The Strangeness Continues

The title is a bit misleading, I'll grant that. But the game was full of potentiality that was robbed by a mixture of odd play, and our good ol' fashioned tom-foolery. There were a few bright spots in the 2-0 loss, including Matt Cain's strong and gutsy performance - as usual. Here's a quick run-down by notable inning:

Top 1st: Castillo is robbed of a hit by Blake with the kind of play at 3B that I am certain the Dodgers were finally hoping to see again. Given the rest of that inning's half, that may have prevented a run.

Bottom 2nd: Aurilia makes an error at 3B, to contrast Blake's play, though to be fair he was at least in the process of diving to get it. Thankfully, Matt is always in the mood to save himself from bad situations, and got out of the inning alive.

Top 4th: Classic Giants' veteran baserunning naivete; Winn had an easy steal of 2B, but on a poor throw decided to go around to 3B immediately. That's right, without checking to see if the backup player had the ball. Berroa did indeed, and Winn was caught a mile out from 3B, missing his helmet for comedic flair. Again, because of the deep fly to RF next, and Rowand's single, Winn would've scored. That makes the potential score 2-0 Giants, not Dodgers.

Bottom 6th: Richie had a brilliant stab at a line drive to make up for his error. The problem is that it led to another by Lewis. This because after Loney singled in a run - off a hanger that Cain hated himself for - and the Dodgers had been effectively forcing Cain into deep counts (without working 3-ball counts, mind you), Lewis' fielding error on a Blake bloop single moved the ball: from fair territory, onto, and then over the foul-ground wall. Lewis had to "reach over" the wall to get it, so the "ground-rule double" call was put into effect, allowing Kemp to score and Blake to go to 3B untouched.

(I would like a bit of explanation about this "out of play" deal, because I'm confused why it was ruled that way when it was clear that Lewis could still play it easily. Bochy's smart -- apparently he told the umps that OFs make catches over walls for outs all the time when they said the ball had gone "out of play", and that caused the second conference. The result of the second conference? "Two umpires saw it go out of play." Still no explanation of "out of play", and gang-up tactics to boot.)

This play from Lewis is solely responsible for the post title. This also means that the score was now 2-0 Dodgers, not Giants. And by the end of the inning, Matt had thrown 36 pitches thanks to 15 foul-offs, and still he only allowed 1 ER. Cain had also toughed out a ball hit off his right shin earlier, without so much as rubbing it.

Top 7th: Rowand (already 1-1 that night), was HBP for the second time in the evening. Intriguing, given his AVG against L.A.

Bottom 7th: Cain still threw in the 90s, but because he still has the 3rd-worst run support in the NL, and his pitch count a season-high 118, he had to come out after this scoreless inning. He finished with 8 Ks. And also my personal title of "The Player to Be Pitied".

Top 8th: Vizquel ended his night with being very good defensively, but grounding into two double plays and striking out once - the expected. Lewis did reach - but on an error. I'm a little confused on this ruling as well, because the error was given to Berroa even though Loney's glove clearly had the ball and the ball simply dropped as he was raising it off the ground, meaning Loney had a good chance and controlling the ball but could not.

Bottom 8th: Ozuma was caught on a pick-off from first, but in the relay process Bowker dropped the ball. I'm beginning to get worried about this from Bowker, as it's become more "commonplace" than "rookie mistake"; however, Hinshaw was able to strike out two and maintain his ERA.

Top 9th: Straight up, straight down.

It was a decent game, and certainly fit the rivalry with its odd occurrences. I would say that of anyone, Cain was the man to watch. Toughness, precision, and perseverance. Other than that, typical average-quality play from S.F.

-MSH