A GIANT DILEMMA TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE HENDRICKSON'S RECOVERY NOT ENOUGH FOR L.A. SAN FRANC. 5, DODGERS 4.Byline: VINCENT VINCENT Vital Information Necessary Centralized (movie, The Black Hole) BONSIGNORE Staff Writer As far as home debuts go, Mark Hendrickson's first pitching performance at Dodger Stadium • • [ on Thursday was a classic case of mixed results. On one hand, Hendrickson did exactly what he was brought from Tampa Bay Tampa Bay, inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, 25 mi (40 km) long and 7 to 12 mi (11.3–19 km) wide, W Fla., separated from the Gulf by numerous small islands; it receives the Hillsborough River. St. to do: Give the Dodgers at least sixinnings and get the opponent to hit lots of ground balls. On the other, the results weren't exactly what anyone hoped for. Too many of those ground balls found holes rather than gloves in the Dodgers' defense, resulting in a rough opening three innings and a deficit too big for the Dodgers to overcome. The result was a 5-4 Giants win in front of 42,515 at Dodger Stadium to push the Dodgers to third place in the National League West, onegame behind first-place SanDiego and a half-game behind Colorado for second place. Hendrickson didn't pitch badly, just not good enough to illicit enough outs from all those grounders. He gave up nine hits overall and was charged with five earned runs -- three in the first and two in the third -- over his six innings. He ended his night by throwing three straight scoreless innings, but by then the damage had been done. ``Stuff like that happens,'' Hendrickson said. ``I got a lot of ground balls -- not directing anything at the infield -- and it was just too big a hole tonight. I ended up finding my rhythm, which is more consistent to how I've been pitching this year. But the hole was just too big.'' The Giants jumped on Hendrickson early, getting hits from their first three batters and pushing across three runs in the first inning. They added two more in the third to build a 5-0 lead. Of the seven hits through those first three innings, only two were hit particularly hard. The other five just seemed to avoid the Dodgers' gloves. ``There were a lot of balls hit on the ground, just like we like to see them hit,'' Dodgers manager Grady Little William Grady Little (born March 30, 1950 in Abilene, Texas) is a manager in Major League Baseball. He guided the Boston Red Sox from 2002 to 2003, and has been manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2006. said. ``But they were going everywhere we weren't standing. It's a tough break for Hendrickson. He wasn't throwing the ball that badly, he was just getting some bad results.'' Dodgers catcher Russell Martin
``Just a couple of seeing-eye ground balls that got through,'' Martin said. ``It's tough, but that's baseball. Mark made some good pitches, we just didn't get the results.'' The Dodgers chipped away at the lead the rest of the game, but couldn't string together enough rallies to ever overtake the Giants. They scored two runs in the third on a double from Rafael Furcal Rafael Antoni Furcal[1] (born August 24, 1977 in Loma de Cabrera, Dominican Republic),[2] nicknamed "Fookie", is a shortstop in Major League Baseball who plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers. , singles by Kenny Lofton Kenneth Lofton (born May 31, 1967 in East Chicago, Indiana) is a Major League Baseball outfielder. He bats and throws left-handed. He currently plays left field for the Cleveland Indians, with whom he has spent 10 seasons during three separate stints. and Nomar Garciaparra Anthony Nomar Garciaparra[1] (born July 23, 1973, in Whittier, California) is a Mexican-American baseball player who currently plays third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers. , and a sacrifice fly by Andre Ethier
``But we just couldn't put together a big inning,'' Martin said. Garciaparra extended his hitting streak In baseball, a hitting streak refers to the consecutive number of official games in which a player gets at least one base hit. Games in which a player does not have any official at bats due to walks, or sacrifice bunts, or being hit by a pitch, are ignored (neither break the streak to 18 games with the third-inning single, but he also was hit twice by Giants pitchers and has now been hit by a pitch five times over the past four days. ``It's unfortunate, but (Garciaparra) is leading the league in hitting and nobody can get him out,'' Little said. ``The other team's plan is to press him inside and some of them are just getting away.'' The Dodgers missed a chance for a big inning when they loaded the bases in the fifth against Giants starter Matt Cain Matthew Thomas Cain (born October 1 1984 in Dothan, Alabama) is a starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball. He is ft in ( m) tall and weighs lb ( kg). . But reliever Brad Hennessey took over and allowed just one run to score. ``We hung in there and kept battling back and made a pretty good ballgame out of it,'' Little said. ``We had a few chances to bust it open but we just couldn't get it done.'' vincent.bonsignore@dailynews.com (818) 713-3612 CAPTION(S): 4 photos, box Photo: (1 -- color) The Dodgers' Kenny Lofton can't catch up to a third-inning fly ball by Lance Niekro that turned into an RBI RBI abbr. Baseball runs batted in Noun 1. rbi - a run that is the result of the batter's performance; "he had more than 100 rbi last season" run batted in double during Thursday's game. (2) San Francisco's Barry Bonds misses a first-inning pitch Thursday against the Dodgers. John Lazar/Staff Photographer (3 -- color) Dodgers starter Mark Hendrickson (right) confers with catcher Russell Martin as the Giants take a 3-0 lead. Keith Birmingham/Staff Photographer (4) BILLINGSLEY Box: DODGERS vs. SAN FRANCISCO - Vincent Bonsignore |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion