ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Dodgers at Braves – 08/03/2003
Bad pitching, bad defense, and not enough offense to overcome that this time. You score four runs against the Dodgers, you should win. You should never give up eight runs to that lineup — a lineup, moveover, without Paul Lo Duca.
The Dodgers started just about the most obscure pitcher they could find, a lefty up from the minor leagues, Scott Mullen, who was prior to this year a poor-to-mediocre relief specialist in the Royals organization. He didn’t have much, giving up three runs in three innings — actually, the runs were all in the first. But the Dodgers have a great bullpen, and Jim Tracy turned the game over to them from there, and the Braves couldn’t do much against them, getting only a seventh inning solo homer from Sheffield.
The Braves’ occasional woes with stranding baserunners reappeared, as ten men were left on base. It started in the first. Russ Ortiz was wild, but could have gotten out of trouble except that Furcal made a bad throw on a double play ball and the Dodgers got four. The Braves came back for three, but left the bases loaded when Ortiz couldn’t get a hit. After that, the Braves never mounted another rally.
Ortiz lasted five, but needed 118 pitches to do it. He only walked two, but seemed to go 3-2 on everybody. He did strike out seven. With the score 5-3, Bobby decided to add a degree of difficulty and brought in Boom-Boom. Hernandez went 2/3 of an inning, made the game 7-3, and Bobby could rest comfortably knowing he wouldn’t have to make any close-game decisions.
One good sign: two innings of hitless relief from Jason Marquis. You take what you can get… The Padres have broken out to a 5-2 lead in extras over the Phillies. If that holds up, the Braves will maintain an 11 game lead in the division. Turns out there was a double header there yesterday. The Braves finally have an off day tomorrow, and will use it to travel to Milwaukee, where they will play three games against Team Bud.
It’s not fair that one man has two teams, and control over the rest of the league.
The umps had a bad 7th, what with Ventura’s “inside-the-park home run” and calling Chipper out at first. Javy ground-rule doubled the very next at bat, so the missed call killed a potential Braves rally. As for the HR, there is a chance that a microscopic fragment of the ball might have brushed an outer electron of the outfield wall, but last time I checked, it was impossible to see on the subatomic level, especially at such a great distance as the ump was standing. Bragg caught the ball, his glove hit the wall, the ball popped out, and Bragg caught it with his bare hand while falling. On a play like that, it seems more reasonable to me to just call an out than to give the Dodgers a HR since the ump probably had no idea what happened to the ball on the play. Since the ball didn’t hit the ground, I would think the ump would have to be pretty dang sure that the ball hit the wall to call it a hit, which he couldn’t have been. Oh well, Boom-Boom put it out of reach anyways.
I’m not sure what umps are taught to do when they don’t get a good eye on plays. It’d be cool if they were more consistent about seeking help from the other umps. But in terms of the split moment, I guess it’s better to let the play finish – otherwise, if the other umps decided it was a trap, what do they do? Award Ventura a home run when they called him out before he reached second?
OTOH, it is pretty hard to take away a home run once awarded. But that’s easier to do than to reconstruct “what ifs”.
Colin
Despite the fact that I live in the LA area and the game was on TBS, I could not watch yesterday’s game. TBS gets blacked out here when the Dodgers play the Braves and none of the local networks picked up the game because of the 10 AM start time. So no baseball for me, a Braves fan trapped in Dodger country. Just strange.
Doesn’t sound like I missed much with Furcal giving away runs early and the umps pitching in a few late. Just a bump in the road in Russ’s march to 20 wins.