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In the seventh inning tonight, Duaner Sanchez threw his glove up in the air to prevent a high infield bouncer from reaching the outfield. As Vin Scully remarked in amazement, some of us have known this rule all our lives, some of us have seen perfect games and triple plays, but we've never seen the umpires get to invoke the rule against throwing your glove at the ball, the rule that sends the batter all the way to third base.
Two batters later, Arizona starting pitcher Javier Vazquez hit the first homer of his career to tie the game.
"Throughout the entire history of the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, they have always bordered on the zany and bizarre," Scully said. "Tonight takes the cake."
It's also the third consecutive game in which the Dodger bullpen has lost a lead in the seventh or eighth inning.
Arizona manager Bob Melvin then pulled Vasquez without letting him face another batter.
The events, among other things, cost Derek Thompson a potential win in his major league debut. Thompson weathered control problems to pitch five innings of two-hit, 95-pitch ball.
Thompson surely earned himself another start, especially because, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, Odalis Perez and Elmer Dessens are both weeks from returning. Los Angeles doesn't have an off day until June 9, meaning they have to fill not only Perez's slot in the rotation, but Scott Erickson's.
Wilson Alvarez will again fill Perez's slot Monday, but beyond that, it's all in doubt.
And that's the report, with at least two innings to go ...
Update: As so often happens, in the ninth inning, the batter (Luis Terrero) running well inside the first base line on a grounder is not called for being outside the runner's lane. What exactly does it take to get an umpire to make that call more than once in a blue moon?
The Dodgers lose without using their best pitcher.
Sadly, Retrosheet doesn't have the play-by-play for this game on the boxscore.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08120LAN1995.htm
Then to add insult to injury, you have Cesar Izturis bunting with two strikes? Can't anyone bunt on this team? Why if you've failed twice already would you bunt with two strikes, especially when he's been hitting well all year?
I'm getting to the point lately, where I've been reading the "Fire Jim Tracy" blog almost as much as DT.
Speaking of Thompson being our 3rd best AA pitcher, I saw (our best, 2nd best?) Chad Billingley pitch vs. the hometown Mobile BayBears tonight. He got rocked early (two consecutive homers), but calmed down enough to hang in for the win in a 10-7 slugfest. Joel Guzman hit one out, but made a bad baserunning error and a fielding error on a throw about 10 feet over James Loney's head.
vr
Xei
Well, they were!
can you do a little scouting report on billingsleys outing tonight? if thats not too much to ask :)
its wierd of billingsley, in his first 45 professioanl starts or something, he had only given up 9 homeruns. now, in the last two games, he has given up 5. i wonder whats up with him? it seems though his control is getting a lot better and his Ks are still being racked up.
anyways, where was his fastball sitting? throw a lot of sliders? show any decent changes?
I feel bad for Duaner. That was a really dumb thing he did. I just saw the play on Sportscenter. It looked like a flair that Kent might have caught. If not it's a single and they may have gotten a DP on Tracy's ground out. If either of those things happen the Dodgers go into the ninth with a two run lead and Gagne is in for the save.
The home plate umpire did seem a little inconsistent. Gio's last pitch was a ball but the ump rung up Werth on the same pitch earlier in the game. Whatever base that umpire is at tomorrow I think the Dodgers should start Gio at that position. Leave him there just long enough to get thrown out of the game. It should only take a few seconds.
what Duaner was thinking? I don't know, but it was the kind of stupid play that leads to a team getting rid of a player...
I still don't know why we must stick with the Ghame in the 8th and Game in the 9th formula...they can't work an extra batter or two? This was a really important game, aside from the Padres winning, getting 3 in a row and Thompson getting a win would have done a world of good for the team.
That was the weirdest thing I've seen in a Dodger game in a long time. Maybe since that weird ending about 10 years ago in which the Dodgers won on catcher's interference. The winning run came home from third because the catcher scooped up a ball with his mask. I'd never even heard of that rule before and suddenly they won the game. I want to say it was against the Pirates, but I could be wrong. I also want to say it was the game after the Ball Day forfeit, but I could be wrong about that too.
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