Dodgers Notes From Thursday's Game 4/29/2010

Pittsburgh 2, Dodgers 0

Box Score.

• Clayton Kershaw went 6.1 innings (2 ER, 3 Hits, 7 K, 4 BB [1 IBB], 117 pitches - 75 for strikes). Outside of a shaky first inning where he threw 32 pitches and wasn't helped by a poor defensive play from Matt Kemp and a dropped third strike, I thought Kershaw was fantastic. Why he was trotted back out for the 7th is beyond me, considering he had thrown in excess of 100 pitches. But I just watch the games and give semi-educated opinions, I don't manage.
  
• Bullpen: 2.2 IP, 0 Runs, 2 Hits, 3 K, 0 BB.
• Andre Ethier (Single, BB) and Blake DeWitt (Double, Single) each reached base twice.
  
• The offense struck out 6 times and drew 4 walks, and continued to leave men on-base. At least they're getting guys on-base, now they just need to bring them on home more consistently.
• Jonathan Broxton pitched for the first time in seemingly forever, throwing a scoreless 9th inning and striking out one. Joe Torre's usage of Broxton is criminally insane. And further proof Joe Torre can't manage a pitching staff.
  
• Why is Garret Anderson still on this team? And batting second at that? Being a veteran only means so much, namely nothing, when you utterly suck at actually playing the game.
• Was Matt Kemp's "error" a bad play? Of course. He'd be the first to tell you that. Does it actually matter? Not when you score 0 runs, as his fielding miscue only allowed the second run to score. Of course it might have scored anyways, but when you score 0 runs, that's the issue that is most pressing, not getting caught in-between on whether to dive for a ball or not.
• Rafael Furcal missed his 3rd straight game with a bad hamstring.
  

[Pictures from somewhere online, not from me]