Tim Redding got the win, he's 9-8. Greg Maddux took the loss, he's 6-11. Joel Hanrahan picked up his 6th save.
Greg Maddux went 5 and 1/3 innings, giving up four runs (two earned) on eight hits and a walk. Defense was more Maddux's undoing. An error Maddux committed led to two runs, and an error from Jeff Kent led to another. Chan Ho Park gave up a homerun in his one inning of work. Jonathan Broxton struck out the side (all swinging) in the 8th inning.Offensively, Andre Ethier had a good game. He went 3-5 with two doubles and a homerun, scoring one run and driving in one. James Loney went 3-5 as well. He also had a double and a homerun, and also had one run scored and one RBI. Casey Blake went 2-3, with a walk, two RBIs, and a run scored. One of those two RBIs and the run scored came on a homerun.
The San Diego Padres completed their sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, so the Dodgers will remain three games back in the NL West race. The Dodgers will try to avoid the sweep at the hands of the Nationals starting tomorrow at 4:10 L.A. time.
Also: With the loss, the Dodgers fall to three games under .500 (65-68)... Andre Ethier's homerun was his 17th, good for first on the team... James Loney also drove in his team leading 72nd run.
Opinion: The Dodgers left another 20 runners on base in today's game, though they did, amazingly, get a hit with runners in scoring position. The four runs they drove in today were the most amount of runs they've scored in a game in the last 10 days. Four runs are better than we've been playing, but still not enough.
Then again, we only scored four runs today because we hit three solo homeruns, which we can't expect to do every night. I'm starting to wonder if at this point, it's gotten into the players' heads. They must know how bad they are hitting with runners in scoring position. I wouldn't be surprised if they go up to the plate with runners on, and with some added pressure to hit with runners on, they get pull-happy and end up hitting into some easy outs. I mean, really, a team can't be this bad at driving in runs. It has to be a mental thing right?... Again, the only silver lining I can find in all this is that Arizona is playing awful as well. They are now on three games over .500. The issue now, though, is that Colorado is approaching quickly. They are currently playing, but if they win today, they'll pull within two games of us for second, and within five games of first. This really shouldn't be a three team race (though it really shouldn't be a two team race)... In any case, playing this bad hurts. I'm starting to forget what winning feels like. We've only done it once in the past week and a half. If you really want a good example of how bad we are playing, here's tomorrow's preview again: "The Dodgers will try to avoid the sweep at the hands of the Nationals starting tomorrow at 4:10 L.A. time." This ain't good...