Dodgers 5, Pirates 2: Finally, Edinson Volquez Is Good For Something

When your offense is struggling what do you do? Well, you just find one of the worst pitchers in baseball, of course. Old friend (I guess) Edinson Volquez certainly fits the bill, and he provided just what the Dodgers needed: terrible, terrible pitching that’s conducive to offense. Volquez allowed 13 baserunners (10 hits) in 5.2 innings, allowing five earned runs, and was more valuable to the Dodgers tonight than he ever was while pitching for them at the end of last season.

It’s not just that the offense as a whole woke up, it’s where it came from. Adrian Gonzalez, fresh off three months of awful, went 3-3 with two doubles, allowing us all to hope that a nice two games (he’s reached six times in a row) is the sign that he’s about to turn it around shut up just let me have this. Matt Kemp walked and doubled while playing right field; his wRC+ is 116, and his offense remains not the problem. Even Justin Turner got into the act, scoring twice and driving in two while singling and doubling and making us not worry about Hanley Ramirez, if only for a night. Juan Uribe and Dee Gordon each collected two hits, with Gordon also adding his 45th stolen base, though he was later picked off. Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier combined to go 1-10. That’s less great.

Anyway, it was so much fun to see some offense that we’ve completed ignored Hyun-jin Ryu, who threw seven effective innings while working around trouble in the fourth. He was followed by Brian Wilson, J.P. Howell and Kenley Jansen. Just the way we drew it up, right?

Finally, related to nothing, really, but since it was interesting when I tweeted it out, if you were wondering why the ballgame looked so, so awful on television tonight — insert “it didn’t look like anything, because I can’t get SNLA!” joke here — it’s because the difference between the home and road feeds tonight was just ludicrous:

For the record, that’s probably not SNLA-specific so much as it is where the visitor’s camera feed always is for opponents at PNC. It explains a lot about how fans of different teams think that umps are biased for/against them based on more than just homerism, though. Sometimes, they really are watching a different game.