Dodgers Giants Rubber Game

San Francisco @ LA Dodgers
5:00PM PT
Game 3

J. Sanchez
9-8
3.54 ERA

H. Kuroda
10-11
3.39 ERA

Dodgers Lineup:

Jamey Carroll 6
Ryan Theriot 4
Andre Ethier 9
Matt Kemp 8
Casey Blake 5
James Loney 3
Rod Barajas 2
Reed Johnson 7
Hiroki Kuroda 1


Lineup notes:

Hit Machine (Rafael Furcal) is getting the night off. Reed Johnson gets the start in left field over POD.

Dodgers are also calling up Jon Ely, Chin-Lung Hu, John Lindsey, Jon Link and Russ Mitchell for tomorrow in San Diego. Wow that's three Jons! John Lindsey finally gets an opportunity to play for the Dodgers after 1,570 minor league games.

I'm not going to even go into the meltdown that we call last night's game. Scott has posted a very good analysis of Torre's incompetence in management of the bullpen that pretty much sums up the Dodgers' season this year. It's pretty sad and pathetic when we can actually predict the bullpen's implosion before it happens. For now, let's look to tonight's game...

Coming off of a brilliant performance last outing, Hiroki Kuroda goes to the mound in the rubber game of the series vs. the hated Giants. Hiroki was nothing less than spectacular in his last game taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning. He has been one of the bright spots of this frustrating season, so I will focus on Kuroda tonight.

Kuroda's 10 wins and 11 losses really don't reflect his quiet dominance he has had this season with the Dodgers. He has 131 strikeouts in 162.0 innings pitched with only 40 walks. He is pretty consistent with lefties hitting .244 against him and righties .250. Kuroda finally got his first base hit last game off of Phillies ace Roy Halladay. Tonight's matchup vs. Jonathan Sanchez seems pretty even, but Japan's hero, Hiroki Kuroda will have the world watching again tonight. Go Blue:)

Extra Note:
It looks like San Diego is on their way to losing their 10th straight! I will post their score in my post-game wrap up.