Diamondbacks 2, Dodgers 1 - Old-Fashioned Pitchers' Duel

I didn't see last week's Brandon Webb vs Derek Lowe Matchup 1.0, but I know from the result that we all probably liked tonight's Matchup 2.0 a lot better!! Wow. The billing for tonight's matchup was right on, two amazing sinkerballer pitchers working their stuff and matching each other toe-to-toe... who would blink first?

Outs were easy to come by tonight, and both offenses were stifled early on. The Diamondbacks had more scoring opportunities in the beginning, with Drew getting on to start the inning in the 1st and 6th, and Romero with a leadoff hit in the 3rd, followed by another hit by Drew, who ended the night 3-for-4. Sadly, all those runners were stranded. Juan Pierre notched the first hit for the Dodgers in the 4th and was promptly erased by a double -play. Both pitchers were just over 60 pitches after 5 innings and showed no sign of letting up.

The Dodgers played small ball in the 6th to score their first and only run. A leadoff single by Juan Pierre again allowed Matt Kemp to extend his hitting streak to 18 games on a perfect hit-and-run. A strange groundout to Orlando Hudson allowed Pierre to score from 3rd base, but a great catch by Tracy got Webb out of the inning with only the one run coming across. Webb had blinked, but it was Game On for the Diamondbacks.

I would like to point out that it was at this point that I said: We can manage to score two pretty soon... riiiight? And, what do you know... they did!! Conor Jackson started the 7th inning with a nice double to left, and by not getting picked off at second base (boy that was close), Chad Tracy moved him to 3rd and he scored on Mark Reynolds' double down into the right field corner! Chris Snyder put a gorgeous swing on a baseball to loop it into right-center field, allowing Reynolds to score. Just like that, the Diamondbacks were leading 2-1, and Lowe was very unhappily out after 87 pitches! Hong-Chih Kuo finished up the 7th and the 8th, taking care of the Diamondbacks fairly easily, needing only 20 pitches for his five outs.

Brandon Lyon may have come in to nail down the save in the 9th, but the real save of the game goes to the duo of Conor Jackson and Chris Snyder for their great defensive play in the bottom of the 8th. (Personally, I'm giving more props to Snydes.) With one out and runners on second and third, Matt Kemp lined a ball into left that Jackson had to come in and over to catch. He then fired the ball back into home, and though the throw was up the line and came behind Snyder, Snydes managed to reach back and tag Andre Ethier on the neck split-seconds before Ethier's hand touched the plate!! Seriously folks, you have to see this play, I know it'll be on Sports Center's Top 10 all night long. It was bang-bang, and home plate umpire Angel Hernandez was right on with the call and there was no argument from Ethier.

With that, the threat was over. The 9th inning was verrry quiet in the thread as we all held our breath and crossed our fingers, but we really had nothing to worry about. After all, the worst that could happen was the tying run on first with Andruw Jones at the plate, right?? Piece of cake!! Dodger fans were torn - they had to cheer for him, that is until he lined out to none other than Conor Jackson to end the game and the boo birds spread their wings and poured it down on Jones. Aaah, nothing like the smell of victory against the NL West rival Dodgers with Mr. Apathetic himself closing it out for us.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Brandon Webb, +43.0%
Honorable mention: Chris Snyder, +11.3% (he deserves so much more for his defense)
God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -20.8%

Nice, lively Gameday Thread tonight... I guess it didn't slow down too badly for everyone, since it was very nearly up to 650! Heh, sorry, I think we all got wrapped up in waiting for that 9th inning! Present in tonight's thread were: snakecharmer, Wimb, Shums (you're bringing us luck...), utahdbacksfan, UofAZGrad, Zephon, Muu, foulpole, hotclaws, 4 Corners Fan, Captain D Bag, Scrbl, TwinnerA, Snakebitten, soco, DbacksSkins, luckycc, DodgerBlueBalls (thanks for stopping by!), unnamedDBacksfan, mrssoco, kishi, AJforAZ, the mystical one, srdmad, AF DBacks Fanatic, dahlian, emilylovesthedbacks, and singaporedbacksfan.

Tomorrow is a late start, 7:40pm, and pits Randy Johnson against Clayton Kershaw, who I believe I heard wasn't even 6 months old when the Big Unit made his major league debut. It should also feature the Dodger debut of Manny Ramirez, who was traded at the deadline today. Talk about an interesting game! Catch ya'll tomorrow, folks.