When Aces Collide: Dodgers-Phillies 14 May 2009

Sometimes a pitching classic on paper ends up being a high-scoring affair.  The batters raise their game and the pitchers are made to look distinctly ordinary if they are not quite on top form.

Other times, two aces come together and show the batters why they have such a formidable reputation.  Chad Billingsley and Cole Hamels did just that last Thursday in a day-game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. 

The Dodgers-Phillies game was the clear highlight of last week’s early MLB game schedule.  The three-game series was tied at one apiece and the crowd at Citizens Bank Park took their seats eagerly anticipating a great rubber match.  I joined them, not in Citizens Bank Park but here in England watching via MLB.tv.  The starting lineups were etched on my scorecard with the hope that I would be keeping score of a memorable game.  I wasn’t to be disappointed.

Hamels and Billingsley made sure of that.  The two starters ended up with similar pitching lines, both completing seven innings of work while striking out nine batters and conceding one earned run (Hamels also conceded an unearned run). 

With both pitchers, you immediately look to see how their respective ‘out’ pitches are working on any given start. 

Hamels had a good feel for his change-up throughout the contest, with his strike-out change to Rafael Furcal in the fifth inning being a real ‘Bugs Bunny change’ special (the link I had to ‘Baseball Bugs’ on YouTube no longer works, but I’m sure you can find it somewhere). 

Billingsley uses a big curveball instead and, despite looking unsettled through the first few innings, he used it to good effect against the Phillies’ batters.  His last out of the game to end the seventh inning came on a curveball to Matt Stairs.  The well-travelled Canadian has a history of hurting the Dodgers on pinch-hits (most notably his monstrous home run off Jonathan Broxton in last year’s NLCS), but he didn’t quite catch Billingsley’s offering and the Phillies fans, who had jumped from their seats as the ball jumped off Stairs’ bat, groaned as Matt Kemp made the catch in deep centre field.

Both sets of batters would have been glad to see the starters exit the game, although Orlando Hudson and Jayson Werth were not spared the indignity of ending the night with ‘Golden Sombreros’: “a mythical award given to a batter [or in this case two batters] who strikes out four times in a game”, as defined by Paul Dickson.

The excellent pitching was juxtaposed with some school boy base-running mistakes and four fielding errors.  Hamels got on base in the fifth inning thanks to an error by Billingsley, although the Phillies’ starter did his best to help his opposite number by nearly getting caught off first base twice.  The first time resulted in catcher Russell Martin firing the ball past the first baseman James Loney, allowing Carlos Ruiz to advance from second to third.  Hamels strayed off first again after the next two batters had struck out and Martin atoned for his error by starting a rundown play that saw Ruiz caught between third and home. 

Keeping up with a rundown is always a nightmare for scorekeeping fans and my initial reaction was just to note ‘RD’ in Ruiz’s square and leave it at that.  However, the joy of the TV replay allowed me to scrawl down the sequence and then transcribe it (a 2-3-6-5-2-6 effort) in a neater fashion at the bottom of the page. 

Russell was in the thick of the action as he was picked-off from first to end the sixth inning.  That took the bat out of James Loney’s hands and brought the ‘Auxiliary box’ into play on my scorecard.  On a traditional scorecard, a voided plate appearance can be accounted for by staying on the same row and simply shifting to the next column to begin the next inning.  You can’t do that on a scorecard with a ‘grid’ layout, so I split the 24 square into two, noting that Martin had been picked-off the first time Loney had come up to bat and then referring to down to Auxiliary box 24a for the start of the seventh inning.

Loney’s plate appearance was worth the wait for Dodgers fans.  He took Hamels deep to right-centre, breaking a 1-1 tie and putting the road team into a lead that looked decisive when the Phillies were down to their last out out. 

The Dodgers’ closer Broxton came into the game with a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth and made short work of Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth.  Both struck out, the latter completing his Golden Sombrero set, although I’m inclined to be lenient on the right-fielder.  When you have to face four moving fastballs, three at 99 MPH and the fourth at 100 MPH, failure is a relative term.

After dismissing the first two batters so emphatically, Broxton’s subsequent struggles came as a shock.  However, credit needs to go to Raul Ibanez (who was been a terrific addition to the Phillies’ lineup so far, putting me in my place after I expressed doubts over the signing when it was announced) Greg Dobbs and Carlos Ruiz for refusing to give in and getting the two runs needed to send the game to extra innings.

The Phillies were unable to build on their tremendous comeback though.  Chad Durbin came into the game in the top of tenth and the Dodgers grabbed the lead right back, with the runs once again coming after the first two batters had been sent back to the dugout.  The Phillies couldn’t rally for a second time and the Dodgers prevailed by a final score of 5-3. 

But L.A. weren’t the only winners on the day. Neutral fans like myself won as well, being treated to an exciting game that lived up to its billing.