Hello,
As I started writing Wednesday's blog for the Dodgers 4-1 victory over the Marlins, I realized LA-Miami had already played on Thursday. The Dodgers won Thursday as well, this time 6-0. I decided to combine the blogs for both games into this blog. I may write more on Friday.
Wednesday, August 21st: Dodgers beat Marlins 4-1:
In the third game of this four game series, LA won 4-1. LA has won 2 of the first 3 games with Game 4 Thursday afternoon. I can see why LA paid all that money to Zack Greinke, if Greinke continues playing like this he may come close to earning his contract. (As much as that's possible.) Greinke has been pretty reliable when it comes to hitting as well, however on Wednesday he was 0 for 3. He still is hitting a very solid 3.33 on the season.
Greinke won his 4th straight game as he pitched 8 strong innings. Although he gave up 6 hits, he only gave up 1 run. Greinke improves to 12-3 on the season and lowers his ERA to 2.91. Kenley Jansen earned his 21st save of the season by pitching the 9th inning.
LA only had 7 hits in this game, they didn't have a whole lot of offensive heroes. Both Hanley Ramirez and Andre Ethier both had two hits. Ramirez was 2 for 4 and is hitting .348 this season. Ramirez also added his 20th double and 40th RBI in his injury shortened season. Meanwhile the much maligned Ethier very quietly is making an impact. He was 2 for 3 and is hitting .271 this season. Ethier added his 45th RBI this season as well.
With LA winning and Arizona losing the Dodgers lead Arizona by 8.5 games following Wednesday's games.
Thursday, August 22nd: Dodgers win 6-0, winning the last 3 games of the series. LA is now 75-52 this season and well on their way to the NL West title and hopefully more.
With LA's win on Thursday, just like that the Dodgers have another three game winning streak. On Thursday it was Greinke's fellow Dodgers ace delivering the victory for LA. Clayton Kershaw, or as I like to call him Killer Kershaw, also pitched 8 innings. He gave up 5 hits and no runs. He improves to 13-7 and he lowers his ERA to an amazing 1.72. Can we just give Kershaw the Cy Young already, imagine how good his record would be if he only received a bit more run support?
The other thing I love about Kershaw is that he's able to help himself out with the bat. He's not as good of a hitter as Greinke, but he's no slouch either. On Thursday Kershaw was 1 for 4 and is hitting .156 this season he also had his 8th RBI of the season, a tie breaking single in the 4th inning.
The Beard, Brian Wilson, made his Dodgers debut. He shut down Miami in the 9th inning, he allowed one hit and struck out 2. With the Dodgers being ahead more than 3 runs, he didn't earn a save. I'm sure this appearance was more about letting him get his feet wet though. How good could this Dodgers team be if Wilson is the 2011 Wilson?
Thursday Dodgers offense heroes of course include Kershaw. Carl Crawford only had 1 hit, but he made that hit count. He drove in Skip Schumaker and Juan Uribe later in the 4th inning. Also Adrian Gonzalez continued flirting with .300 as he was 2 for 5. Gonzalez is hitting .297 this season. Yasiel Puig is cooling down a bit, he was only 1 for 3. He did have his 17th double, which was very close to being a homer and is hitting .346 this season. Ramirez sat out Thursday game to get some rest, he still leads all Dodgers batters with at .348.
I allow myself a little more every day to think LA has a chance to win the World Series!
For the second day in a row LA won and Arizona lost, LA now leads Arizona by 9.5 games. If any Arizona fan had any hope that LA could make a comeback, I think this all but squishes that miniscule hope.
As I write this blog the Dodgers are probably on a plane, or might even be in LA by now. On Friday they start a big 3 game series against the Red Sox. That should be a classic matchup. It's important for LA, but it's a lot bigger series for the Red Sox. Although Boston leads the AL East now and have a 89.7% chance of reaching the playoffs, a bad stretch could knock them out of the playoffs. But after losing 6 of their previous 10 games you know their 2011 collapse is in their head a bit. This definitely is a much more important series for the Red Sox. Sunday's game is this week's Sunday Night Baseball game.
Again I'm not a Yankees fan, but I've got to hand it to Ichiro Suzuki for getting his 4,000th combined hit on Wednesday. He has 4,000 hits combined from playing in Japan and MLB. ESPN asked will Ichiro get 3000 hits in MLB? Suzuki has 2,772 hits now and I find myself cheering for him to reach 3,000 hits. Although he's 39 years old, he looks like he's in great shape. He's also still hitting about .270 this season. So yes I do think he'll reach 3,000 MLB hits, probably sometime in the middle of the 2015 season. I'm guessing it will be about the same time that ARod will be coming off his suspension if the Yanks haven't bought him out yet.
themusicaddict
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