MVN - Most Valuable Network

Round One to the Boys in Sedona Red

With all the coverage of the Dodgers today, you might have gotten the sense that a lot of people have conceded the NL West to the Dodgers. Okay, yes, I’ll admit, Manny Ramirez is a great player- though, he really should see about getting a new nickname. ManRam? Should we start nicknaming our players like that? DanHar? ChaTra? CoJack? Uh, never mind.

Anyway, yes, Ramirez is a great player. I would be happier if he wasn’t putting on a Dodgers uniform. But he’s just one guy. People acted like Joe Torre was going to win the World Series for him all by himself, and how’d that work out for them? We’re still leading the division. Until the Dodgers start putting up a better record than us, that’s not going to change.

And it certainly didn’t change tonight.

It was a great game tonight. We got a re-match of the Webb-Lowe battle that closed out the last Dodgers series- you may recall that one, if only by the painful memories of the ninth inning massacre of Brandon Lyon. Painful. Tonight’s game, though? Fantastic.

First off, the starters were as promised- both Webb and Lowe were on their game early, and it was obvious it was going to be a low scoring game. Webb didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning, and that was erased with a double play. Lowe allowed a scattering of hits through the first few innings, but the only runner we got into scoring position before the seventh inning was caught in, again, a double play. It looked like it might be one of those games where the first team to score won it all.

Unfortunately, that team was the Dodgers. In the bottom of the sixth, they put together back to back singles with one out, and then a ground out allowed one run to score.

Fortunately, it wasn’t one of those games at all, and the Diamondbacks came back quickly. In the top of the seventh, Conor Jackson led off with a single, advanced on a ground out by Tracy, and then scored on a double by Mark Reynolds. Alex Romero gave us a single to score Reynolds, and we had the lead. Snyder gave us another single, but we couldn’t get any more hits, so they were left stranded.

The bottom of the seventh and the top of the eighth went quickly- 1-2-3 in both cases- but it was the bottom of the eighth that gave us the no-doubt, absolutely unquestionable Play of the Game. Move Orlando Hudson’s slapping the ball to Tracy for the out down a step, even move down Alex Romero’s amazing catch in Petco- this one is the number one contender for Play of the Year in my book. Give it a look.

For those of you who can’t watch it, you’re missing out- with the Diamondbacks up by one run, the Dodgers have runners on second and third, one out. Matt Kemp hits a fly to shallow left, and Andre Ethier tags and goes to score, but a Conor Jackson throws it in, up the line a bit, and Chris Snyder makes a beautiful grab and sweep tag to nail Ethier for the inning ending double play. Play of the year.

After that, it was done. A little bit of nerves seeing Brandon Lyon (BraLyo?) out there for the save, but, like everything else on this team, he seems to be locking into a groove. He gave up one two-out single, but was just fine otherwise, and picked up the save. So, Webb gets win #15, most in the majors, and we get a game cushion on the Dodgers. Couldn’t ask for more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 11:47 pm and is filed under Recaps, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.