Derek Lowe got the win, he's 13-11. Shawn Estes took the loss, he's 2-2.Derek Lowe was pitching a pretty good game before leaving in the 6th inning after being struck in the knee with a come-backer. Ultimately, he went 5.1 innings, giving up just one run on three hits and a walk, while striking out three. Brad Penny came off the DL before today's game. He came in to pitch some relief in the 7th inning, but gave up two hits and a walk before being pulled. Cory Wade allowed one runner to score on a sac-fly (charged to Penny) before getting a double play to end the inning. Wade pitched two scoreless innings total. Joe Beimel pitched a perfect 9th to end the game.
The Dodgers, led by Manny Ramírez, scored seven runs of Padres' pitching today. Manny went 2-5 with two two-run homeruns. He had four RBIs and two runs scored. Andre Ethier went 2-4 with a walk and two runs scored. Russell Martin went 1-4 with a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI. Blake DeWitt went 2-3 with a double, a walk, an RBI, and a run scored.
The Arizona Diamondbacks were swept by the San Francisco Giants earlier today, so with the win today, the Dodgers push their lead in the NL West to 3.5 games.
The Dodgers have an off-day tomorrow as they travel to Colorado. They'll begin a three game weekend series there on Friday, starting at 6:05 L.A. time.Also: With the win, the Dodgers move to four games over .500 (75-71)... With the Dodger win and the Diamondback loss, the Dodgers' Magic Number is lowered to 14... James Loney went 1-4 with a homerun today, but more importantly, that gave him his team leading 80th RBI on the season.
Opinion: After struggling to score a run in the first game of the series, the Dodgers came back to score 13 runs in the next two games. Continuing the theme from yesterday's game recap,
Manny added four RBIs today. This gives both Manny and Andre Ethier 11 RBIs each in the last six games. This is also important because we are going into Colorado, where the games so often become slugfests. Pitching is important, but when we go into Colorado, we need to have our hitting win some games for us. We will have a small advantage going in, though. The Dodgers will travel tomorrow from San Diego to Colorado. A relatively short commute. They'll probably get into Colorado sometime early tomorrow, get to the hotel and get some rest before Friday's game. Colorado, on the other hand, has a night game tomorrow, in Atlanta. They are finishing up a three game series out there (where, by the way, they've lost their first two games). It seems like an advantage to me, but then again, can't take anything for granted. We just got to keep up this good play. 10 wins in our last 11 games, and the gap in the NL West race is getting bigger, while the season is getting shorter. We officially eliminated San Diego from the playoff chase this series. We won't be able to "officially" do that Colorado this weekend series, but with a good series, we can, for all intents and purposes, take them out of the hunt. And that's good enough for me...
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