Two bad pitches and two home runs for the Philadelphia Phillies as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 on Thursday night as the two teams opened up the NLCS in Philly. Dodgers starting pitcher Derrek Lowe gave up home runs to Chase Utley and Pat Burrell in the sixth inning to put the Phillies up 1-0 in the best of seven series.

Lowe didn’t pitch that bad at all but the two home runs really hurt the teams chances. Chan Ho Park, Greg Maddux, and Hong-Chih Kuo all pitched in relief of Lowe to hold the Phillies to three runs but the offense was unable to score another run to tie the game up.

Speaking of the offense, they struggled for the most part against lefty Cole Hamels. Hamels struck out eight Dodgers and limited them to six hits through seven innings. Manny Ramirez stayed hot as he had a rbi double in the first inning to get the team on the board. The Dodgers next run would come in the fifth inning when Casey Blake scored Matt Kemp on a rbi sac fly. That would be all the scoring for the Dodgers however.

The team will look to bounce back in an afternoon game on Friday. Chad Billingsley will face off against the Phillies and their starting pitcher Brett Myers. If the team can pick up a win on Friday, I like their chances as the two teams head back to L.A. for the next three games.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers finished off the Philadelphia Phillies with a 3-1 victory on Thursday night. With the win, the Dodgers swept the Phillies in the four game series. The Dodgers are playing very good baseball right now and are keeping pace with the Arizona Diamondbacks. This race is going to end up coming down to the last week of the seawson I’m thinking.

Matt Kemp, Nomar Garciaparra, and Casey Blake all had a rbi each for the Dodgers on Thursday night. Kemp hit a solo home run, Garciaparra a rbi groundout, and Blake a rbi single. It wasn’t much offense but it was enough to get the job done.

Hiroki Kuroda was awesome as he pitched seven innings and only gave up two hits and one run. Kurda picked up the win and is now 7-8 on the year. Hong-Chih Kuo pitched the final two innings of the game and notched his first save of the season. God job by Kuroda and Kuo!

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The Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies combined to scored 26 runs on Monday night as the two teams played in a slugfest at Coors Field.  The Dodgers had jumped out to a 16-4 lead after five innings but the Rockies didn’t back down and scored the next six runs of the game as they kept chipping their way back.  Luckily for the Dodgers, there are only nine innings in a game and the Rockies ran out of time.

What I found interesting was that the Dodgers scored 16 runs at Coors Field but they did not hit one home run!  It was a lot of run scoring singles and doubles that scored most of the Dodgers runs.  James Loney went 3-6 and had five rbi in the game to lead the team at the plate.  Andre Ethier, Jeff Kent, and Angel Berroa all had two rbi each to chip in.  Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Andy LaRoche, and Eric Stults all contributed with one rbi each.  The Dodgers should have probably scored even more runs but they left 22 runners on base.

The pitching staff was kind of dissappointing as all five pitchers were charged with atleast one run.  Starting pitcher Stults lasted just 3 2/3 innings as he was rocked for six hits and three runs.  Stults gave up a solo home run to Matt Holliday as well.  Brian Falkenborg and Joe Beimel both were charged with one run each.  Cory Wade pitched two innings and gave up three runs.  Hong-Chih Kuo gave up two more runs in the bottom of the ninth inning before he was finally able to get the last out.  Falkenborg ended up getting the victory and is now 2-2 on the year.

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Relief pitcher Brian Falkenborg served up a 11th inning home run to the Marlins Hanley Ramirez and the Dodgers lost to the Marlins 5-4 on Thursday night.  It was definately not the way the Dodgers wanted to start off the four game series with the visiting Marlins.

Chan Ho Park only lasted four innings as he gave up nine hits and four runs.  Three of those four runs were earned.  after Park left the game, the bullpen guys did a great job until Falkenborg gave up the homer in the 11th.  Hong-Chih Kuo pitched three innings, Jonathan Broxton one inning, and Takashi Saito two innings.  All three relievers combined to only give up three hits.

Russell Martin led the team at the plate with two rbi including a solo home run.  Martin now has 10 home runs on the season and 48 rbi.  Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier both added rbi singles as well.

The Dodgers will now look to even the series up and get a win on Friday against the fish.  Do you think it will happen?  Dodgers Blog

The Los Angeles Dodgers have now won two straight games as they have defeated the Cincinnati Reds for the second straight night.  On Wednesday night, the Dodgers defeated the Reds 6-1 as the Dodgers scored in five different innings.

James Loney had a solo home run and rbi double to finish the game with two rbi.  Lead off hitter Juan Pierre also finished the game with two as he plated two runs with a two run triple in the seventh inning.  Andre Ethier had the other rbi for the Dodgers which was a rbi single in the second inning.

Derrek Lowe pitched the first 5 1/3 innings to pick up the win.  He allowed three hits and one run.  The one run was a solo home run by Edwin Encarnacion in the second inning.  Lower is now 5-6 on the season after picking up the win.  Hong-Chih Kuo pitched the next 2 2/3 innings while allowing four hits but zero runs.  Cory Wade pitched the ninth inning to finish off the Reds.

The Dodgers will go for the three game sweep on Thursday afternoon.  Who thinks they will get the job done?

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The Los Angeles Dodgers got hammered pretty badly on Thursday afternoon by the San Diego Padres.  The Padres defeated the Dodgers 9-0 after getting up 5-0 after the first inning.   Once you are in a big hole like that, it is very hard to get any momentum going to attempt a big comeback and that is what happened to the Dodgers.

Hiroki Kuroda got hit hard for five hits and six runs over 2 1/3 innings.  Kuroda took the loss and is now 3-6 on the season.  Kuroda put his team in a big hole and as a starting pitcher you can never do that and expect to get a win.

Chan Ho Park did throw 2 1/3 innings of relief after Kuroda left the game and did not allow one run.  But soon after Park left the game the next two Dodger relievers gave up runs.  Hong-Chih Kuo gave up one run while Scott Proctor gave up two runs.

At the plate, the Dodgers stuggled all game long so there really isn’t anything to blog about there.

The Dodgers will now travel to Detroit to take on the Tigers in a three game series over the weekend.  Hopefully they will get out of this slump and beat up on the Tigers.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers couldn’t solve San Diego Padres starting pitcher Randy Wolf on Wednesday night as the Padres defeated the Dodgers 4-1.  The Dodgers struggled all night long at the plate and were only able to record five hits in the game and one run.

The one run in the game came in the fourth inning on a Andy LaRoche solo home run.  Other then that one hit, the Dodgers struggled all game long and never made much of a threat to the Padres.

Chad Billingsley took the loss after pitching seven innings and giving up eight hits and all four of the Padres runs.  Billingsley gave up two home runs early in the game which was a supirse because it is so hard to hit home runs at Petco.  Hong-Chih Kuo pitched the eighth inning and did not have any problems for the Dodgers.

The Doders and Padres will play on Thursday which will be the rubber game of the three game series.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers pretty much got man handled by the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night by the score of 8-1.  The Dodgers could only muster one run against the Reds pitching staff as their own pitching staff served up eight runs to the Reds.

Hong-Chih Kuo started the game for the Dodgers but only lasted 3.2 innings as he allowed eight hits and five earned runs.  Just a terrible performance by Kuo as he put the Dodgers in a very big hole early in the game.

Esteban Loaiza also gave up two runs as he pitched in relief.   Jonathan Broxton pitched one inning and let two runs scored even though only one of them was earned.  It doesn’t matter when your entire pitching sucks like the Dodgers did on Tuesday night, you are going to lose the ballgame.

Rafael Furcal was the only Dodgers player to record an RBI.  Furcal hit a RBI ground rule double in the third inning and that was all the Dodgers could get against the Reds.  Another terribler performance by the Dodgers hitters.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers were never really in the game last night as the Arizona Diamondbacks put a butt kicking on them by the score of 10-5.  The Dodgers really couldn’t figure out Doug Davis who was making his last start before having thyroid surgery.  Dodgers pitching also sucked as the Diamondbacks scored 10 runs off of 12 hits.

Chad Billingsly took the loss for the Dodgers.  Billingsly only lasted 2.1 innings in a terrible performance.  He gave up five hits, five runs (four were earned), walked three, and struck out one batter.

Hong-Chih Kuo stopped the bleeding for the next 3.2 innings as he didn’t allow a run, but after Kuo was done, Ramon Troncoso came into the game for an inning and gave up four earned runs on only two hits.  Jonathan Broxton pitched the 8th inning and also allowed an earned run.  Terrible job by the pitchers except for Kuo.

Blake DeWitt and Jeff Kent both had two RBI’s each for the Dodgers.  Andre Ethier picked up the other RBI.

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