Road Trip Wraps Up, Dodgers Looking for Series Win

Dodgers @ Astros
11:05am
Game 3

Rookies on the Loose

Rubby De La Rosa

Jerry Sands

When you only win one game every three or four, you relish in it for a bit. Last night, we had the refreshingly nice chance to watch an actual victory and what an exciting one at that. Before the game we were jubilant in the news that Lance Cormier was gone finally. "With Lance, it wasn't working out," Mattingly said. Cormier pitched 13.2 innings, allowing a staggering 22 hits, 17 runs, 4 homeruns with a 9.88 ERA in his short time with the Dodgers. ¡Hasta La Vista, Lance! Then we get the icing on the cake with a Jerry Sands grand slam! Grand slams are always one of my favorite things to see in baseball, especially when the Dodgers hit them and a deserving rookie at that. I'm very happy that the Dodgers gave Jerry Sands the opportunity to play even though he has had a slow start to his MLB career. Then we also got the treat of seeing RDLR throw some nasty good fastballs, and the ho-hum underwhelming pitching of let's say Ted Lilly may soon be replaced in the future by the young phenom...we can hope, right? 



Speaking of Ted Lilly, oh yeah he's starting today. Lilly's (3-4, 4.71) numbers aren't horrible, yet there's something about him that's somehow not up to par to our other three starters in the rotation, Kersh, Bills & Kuroda. He allows a ton of fly balls and homeruns (9 this season so far), and he's just not very dominating. The good news is he has played very well against the Astros in his career. In 13 starts, he is 7-2 with a 2.36 ERA. He will go up against Aneury Rodriguez (0-2, 5.72) who has only started four previous times in his career. He went 5 1/3 innings last start which was his longest outing thus far. 


The Dodgers will try to win their first series since Pittsburgh today, before they travel home and enjoy an off-day tomorrow. 


Lineup:
Furcal 6
Carroll 4
Loney 3
Kemp 8
Gibbons 9
Navarro 2
Sands 7
Miles 5
Lilly 1

Looks like Andre Ethier is still not in the lineup today. Loney is once again hitting third, why oh why? Gibbons and Navarro are hitting 5th and 6th while Jerry Sands is hitting 7th? Hmmm....doesn't make sense now does it? I guess Donnie doesn't want the 7-8-9 batters to be totally useless, so he's putting Sands down there.

Let's see if we can win 2 in a row, when's the last time we did that? Go Blue:)