2-3 hitters Muncy and Turner (both!). Then he bats Belli 4th?! That’s a big hole in an important spot. So Dodger get 1st 2 men on base in each of 1st and 2nd innings, but don’t score — partly due to the stupid lineup. For example, Smith’s fly in 1st would have plated a run if he batted 4th not 3rd. We can’t have a swing and miss Belli batting 4th! Bad enough we have a struggling Lux in the starting lineup. At least he got Beaty into the lineup (a good thing: 2-3, 2B, 2 RBI).
Then we got into trouble in the 3rd when we had players out of their normal position: Taylor had been playing CF, but for some stupid reason he is in RF, where he misplayed a fly into a triple (and Belli in CF doesn’t back him up quickly). Then Lux at 3B makes a bad throw to 1B but gets bailed out (a throwing angle he is not used to), followed by yet another bad throw by Lux to score the tying run in the 4th. Now again in the 3rd we get runners at 2nd and 3rd, but this time we get AJ up and he plates 2 runs with a single. Tied 2-2 in the 5th, Seager leads off with a double double, but Smith fails to advance him. Belli out. AJ take a walk. Beaty battles and comes through with a huge double to score 2, and give the Dodgers a 4-2 lead. Dodgers got 3 leadoff doubles but did not advance the runner once — shame on you. Ended up 3-16 with RISP.
Pitching: David Price gave us 4.2 good innings. His only 2 runs were aided by errors (Lux) and a misplay of a fly (Taylor). Evil Knebel closes out the 5th and hurls a clean 6th. In the 7th, the usually reliable Bickford was, and so was Treinen clean in the 8th. Now the 9th for the closer, Jansen. Unfortunately Dodger castoff Tsutsugo does it again: a leadoff double. Kenley hurls high cheese for the K — 1 out. Jansen then loses command and walks Polanco, so now 1st and 2nd — tying runs on. We’re all sweating. Jansen ahead but misses low and gives up a hit for a run — now 4-3 with 2 on. Do the Bucs stop here? Yes! A final groundout. Breath. Just enough for the 4-3 win (4-8-2), to go 28 games over .500. (Probably will need to end up 40 games over to get to 101 wins.)
Game 3- Dodgers sweep Bucs off the plank with a 9-0 drenching. As it should be. Offense explodes for 4 homers: Muncy (2), AJ, Seager. Pitching highlight was a 7.1 inning shutout close by up-and-down Mitch White (1st close that long since 1984).
Now bring back the fading Mets for the weekend.