What a Game!

Last night (Tuesday, July 20)the San Francisco Giants were playing the second game of a three game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in LA. These two teams share a huge rivalry against one another. In the past between these two teams, there have been many arguments, ejections, fights, intentional hit by pitchers, walkoffs, exciting endings, and much more. On tuesday night, they had it all in one. After winning the first game of the series in LA, the giants called upon young ace and two time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum to take the mound. In 4 and 2/3 innings, Lincecum gave up 5 runs and was very wild, including a pitch that almost hit Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp followed by a pitch that did hit Mr. Kemp. Because of this, each team was issued a warning. In frustration, Matt Kemp tried to steal third base and take out Giants third baseman Juan Uribe. In doing this, Kemp slid hard into the bag at third and ended up sliding too far over the bag and was tagged out by Uribe, making Kemp look like a fool and ruining a scoring opportunity for the Dodgers to add on to their 5-1 lead. Later in the game, the Giants scored 3 runs on a hit, a dropped fly ball by left fielder Xavier Paul, and a double by Pablo Panda Sandoval. In this inning, Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw threw over 30 pitchers and had over 100 total on the night. For some odd reason, the Dodgers decided to leave him in the game and he hit for himeself. Nobody knew why they left him in until the first pitch of the next inning when Kershaw intentionally threw a pitch and hit Aaron Rowand. Kershaw and manager Joe Torre were ejected from the game. There was another ejection in the game in which the Dodgers bench coach was also ejected. Don Mattingly, the Dodgers hitting coach was named manager for the remainder of the game. Going into the 9th inning down 5-4, the giants loaded the bases with one out against all star closer Jonathon Broxton. Mattingly, now the manager for the game, took a visit to talk to Broxton. After taking two steps off of the mound, he remember something else and turned around to tell Broxton something else. The rule book states that if the manager takes two trips to the mound, he must take the pitcher out of the game. Because of this unexperienced mistake, Broxton had to come out of the game and Sherrill game into pitch. He was only given 7 warmup pitches and could not get fully warmed. On the first pitch, Andres Torres hit and double into left center to score 2 runs and give the giants a 6-5 lead. Giants sensational rookie Buster Posey delivered an RBI hit to make it 7-5 and then Jeremy Affeldt came in and closed out the game for the Giants. Looking back, all of this could have been avoided by the Dodgers by staying calm and not over reacting. In the end, their revenge lead to ejections which lead to a huge mistake and then a crazy comeback win for the Giants. What a game!