Gavin Floyd? I should have gone with Eric Stults!

The Good:

• Eric Stults. Nine innings of shutout ball, allowing only four hits and walking only one White Sox hitter.  Before the game, Joe Torre said Stults might not be able to control his own destiny, in terms of what happens to him (more specifically, his place on the roster) when Brad Penny and Hiroki Kuroda are ready to return to action. Stults could, however, take advantage of the one thing within his control, that being his performance on the mound.   Fair to say he did just that.  After escaping a two-on, two-out jam in the first, Stults settled in and kept Chicago at arms length and then some, retiring 24 of the next 27 hitters he saw.  Torre showed faith in Stults' by allowing Russell Martin to successfully lobby for the lefty to pitch the ninth, despite relievers warmed up and ready to go in the pen.  He also showed faith in Stults' ability to handle the bat.  In the fourth, with Blake DeWitt on second and nobody out (see below), Torre asked Angel Berroa to bunt DeWitt to third, confident Stults would get the run home, which he did with a sac fly to right.  That's not something you see very often. 

But back to the pitching...

Stults said he was able to use his offspeed stuff early in counts, helping get the Sox off balance.  Lots of first pitch curveballs and changeups.  Importantly, he was consistently throwing strikes and working ahead in the count, evidenced by his 81 strikes on 116 pitches.  For a 28 year old guy looking to figure out any way to stay in the Majors, it was a huge night.  Guys like Stults occupy a strange place in the baseball world.  Too good to unload to another organization because they can be stashed away at AAA and relied on for reasonably good work if needed over the course of a season, yet not quite good enough to crack a big league staff.  It's especially challenging on a pitching-rich team like the Dodgers.

"Mentally, you have to tell yourself that you can do it.  The Dodgers, they have a lot of pressure to win," Stults said.  "If they've got to go out in the offseason and find guys they think can fill (starting spots), I've got to be okay with that mentally and not let that get me down.  I felt like I had something to prove.  Last year I scuffled in AAA, and I came up here and had some good starts, but also had some (bad ones).  This year, my goal was to be consistent and show them that every outing, I can give them quality starts."

• Blake DeWitt. Fair to say that June has not been kind to Sikeston, MO's favorite son.  He entered tonight's game without an RBI, a .185 BA and a .245 OBP over 65 at bats this month.  DeWitt has been scuffling, getting out of rhythm, chasing pitches out of the strike zone, and getting away from the all-fields approach that served him well in April and May.  Tonight, though, he came up big for the Blue.  In the fourth, following a James Loney single and a walk to Matt Kemp, DeWitt stepped to the plate with nobody out.  It was the sort of grand opportunity to blow a game open and give a starter some breathing room that the Blue have repeatedly squandered over the last five weeks.  Instead, DeWitt turned on a fastball from Floyd, ripping a shot off the wall in right to clear the bases.  He'd eventually score on the sac fly from Stults.  Toss in some stellar D, and it's fair to say DeWitt had himself a nice little rebound game. 

"Obviously we've been struggling scoring runs. The pitching has been phenomenal.  We've been in every single game, and so we need to score some runs behind them.  They're battling every night, and we need to be patient and relax, and not try to do too much.  Everybody's been pressing a little bit, so for us to go out and do that tonight, it's pretty big," DeWitt said.  "Everybody knows what we have to do.  We showed it tonight, and we know it's there.  We have to be consistent, though."

Asked if he feels any extra motivation with Andy LaRoche now on the squad, or additional pressure to "battle for third," DeWitt delivered exactly the answer you'd want to hear:  "I'm here to win.  Whatever that takes, I'm here.  Whatever role that is, it doesn't matter to me.  I've got one goal in my mind, and that's to win.  He's a great player, that's why he's here.  If he's in there one night, I'll be rooting him on.  If I'm in, he's rooting me on.  We've all got one goal here."

So they're not Indian leg wrestling in the parking lot after every game, or anything like that.  I know, because I asked.

The Bad(ish):

• Missed Chances, and a Sleepy O: Obviously, not every opportunity can be cashed in, and the Dodgers came through with some quality results at important moments (see above).  Still, LA missed a chance to make things comfortable in the first, despite pushing two across on RBI singles from Andre Ethier and Russell Martin.  The Dodgers found themselves with men on second and third, with nobody out.  James Lone pops out weakly to Carlos Quentin in left.  Matt Kemp grounds a two-strike pitch to Nick Swisher at first, who guns out Jeff Kent at home.  DeWitt gets sawed off by a Floyd fastball (one he'd turn on next time around), popping up to Dye in right.  Cue uneasy feeling among the Chavez faithful.  At the end of the day (picture it said like Stephen A. Smith, and it pops!) the Dodgers only had six hits.  They were helped out by three White Sox errors, including a critical drop of a Kent fly ball by Dye in right during the first inning rally.  Bottom line, though, for at least one night, they scored enough runs to win.  Gotta start somewhere.

The Unusual:

• Angel Berroa's Night: I don't get the impression he is feared around the league, nor seen as much of an offensive threat on his own team.  There was Torre's (solid, I thought) decision to have him sacrifice DeWitt to third in the fourth inning with nobody out and Stults on deck.  Generally, even if the frozen lemonade vendor is hitting in front of the pitcher, he'll get a chance to swing in that situation.  In the sixth, Ozzie Guillen chose to walk DeWitt to get to Berroa, who eventually reached on an error from third baseman Pablo Ozuna.  Then with Stults coming up, Guillen decided to make a pitching change, deciding Floyd had done enough.  Yes, he was playing the lefty-lefty matchup, but if Guillen was that worried about Floyd vs. Berroa, don't you think he'd have pulled him after the free pass to DeWitt? 

Early start tomorrow for the rubber game of the series.  12:10 first pitch.

BK