Game Wrap 07-20-2010: Giants 7 Dodgers 5

It seems like more often than not, marquee pitching matchups are a lot more about anticipation than reality. Last night was no exception as one of the more memorable Giants-Dodgers games will not be remembered as a pitching duel. TIm Lincecum was off his game from the very first pitch. Clayton Kershaw was on his. As the game went on, it looked like an easy W for the Dodgers. Then Tim Lincecum, who must have known he was about finished for the night, decided to take out his frustrations on Matt Kemp, first dusting him under the chin, then drilling him in the ribs with then next pitch. The home plate umpire warned both benches. That was clearly a turning point in the game as the Dodger bench came unglued. What ensued was the Dodgers becoming unfocused and making mistake after mistake while the Giants appeared to stay in complete control. Here is a partial timeline for the rest of the game with my best attempt at commentary:

Bottom of the 5'th: Trailing 5-1, Timmy first dusts Kemp then drills him in the ribs. Ump gets between Kemp and Timmy as Kemp walks to first and issues a warning to both benches. The Dodgers bench goes nuts led by their bench coach Bob Schaefer who was screaming his head off at the ump. The next batter, Blake DeWitt singles softly to RF. Kemp gets thrown out at 3B trying to take the extra base, perhaps in retaliation for the HBP. He actually beat the throw, but overslid the bag. Bochy takes out Tim and brings in Bautista who is not exactly a control pitcher. Casey Blake flies out.

Top of 6'th: Sanchez and Posey lead off the inning with singles putting runners at first and third. These hits were only the 2'nd and third allowed by Kershaw on the night. Pat Burrell hits a long drive to the wall in LF which had HR written all over it, but it died in the marine air and Dodgers Stadium downdraft setting up an easy catch for Xavier Paul, but the ball just popped out of his glove. Sanchez scored on the play while Posey and Burrell ended up at 3'rd and 2'nd. Burrell was credited with a SF and Paul a 2 base error. Pablo Sandoval blistered one down the LF line for a double and the score was 5-4.

Bottom of the 6'th: Denny Bautista dusts Russell Martin(I have to admit I didn't see it as I had to run out for a quick trip to the gas station and store). Not sure why Bautista and Bochy weren't ejected at that point. Apparently Bob Schaefer wondered the same thing and got himself tossed. As the Bench Coach, would Schaefer have been managing in the ninth inning instead of Mattingly? If so, nice!!

Top of the 7'th: Kershaw, apparently knowing this was his last inning drills Aaron Rowand(remember Vicente Padilla beaning Gamer in the face back in SF early in the season? That's likely where this all started in the first place). Kershaw gets ejected. No big deal, Kershaw is coming out anyway, right? Well, Torre gets tossed along with him due to the prior warning. Hong Chi Kuo comes in and breezes through the 7'th and 8'th innings.

Top of the 9'th: Jonathan Broxton comes in to close out the Giants even though the Dodgers didn't want to use him after his 44 pitch losing effort on Sunday against the Cards. Broxton gives up a single to Juan Uribe on a dribbler to short that Furcal couldn't reach in time. After 4 pitches to Edgar Renteria, Bochy brings in Nate to pinch run for Uribe. Rent then draws a walk putting runners at first and second. Here, I would have brought up Huff or Travis to pinch hit for Gamer, or Matt Cain to execute the sacrifice, but Gamer got the bunt down on a real difficult pitch and advanced the runners to 2'nd and 3'rd. Bochy sent Aubrey Huff up to pinch hit for the pitcher, Casilla and the Dodgers intentionally walked him to load the bases. Here's where things got really weird. Don Mattingly, who was the Dodgers Field Manager with Torre and Schaefer cooling off in the clubhouse, came out to discuss the situation with Broxton and the Dodgers infield. He appeared to conclude the discussion and turned to walk back to the dugout getting both feet off the mound and onto the grass. James Loney called a question out to him and he turned and walked about half way back up the mound, said something to Loney and then walked back to the dugout. Bruce Bochy immediately popped out of the Giants dugout and made an appeal to the home plate ump who conferred with the Crew Chief. They ruled that Mattingly had made two trips to the mound, which the rules clearly state he did, which meant Broxton had to come out of the game. There was a lot of milling around by the Dodgers and Casey Blake, yes, Casey Blake, had a heated discussion with the ump. Mattingly brought in George Sherrill, the Dodgers version of the Human Gas Can, who only got 8 warmup pitches after 2 in the bullpen. Rick Honeycutt had recommended Sherrill to Mattingly because he though having Torres bat from the right side increased their chances of getting a DP. Maybe the Dodgers still think of Torres as a slap hitter, but he's a flyball hitter and he drilled one off the wall in left-center field for a 2 run double giving the Giants a 6-5 lead. That was the ballgame. The Giants would go on to score another run and Affeldt got the Save in the bottom of the ninth giving Brian Wilson the night off.

Key lines:

Andres Torres- 1 for 4, HBP, Assist(Kemp at 3B). Where would the Giants be this year without Torres?

Buster Posey- 2 for 5. Buster had a relatively quiet game, and still was involve in 2 of the Giants 6 runs.

Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 4, 2B, BB. The double was absolutely smoked down the LF line. It hooked, but stayed fair by about 2 inches.

Aaron Rowand- 0 for 1, HBP, S. Gamer took one for the team and got Torre ejected then got a very difficult sac bunt down in the pivotal 9'th that led to Mattingly's fateful conference on the mound.

Tim Lincecum- 4.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.18. Timmy was obviously out of sorts from his first pitch of the game. No control at all. It's very possible that Timmy was just wild when he hit dusted Kemp and then drilled him, but in Torre's mind, he was still carrying a grudge from Padilla beaning Gamer early in the season. Whatever the case, in exiting the game, Timmy planted the seeds of a Dodgers meltdown and a memorable Giants come-from-behind win. Love it!!

With the W, the Giants move to 3 games behind the Padres who lost to ATL 4-1. Colorado crushed Florida 10-0 to keep pace with the Giants and move up to 3.5 games behind the division lead. With the L, the Dodgers remain 6 games behind, and more importantly, allowed some daylight to open up between them and the Giants and Rockies. Arizona edged the Mets 3-2 to get to 19 games behind in last place.

Barry Zito takes the mound tonight against Chad Billingsley and a Dodger team that must be absolutely seething. What's in store tonight? Man, this almost feels like the bad blood from those 60's Giants-Dodgers series! I am pumped!!