An ending only a mother could love

The Good:

• Hiroki Kuroda: Fair to say the guy deserved better.  He didn't allow a hit until a Hunter Pence single with two outs in the seventh, and overcame the location problems that have hurt him over his last few starts.  Two walks and a hit batter were the only blemishes on his record over the first six, and despite running out of gas before he could close out the seventh, Kuroda left the game with a 2-1 lead, in line for and deserving of his second win of the season.  Given how Dodgers starters have scuffled of late, to waste that sort of outing definitely hurts.
• Andre Ethier: Back in the lineup after sitting four of the last five, Ethier responded with three hits in four ABs, including a double and a run scored.  He really ought to be in there to do this sort of thing more often.  I wanted to talk with him after the game about his day, the team generally, and if it's tough to stay sharp in his situation, but to his credit, Ethier passed.  It's pretty clear he'd like to be playing (as he should), and thinks he's performed well enough to be in the lineup (no disagreement here), but isn't going to say anything that could start any controversy on the topic.   I don't consider myself a writer who looks to rouse rabble just for the sake of doing it, but given how touchy things are in the context of last year, I don't blame Either for choosing simply not to talk about it. 
• Blake DeWitt: Three more hits plus a run scored, and he continues to be in the middle of many good things that happen for the Dodgers.  In the home half of the seventh, after the Astros cut the Dodger lead to one, DeWitt led off the inning with a double to right that at the time seemed like a handy little insurance run.  Not so much, as it turned out, but that's certainly not DeWitt's fault.

The Bad:

• The Sticks: Things started off with promise when James Loney gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first with a bomb to right center, his fourth homer of the year.  From there, the Dodger bats again went silent until scoring two ultimately meaningless runs in the ninth, when they were down 8-3.  The Dodgers weren't able to put two hits together in the same inning for the rest of the game, couldn't get a runner past second, and needed help from some shoddy Houston D just to post their third run of the game.  The Dodgers left six men on base, and were 1-9 with runners in scoring position.  In the Houston series, they were shut down by Brian Moehler, Chris Sampson, and now Shawn Chacon.  Not exactly the big three Arizona trots out. 
• The Bullpen: To be fair, they haven't landed here very often.  In fact, the Dodgers' relief corps has been bulletproof for most of the season.  Sunday, the skies might have been a bright blue, but you could see the clouds gathering shortly after Torre came to pull Kuroda.  Joe Beimel walked two batters to force in a run (charged to Kuroda) before getting the third out in the seventh.  An inning later, the storm arrived, as Jonathan Broxton allowed six runs and recorded only one out.  That's not a good ratio.  They didn't thrash him around the yard with big bombs, instead it was more of a slow, painful bleed.  Five straight singles quickly gave Houston a 4-3 lead, and another single from Brad Ausmus put them up 6-3.  That was the last batter Broxton saw.  Hong-Chih Kuo entered, and after a Pence double and a Micheal Bourn sac fly, Ausmus scored.  Kuo then allowed a run of his own in the eighth.  All told: 2.1 IP, seven runs, nine hits, two walks.  Ugh.

NOTES:

• Nomar will travel to Milwaukee with the team, and participate in a morning workout on Tuesday.  Following that, they'll figure out when/where he'll go to rehab. 
• Jason Schmidt threw a perfect inning at Lancaster today, needing only 12 pitches to get through the frame.  He felt good enough to throw 15 more in the pen when it was over.  The key comes in how he feels tomorrow.  Torre said he was in the high 80s, close to 90 on the gun. 
• With Saito again under the weather, Broxton would have pitched the ninth for the save.  Kind of became a moot point, though. 
• After the game, all the pink bats were signed by the players, and will be, I presume, auctioned off for the Susan Koman Foundation.  It was interesting to see Chin-lung Hu's, though.  Hu uses one of the increasingly controversial maple bats, which unlike their ash counterparts break instead of splintering.  Hu broke his in the ninth, and the thing looked like a lawn dart.  No question, when guys get sawed off with one of those, the shrapnel is pretty burly. 

AUDIO:

• Russell Martin: Download russell_martin_5.11.mp3

BK