Dodgers/Angels Game

While doing my best to stay tuned to the U.S. Open, I was in attendance at the final game of the Freeway Series between the two teams of Los Angeles: The Dodgers and Angels. My family and I arrived to Chavez Ravine a full hour and half before gametime - a VERY good thing as we avoided all of the traffic. For me, it ended a run of four major league baseball games I had attended in a 16 day stretch of days in June. You may recall I caught two games between the Nationals and San Diego Padres while in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, and just last week I was at the Dodgers win over the New York Mets. People are still talking about Hong-Chih Kuo and that home run and subsequent bat toss on Tuesday night.

In the game on Sunday, Randy Wolf took the mound for the Dodgers while Kelvim Escobar was pitching for the Angels. The Dodgers quickly staked Wolf to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning as Rafael Furcal homered to deep right center. Wolf had control problems at the beginning, walking two and giving up a hit in his first two innings. In the top of the third, it all came apart for Wolf and the Dodgers... An infield single by Chone Figgins was followed by solid singles by Orlando Cabrera, Vladimir Guerrero and Rob Quinlan, the latter two plating runs. Howie Kendrick followed with a double to plate Guerrero and Mike Napoli's sacrifice fly knocked in Shay Hillenbrand who had reached on a fielder's choice. Suddenly, the Angels had a 4-1 lead. Nomar Garciaparra singled in pinch hitter Andre Ethier in the bottom of the fifth to narrow the gap to 4-2... Wolf was done for the day, and it would only get worse for the Blue Crew from there... the Halos would put up a run in the sixth, three more in the seventh and another in the eighth to seal the victory for Escobar - the final run coming on an inside-the-par home run by Gary Matthews on a play where James Loney crashed hard into the right field wall. Loney was down for a few minutes until he was carted off the field. It was quite a scary moment, but it appears Loney will be OK... The Dodgers did manage to add single runs in the 7th and 9th to make the final score 10-4. Three consecutive sell-out crowds of 56,000 were in attendance producing an all-time record attendance for a three game series at Dodger Stadium of 168,000.

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