Or, let's put this in other terms. A regulation baseball game in the Major Leagues is nine innings, not seven, or even eight. And I'm guilty of thinking last night's game was long over before the Dodgers rallied for four runs in the eighth inning to take a 5-4 lead and turn the game into a win.
The Dodgers looked dreadful on offense last night. And they flirted with history in the process in the first seven innings when they hit into five - yes, that's right, five - double plays. They couldn't do anything against Arizona starter Billy Buckner. Buckner himself even had two hits for two RBI against Chad Billingsley, who has completely turned his season around the wrong way and looks more like the Billingsley we saw against Philly in the NLCS last season.
But because we haven't seen many memorable heroics in recent weeks from this team, and because the offense has been conveniently inconsistent of late, it's easy to think when they're down 4-1 in the eighth inning that the game is probably going to end that way.
So when the Dodgers suddenly put together a string of hits together against the D-backs bullpen to complete the four-run rally, it reminded me why we should never assume any game is over until that 27th out is recorded.
It was also understandable why it was so easy to just give up on the game because th Rockies, Cards and Phillies had all already won their games to keep pace with the Dodgers. But more importantly, the win allowed them to maintain their precious 3½ game lead in the division, and keep pace with St. Louis for the best record overall in the N.L.
The Cards have already won their game today, and the Rockies and Phillies already have leads in their games tonight, so it looks like the Dodgers will have to come up with another win to keep pace. The only real consolation of all this so far is that the Hated-Ones-to-the-North are fading in both the Wild Card and division.
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