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My MLB predictions have been little better than useless so far this season; however I completely redeemed myself last night. At 20.09 BST, just under an hour before Game Two of the Phillies-Dodgers NLCS started, I sent the following message to Joe:<\/p>\n
I’m a bit torn really because while I’d love to see Pedro Martinez turn back the clock with a magical performance, for the sake of the series I would prefer it if the Dodgers got the win to level it at 1-1.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll settle for a seven inning shutout by Pedro and a late L.A. rally against the Phillies’ bullpen.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A seven-inning shutout by Pedro? Check.<\/p>\n
A late L.A. rally against the Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bullpen? Check.<\/p>\n
Series level at 1-1?\u00c2\u00a0Three out of three!\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It was hard luck on Pedro, who really did \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcturn back the clock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 with a strong start.\u00c2\u00a0 Martinez gave an exhibition on how you can keep a potent lineup in check despite not having a 96 mph fastball.\u00c2\u00a0 He did everything the coaching manual says you should: working both sides of the plate and changing speeds so that the batters couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t time him.\u00c2\u00a0 Pedro didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss many bats, picking up just three strikeouts, but he kept the Dodgers from putting the barrel on the ball.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same could be written about the Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 starter Vicente Padilla.\u00c2\u00a0 He wore out his welcome in Texas and was effectively picked up off the scrapheap by General Manager Ned Colletti in mid-August.\u00c2\u00a0 Apart from one mistake to Ryan Howard, which the first baseman smashed into the left-centre seats to continue his monstrous playoff form, Padilla matched his hero Martinez pitch-for-pitch. The Dodgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 starter did<\/em> have a 96 mph fastball, but he complemented it with a decent slider and two curveballs, one around 77 mph and a ridiculously slow curve in the mid fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 The latter was so off-putting that when he threw it to Shane Victorino with his first pitch in the third inning, the Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 centre fielder could do nothing else but laugh.<\/p>\n
Howard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo shot was the only offense either team could manage off the two starters.\u00c2\u00a0 The Dodgers had a chance to put Pedro under pressure in the fourth when Matt Kemp led off the inning with a single; however, he gave away the promising position by being caught trying to steal second base.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the sort of gamble that always looks bad when it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out.\u00c2\u00a0 Even at that early stage, it was clear that this was going to be a tight game with runs at a premium and, with Kemp being a good base-stealer, the chance to get a runner in scoring position was apparently too good to ignore.\u00c2\u00a0 The Phillies had to make a perfect play to get him and you have to give credit to Carlos Ruiz for nailing Kemp with a quick, strong and accurate throw from behind the plate.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, making an out on the basepads with the heart of your order coming up to bat (Ethier, Ramirez and Loney) is the sort of moment you can look back on with regret if you end up losing the game.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for Joe Torre and his team, they were able to forget about it. Former Dodger Chan Ho Park came into the game in the eighth inning and gave up two singles to get the home crowd on their feet.\u00c2\u00a0 In fairness to Park, he then made a decent pitch to Russell Martin that produced a tailor-made double-play grounder.\u00c2\u00a0 Pedro Feliz snaffled it and darted the ball to Chase Utley at second base. He forced out Ronnie Belliard but then made an awful throw a mile wide of first base that allowed Martin to get on base and pinch-runner Juan Pierre to come around to tie the game 1-1.\u00c2\u00a0 Charlie Manuel sent in four more pitchers during the rest of the inning as the\u00c2\u00a0Dodgers gradually loaded the bases and then took a 2-1 lead after J.A. Happ walked Andre Ethier.\u00c2\u00a0 Jonathan Broxton took the mound in the top of the ninth and made short work of Rollins, Victorino and Utley to close out the game.<\/p>\n
As noted in my prescient pre-game comments, it was good for the series that the Dodgers were able to fight back and win the second game.\u00c2\u00a0 An 0-2 deficit isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t terminal in a seven-game series, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a tough spot to get out of against a quality team.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
For precisely that reason, the Los Angeles Angels need to win tonight after losing the opener of the ALCS against the Yankees 4-1.\u00c2\u00a0 CC Sabathia was in dominating form and gave the Yanks the sort of big-game performance that made them sign the lefty over the offseason to the largest free agent contract ever given to a pitcher.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get much easier for the Angels as the Yankees can throw A.J. Burnett out there for Game Two.\u00c2\u00a0 While the former Blue Jay has scuffled along at times during his debut year in New York, he has the stuff to shut down any lineup when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on top of his game.\u00c2\u00a0 The Angels need to stop Burnett from settling into a rhythm and also to eliminate some rare sloppy mistakes that crept into their game yesterday.<\/p>\n
Just as I hoped that the L.A. Dodgers would level the series yesterday, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m rooting for the other team from L.A. to do the same tonight.\u00c2\u00a0 My Dodgers prediction worked out perfectly.\u00c2\u00a0 Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s see if the Angels can follow it up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My MLB predictions have been little better than useless so far this season; however I completely redeemed myself last night. At 20.09 BST, just under an hour before Game Two of the Phillies-Dodgers NLCS started, I sent the following message to Joe: I’m a bit torn really because while I’d love to see Pedro Martinez […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-5044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7256,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions\/7256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}