Dodgers Walk, Then D’Backs Walk Off

After what was a very promising game, one in which the Dodgers were going to play the spoiler to the Arizona Diamondback’s quest to not play the Phillies in the divisional series, I witnessed a horrific collapse. Tied at one run a piece going into the tenth, things seemed to go horribly wrong for the Diamondbacks. Dee Gordon doubled down the line, advanced to third on a sacrifice from Jerry Sands and scored on a Micah Owings throwing error on the play. Then Kemp doubled in Sands (and got the RBI thanks to some generous score keeping). And later in the inning, A.J. Ellis tripled off the right field wall. After being hit by Tim Lincecum earlier in the week, the ball ricocheted off the top of the wall and hit Justin Upton in the side of the head. Manager Gibson removed Upton from the game much to his dismay, and replaced him with Cole Gillespie.

Bottom of the tenth, the Dodgers were now up 6 to 1. With the game pretty much in hand, Javy Guerra who had been warming up with haste as Vin Scully put it, sat back down. Manager Don Mattingly gave the ball to Blake Hawksworth to close out the game, the seventh pitcher used by the club on the night.

After a chopper up the middle that Dee Gordon made a bare handed play on and a comebacker to Hawksworth, there were two outs in the inning for Upton’s replacement Cole Gillespie. Then what went bad for the Dbacks, was just foreshadowing for the imminent bad coming from the Dodgers. Cole Gillespie chopped it hard up the first base line, and Loney had to wait for it to bounce as he took a few steps back towards the line to grab it. Making a good play he snagged it, and while on the run still turned and lofted it back quickly toward the . . . empty bag. Hawksworth was nowhere near the bag. He started toward the bag originally, stopped, then when it was way too late scrambled to make a play at first. Scully on the TV broadcast thought that Hawksworth figured that Loney would not be able to get to it so he did not make a motion toward the bag.

Now the events that transpired after this are the actual events that scored the runs, but I consider Hawksworth not covering first to be the singular deciding factor of the game. It looked like a miscue from a Little League game. But what can happen, will happen; every once in a while, or maybe tonight.

Its like if I left my house, got two steps from the door and realized I forgot to lock it. I stopped briefly, and considered taking the effort to lock it. But what’s the use, I just have to go across the street to borrow a cup of sugar (lets update this metaphor a little bit—borrow a cup of Ipod). Chances are not locking the house will not result in any transgressions upon my house.

So the odds are not good but it is still possible that:

Miguel Montero could single, Chris Young could walk, and 37 year old John McDonald could hit a well hit grounder to Aaron Miles who might poorly field it at third and be unable to make a play. Bases would still be loaded, score 6-2, and Mattingly who wouldn’t believe he was walking out to the mound at this point now would bring in Guerra. On his second 3-2 pitch to Aaron Hill, Guerra could walk in a run. The next batter Ryan Roberts would obviously hit the first pitch he saw, a low but hanging off speed pitch, into the third row in left field. Since most of the stadium would have piled out in the top of the ninth, the maybe 5,000 fans remaining would be in about as much disbelief as the Dodgers that this is what had unfolded.

This would be a much more entertaining scenario if Ryan Roberts did not actually clear the bases, round the bases, and pump his left fist repeatedly, deliberately mimicking Kirk Gibson—his manager. At the very least, that scenario and that gesture were not played out at Dodger stadium.

If I don’t lock my house and leave to go across the street it is unlikely that I will be robbed. It is especially unlikely for the Dbacks to break into my house, steal a cup of sugar, my Arrested Development poster, and a get out of playing the Phillies card. But the odds that not covering first as a pitcher results in a 6 run inning for the Diamondbacks capped by a walk off grandslam is pretty unlikely too. Rather ironically, if the Dbacks best player Justin Upton hadn’t been hit in the head by that triple, Hawksworth may have never got the chance to let Cole Gillespie start that two out rally.

We’ll see what type of team shoes up for tomorrow’s game. The chance of playing spoiler is still a possibility, which along with a Cy Young winner, a MVP winner, and not blowing 5 run leads in the bottom of the 10th is about all you can hope for if you are not in the playoff hunt.

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