Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
While there was a baseball game played today with playoff implications, the importance of that paled in comparison to the fact that it was the final game that Vin Scully would announce in Dodger Stadium. Nothing reminded us of the fact that everything was about Vin than when every player in the lineup saluted Vin in the booth as they each had their first plate appearance of the day.
.@Adrian_ElTitan salutes #VIN. pic.twitter.com/b0RIwQXqXj
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 25, 2016
Of course, the other major news of the day was the tragic passing of Jose Fernandez, and naturally Vin addressed that about as well as possible.
Vin quotes a tweet Jose Fernandez wrote last year: "If you were given a book with the story of your life, would you read the end."
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) September 25, 2016
Vin was as thoughtful and poetic as ever, reminding all of us why we grew to love him so much. Fortunately, the Dodgers provided him with a happy ending to cap of his career at Dodger Stadium, beating the Rockies 4-3 in extra innings on a walkoff by freaking Charlie Culberson.
IN REAL LIFE
I’m going to be making another post for the celebration, so wait a bit for all that.
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Brandon McCarthy made his return from injury and from what was seemingly a case of the yips, and it was about as successful as could be expected. McCarthy gave up two runs in 5.1 innings of work, throwing 79 pitches before being removed. He struck out six and allowed just four hits and a walk, but most importantly everything looked … normal. By that I mean no pitches 50 feet outside or thrown 10 feet short of the plate or thrown to the back netting, and McCarthy’s stuff looked impressive as well. Given the lack of options for fourth starter in the playoffs, his next start could be the key to him winning the role.
Luis Avilan took over for McCarthy, and while he intentionally walked a batter, he got two outs (including a strikeout) to escape further trouble. J.P. Howell got one out in the seventh, but also gave up a hit and was removed for Pedro Baez. Baez proceeded to get through a scoreless two outs in the seventh and also a scoreless eighth, surrendering nothing to the Rockies.
The offense struggled something miserable with runners in scoring position today, going 0-for-10 and squandering chance after chance to blow the game open.
In the third, the Dodgers got on the board thanks to a Yasiel Puig sacrifice fly that scored Howie Kendrick from third, cutting the lead to 2-1. Thanks to the aforementioned struggles with RISP, it took until the seventh for the Dodgers to get on the board again, and even then that didn’t count towards RISP. Corey Seager somehow hit a triple off a ball inside on his hands and chest high, which drove in Justin Turner from first.
That run tied the game, 2-2, so emotion is understandable from mere humans … but to see it from Corey was a true shocker.
Maybe he’s not quite Chase Utley robotic after all!
That’s where the fun ended temporarily, as Kenley Jansen got the first two batters of the ninth out but served up a homer to David Dahl on a 1-2 count on a cutter at about his shoulders. While he proceeded to get out of the ninth, the damage was done, and the Dodgers went quietly in the ninth … uh, wait, actually Corey hit a goddamn two-out game-tying homer.
Curtain call, well deserved.
Dave Roberts? Feeling that shit.
Joe Blanton entered to get the 10th, and while he surrendered two singles, he struck out one and escaped any damage. For the Dodgers part, they were down to one out with Culberson up, so I tweeted this out.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/780191201865719808
Well.
Well well well.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/780145672355876864
WHAT KIND OF DUMBASS WOULD TWEET SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK
Time for more this time around, hopefully.
Like I mentioned before, I’ll cover the celebration in another post.
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The win puts the Dodgers at a nice 90-66 overall and a ridiculous 53-28 at home. Most importantly, obviously, the Magic Number is now irrelevant and the NL West belongs to the Dodgers! Less importantly, the Nationals also won, so the Dodgers still trail race for home-field advantage in the NLDS by 1.5 games.
The Dodgers get tomorrow off before going out to San Diego for more home games as they play the Padres at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST on SportsNet LA. The matchup will be Jose De Leon (5.52 ERA/6.02 FIP/4.21 DRA) against Paul Clemens (4.48 ERA/6.09 FIP/7.04 DRA Overall, 4.11 ERA/5.09 FIP Padres).
