Our Pitching Blunders and We Are 8 Games Under

Astros @ Dodgers
7:10pm
Game 1

Fourth Place is Not Good in Baseball

So luckily I missed Wednesday's loss, but I was updated to Billingsley's disastrous outing and the fact the Dodgers were swept in three games by the Reds to open their homestand. They have now lost 6 of 8, and seem to be falling further and further back with no hope of pulling themselves out of this downward spiral. Even the starting pitching has faltered of late. I just hope Bills is in a slump and it's not an injury. We have seen him slump before, but he managed to come back and show us how well he can pitch. Heck, we even saw him pitch that bittersweet 1-hit loss earlier in the season.

So in come the baseball club with the worst record in the majors, the Astros, who are 20 games under .500 with a record of 25-45. Yes, it could be worse Dodger fans. Yet even though the Astros are really bad, that really doesn't matter when it comes to this Dodger team unfortunately. We still will need to have a quality start from Ted Lilly, some offense, and have our bullpen not blow it in the 8th or 9th innings. I know, a lot to ask! The last time the Dodgers played the Astros in Houston in May, the Astros won 2 of the 3 games with 2 game winning hits in the 9th inning.

Ted Lilly (5-5, 3.98) has pitched well against the Astros in his career and has a 7-2 record and a 2.30 ERA. Don Mattingly said that Lilly was "on a short leash" after around 90 pitches. I'm not sure why? That just means the bullpen will have to pitch more innings. Ah the mysteries of Donnie's decision making...Brett Myers (2-6, 5.03) will go to the mound for Houston. Myers is 4-2 with a 2.61 ERA against the Dodgers in his career. He has lost his last two starts.

The Dodgers are now 13th in the league in pitching with a team ERA of 4.12. Even worse is that the Dodgers are dead last in the league in relief pitching with a 4.72 ERA. They are 5th in hitting with a .257 batting average. Matt Kemp leads the league with 20 homeruns and is second in hitting with a .335 average. We will be no doubt seeing Bourn stealing some bases off our horrible catchers this series. He is leading the league with an impressive 29 stolen bases. Bison is tied for 5th place with 16 stolen bases.

There was also an announcement today that the McCourts have reached a divorce settlement, but it is contingent on a pending 17-year contract between the Dodgers and FOX. If MLB does not approve of the deal, the McCourts would have to go back to divorce proceedings in court. They also agreed to a one day trial on August 4th to decide if the Dodgers are sole property of Frank McCourt or are community property. If the Dodgers are ruled as community property, then this would inevitably force the sale of the team unless Frank could come up with 100s of millions of dollars to buy out Jamie's share. We will keep you posted on the continuing divorce drama.

Lineup:

Gordon 6
Miles 4
Ethier 9
Kemp 8
Loney 3
Uribe 5
Navarro 2
Oeltjen 7
Lilly 1

Fourth place in unacceptable! Go Blue:)