Carpool Lane: Trip to Dodgers 2-1 Loss vs Brewers

About the Carpool Lane

People really like bobbleheads. This is something I might have suspected, but I did not have as obvious evidence of it until Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat to the Brewers.

Monday was a beautiful day. It was the Memorial Day holiday. The Dodgers had the best record in the league. And Ryan Braun and the Brewers were playing their first game at Dodger Stadium since Braun won the MVP and tested positive for performance enhancers. Yet I sailed along the freeway through surface streets and into Dodger Stadium.

I expected it would be just as easy getting in and out of Dodger Stadium considering it was a Tuesday night. WRONG. There were 54,000 tickets sold to “The Infield” bobblehead night.

The thinking: if fans love one bobblehead, then they’ll love this one 4 times as much. It features the famous infield of Ron Cey, Bill Russell, Davey Lopes, and Steve Garvey. All of these larger than life Dodger figures are shrink-rayed to plucky little figurines, small even by normal bobblehead standards, to fit into a box that isn’t way too large to carry around the stadium.

After the hour and a half it took to get to Stadium Way, I certainly did not expect to get a bobblehead at this point. But to the Dodgers credit they had 50,000 bobbleheads on hand and I was handed one when I entered.

There were fans who showed up, handed over their ticket at the gate, collected their bobblehead, turned, and immediately exited the stadium with a firm no re-entry policy. Apparently there was one fan who bought 60 tickets, collected his 60 bobbleheads, and left with them to sell on the internet.

Don’t go—there’s a game to be played

I entered the stadium with my bobblehead, and if I didn’t know any better I would have said it was Opening Day. There were still over 50,000 fans that stayed with their memorabilia. Dodger Stadium was packed, and it was about as close to playoff atmosphere as you get during the regular season at Dodger Stadium.

Both pavilions were packed like teeth in a smile. The gaps of fans from Monday night no longer stood out like Dustin Penner’s grin in field and loge levels—but were full. And the Reserved level was reserved from end to end dangling over the bullpen.

With the return of Matt Kemp to the lineup, the insults and boos directed at Ryan Braun could have intensified Tuesday on behalf of Kemp. And in a way they were. Every time Kemp stepped to the plate the crowd loudly chanted “MVP, MVP, MVP!” Kobe is usually treated to this particular praise, and Kemp is no stranger to it either.
But the “MVP” chants were cheered with much more intensity and belief than the boos and insults at Braun, and were a much more powerful defense of Matt Kemp by the fans at Braun’s expense. The positive praise for Kemp was antagonistically directed at Braun.

“[Kemp is the] MVP [not Braun]” is what the fans chanted as they came to their feet before Kemp even swung at a pitch as the first man up in the bottom of the ninth. John Axford stood on the mound, throwing straight cheddar at 99mph to close out his second game in two nights. Kemp fouled off some bite size pieces with two strikes, before he squared up a sharp shot to the gap in left center for a stand up double.

This was Kemp’s answer in his first day back from the DL to his MVP adversary. A stand up double, nobody out, to lead off the bottom of the ninth. Braun’s set the bar with his two run jack in the first inning, which stood as the difference in the 2-1 ballgame.

Andre Ethier steps up to the plate. Ethier earned a double earlier when he hustled into second on a line drive hit to straight away center that scored the Dodgers only previous run. But he didn’t have the chance this time. John Axford put a 99er right into Ethier’s turned back.

First and second, nobody out, Jerry Hairston was up next to sacrifice the runners over. One try, two tries, he did not get the bunt down. And on the next pitch, the utility player grounded up the middle for a double play. Manager Don Mattingly elected not to pinch hit for Loney, who capped off his 0-4 day with a groundout to short, leaving “The Real MVP” stranded. The Dodgers suffered their second straight one run defeat to the Brewers, their fourth of that variety to the Brewers on the year.

In his first start of the year Nathan Eovaldi allowed only the one 2 run homer to Braun, and Lindblom blanked the Brewers too, but The Dodgers still couldn’t get the win. Hairston has to get that bunt down, especially as a utility player. That forces an intentional walk to James Loney to load ‘em up, and brings AJ Ellis to the plate who has been no stranger to late game heroics this season.

The bobblehead loving crowd had a long time to think about how the bunt needed to go down, or James Loney’s inadequacy’s, or how spectacular their 4 heads for 1 bobblehead was. The 54,000 fans slowly streamed out to their parked cars for the long wait out of the parking lot.

For the record, I’ve never seen LA fans quite mobilized like they were for bobbleheads—and that’s great. It was a great atmosphere in the stadium, excited and anticipating what MVP candidate Matt Kemp was capable of. He did his part, but the bunt wasn’t laid down.

And since there are no bobbleheads for tomorrow’s duel between Kershaw and Yovani Gallardo, it will be back to the regular 25,000 fans. I’ll just be more prepared for the Opening Day type crowds for Mike Scioscia bobblehead night on June 12th against the Angels.