Down by four in the 9th? No problem.
 

Actually, the story last night was down 9 in the 4th, not down 4 in the 9th. But that was football and the Steelers, and they lost anyway.

Wait a second, are you saying that the Steelers lost and the Dodgers won?

Woo hoo! Happy days are here again! Rejoice and be merry.

That game (Dodgers - don't give a rip about the Steelers) was too stressful for me to watch.

Four consecutive homers - holy crud!!!

I turned the game off in the 7th!! :mad:

Un...freaking...believable

Uh, yeah, I heard about it on the news.

While I am a San Diegan, that is one great ending!

How sporting. This is how you react when that happens to your team.

http://tommykingman.ytmnd.com/

What's interesting is that had the Dodgers not given up 3 runs in the top of the 9th, they probably would have lost.

With a 1 run lead, San Diego would have brought in Trevor Hoffman to close the game. The guy's unstoppable. Gagne may have been spectacular before he turned all Dreifort, but he's got nothing on Hoffman. He's 3 saves away from the career record. Until last night he had only blown, I believe, 5 saves in his career against the Dodgers in his 13 seasons. Had he started the 9th with a 1 run lead, forget it.

But with a 4 run lead, it's not a save situation. So they sat Hoffman down and brought in Adkins. When he suddenly gave up 2 home runs in a row, THEN they needed to bring in Hoffman. But, now Hoffman's warmed up, sat down, then quickly warmed up again. A closer is used to a very particular warmup routine. A properly warmed up Hoffman would not have given up those homeruns.

So, in the running for game MVP, honorable mention must be given to Hong-Chih Kuo who gave up the 3 runs in the 9th! :D


ETA: Check that, last night was only the third blown save in 58 attempts for Hoffman against the Dodgers.

In 1926, the Cardinals brought in Grover Cleveland Alexander to seal the deal in a sticky situation against the Yankees in game 7. Alexander was ancient by those standards, he had won his start the night before, and, as legend has it, he was probably hung over. He took care of business.

And David Wells WAS hung over when he pitched his perfect game.

Not saying that interrupted warmup is a guarantee of failure, but history is on the side of a warmed up Hoffman. 53 for 55 is hard to argue with.