DODGERS CAN'T STEP FOURTH OPENER OF KEY SERIES LOST IN ROUGH INNING SAN DIEGO 9, DODGERS 7.Byline: Rich Hammond Rich Hammond Los Angeles Daily News sports writer. Instrumental in bringing the Los Angeles Kings hockey organization closer to the fans. He is the atypical "what a guy" to Kings fans everywhere. Rich Hammond on himself. Staff Writer The stretch drive has arrived, those 20 games that will determine whether the Dodgers are remembered as surprising National League West champs or the team that blew a seemingly insurmountable lead. All of the Dodgers' remaining games are against division rivals, which should be a good thing since they entered Monday with a combined record of five games over .500 against their final three opponents: San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. , Colorado and San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . So much for a good start. Odalis Perez, who will be crucial in holding together what has been a shaky pitching staff of late, gave up five runs in the fourth inning and the Dodgers never fully recovered and lost to the Padres 9-7 in front of 36,050 at Dodger Stadium • • [ . Perez left after the disastrous fourth, having allowed the five runs on six hits to go with three walks and five strikeouts. In the Dodgers' past four games, their starters have allowed 18 earned runs in 18 innings, although the Dodgers managed to win two of those games. ``The last few days, we haven't had very good outings,'' manager Jim Tracy
``What we need over the next few games is for our starters to get us deep into games. We've been doing a good job of playing catch-up, but we need to get some good efforts from our starters over the next couple days.'' The days of beating up on the hapless Arizona Diamondbacks This article is about the baseball team. For other uses, see Diamondback. The Arizona Diamondbacks (also referred to as the D-backs) are a Major League Baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They play in the West Division of the National League. are over, and now the Dodgers have to contend with the Rockies, the Rockies, the: see Rocky Mountains. Giants, who lead the NL wild-card race, and the Padres, whose seven games against the Dodgers in an 11-day span will largely determine their October fate. Phil Nevin Stewart was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 20th round of the 1994 MLB Draft. that gave San Diego a 9-4 lead, as the Dodgers dropped a half-game to the idle Giants but maintained a 4 1/2 game lead in the NL West. The Padres pulled within 6 1/2 games of the division lead and two games of the wild card. ``We kept battling but we just couldn't get those runs across to tie it,'' Shawn Green Shawn David Green (born November 10, 1972, in Des Plaines, Illinois) is a 6' 4" left-handed Major League Baseball player. Green is the starting right fielder for the New York Mets.[1] Green was a 1st round draft pick, and has been a two-time major league All-Star. said. ``That's a tough team, and they're going to be in it until the end.'' The Dodgers rallied in the seventh, with 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 singles from Cesar Izturis, Jayson Werth and Adrian Beltre, but with the bases loaded and two outs, reliever Akinori Otsuka struck out pinch-hitter Robin Ventura. Trevor Hoffman pitched the ninth for his 36th save. Green hit two solo home runs and Werth added a two-run shot for the Dodgers, who again got a troubling outing from Perez, their one-time unquestioned ace who often has looked shaky during the second half of this season. Perez hasn't looked quite the same, on a consistent basis, since he spent two weeks on the disabled list in July with an inflamed rotator cuff rotator cuff n. A set of muscles and tendons that secures the arm to the shoulder joint and permits rotation of the arm. Also called musculotendinous cuff. . Perez had lost only one of his previous 18 starts, which included 13 no-decisions, but he hadn't reached the seventh inning in any of his last four starts. Things looked good early, as Perez retired 10 of the first 12 Padres, but problems found Perez in the fourth. After Brian Giles grounded out, seven consecutive Padres reached base in the five-run inning. Nevin homered, Carlos Hernandez had a RBI double, another run scored on a wild pitch, Sean Burroughs had a RBI single and Mark Loretta had a run-scoring sacrifice fly to put the Padres up 5-0. ``It's not just Odalis,'' Tracy said. ``It's been the same with any number of our starters in the last few days. I do know that command-wise, he was not as sharp in the fourth inning. They have some good hitters over there.'' Wells left after allowing a leadoff single to David Ross in the seventh. He allowed five runs (three earned) on six hits, walked none and struck out nine. ``It was a very good comeback,'' Tracy said. ``We did everything we could to get back in a game it didn't look like we could come back in. ``You'd like to win all of those, but periodically you fall short and that's what happened.'' Rich Hammond, (818) 713-3611 rich.hammond(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 3 photos, box Photo: (1 -- color) Dodgers left-hander Odalis Perez expresses his frustration while in the fourth inning of Monday night's game against San Diego at Dodger Stadium. (2) Dodgers shortstop Jose Hernandez dives for a ball hit by San Diego's Sean Burroughs. Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer (3) no caption (Barry Bonds) Box: (1) STORY LINES (2) PADRES 9, DODGERS 7 |
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