Sixxers Spot

M & M's In Da Howse

My friend Melanie came down from up north over the weekend and it is such a thrill everytime I see her. She is so fantastic that one. We had such good seats at Dodgers stadium. Only problem was our boys in blue had left their a game behind and got creamed 11-2. Despite the good seats we bailed out at the eigth inning. Here actually you should read what a massacre it was.
LOS ANGELES -- Before Saturday's game against San Diego, Dodgers manager Grady Little said everyone in the bullpen was available to pitch.
When he said it, he didn't mean he actually wanted to use all of them, but he nearly had to.
After being held to two hits and one run on Friday night, San Diego more than made up for that lack of offense on Saturday. The Padres hit three home runs in an eight-run third inning and coasted by the Dodgers, 11-2, in front of a sellout crowd of 55,781 at Dodgers Stadium.
"I tell you what, for a moment there, it looked like a doggone driving range out there on the baseball field," Little said.
Starter Chad Billingsley (5-4) took the mound for the first time since Aug. 27, when he suffered an oblique strain. Little said before the 22-year-old's return that he was fit to go, but he had no expectation for how long he would go. Before Tuesday's game, Little said he was hoping for something in the neighborhood of 80 pitches.
He only got 40 pitches from the right-hander, and all of those came in a three-run first inning for San Diego. Billingsley faced eight batters, allowing three hits and two walks in the inning, which led to his fourth loss of the season.
"Every hitter, I was falling behind. You can't do that," said Billingsley, who said he did not further injure the oblique in his outing. "I was just rusty. It happens."
Eric Stults made his third Major League appearance on Saturday, his first since making his first career start against the Mets on Sunday, when he allowed just one run in six innings. Against the Padres, he lasted through the second before running into trouble. He walked Adrian Gonzalez to start the third, which was immediately followed by Mike Cameron's 20th home run of the season.
Tim Hamulack took over after Stults couldn't get the last out of the inning, and the Padres continued to roll. They hit two more home runs in the inning, a pair of two-run shots by Todd Walker and Gonzalez.
A crowd that had showed up to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Dodgers' 1981 World Series was rudely greeted with an 11-1 Padres lead after just three innings.
"We just kind of laugh after a game like that to keep from crying, to tell you the truth," Little joked.
Lefty Mark Hendrickson seemed to be the only Dodgers pitcher able to hold off the Padres. He recently moved out of the starting rotation to the bullpen and though the game was well out of hand, he restored order, facing one batter over the minimum in the fourth through the seventh innings and striking out eight in that stretch, tying his career high.
"Hendrickson did a good job for us right there," Little said "We needed some outs, and he gave us some valuable outs there."
While the Dodgers' pitching struggled, Padres starter Woody Williams simply needed to throw strikes to easily pick up his ninth win of the season. Outside of allowing a leadoff homer to Rafael Furcal in the first inning, Williams (9-5) went six innings and did not allow another run before giving way to Brian Sweeney, who pitched the rest of the way and picked up his second save.
Furcal's home run was his fifth leadoff homer of the season and the 17th of his career. The homer made him one of four Dodgers players in the history of the franchise to hit five leadoff homers in one season.
The Dodgers sprinkled eight hits over the course of the game and drew two walks, but stranded seven runners. San Diego, by comparison, had 13 hits and drew five walks.

posted by Sixxer's Super Site @ 1:05 PM