But, with the help of Hanley Ramirez, the Dodgers were able to sweep their NL West division rivals, the San Francisco Giants. Today, 2011 Cy Young Winner Clayton Kershaw threw a complete game shut out as the Dodgers beat the Giants 4 – 0. Kershaw gave up five hits, one walk, and had seven strikeouts. Per Eric Stephen of True Blue LA, Kershaw now has a career 0.66 ERA at AT&T Park. Luis Cruz continued to contribute, and Cruz now has 16 RBI in 22 games played as a Dodger.

Someone doesn’t want to go back to Albuquerque.

The teams are tied for first place in their division, making the division race mighty interesting, considering that the trade deadline is looming. The Dodgers are looking to add another pitcher and at least another bat. It remains to be seen if Ryan Dempster (CHC) will be added or if the Cubs will hold on to him if they cannot get the prospects they want for him.

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But it was just another chapter in the same 2012 book for the Dodgers, as they only managed two runs off Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse and mustered nothing against the St. Louis bullpen. In the bottom of the 12th, Jamey Wright got Yadier Molina to ground out, walked a one-legged Lance Berkman who was pinch-run for by yesterday’s starting pitcher Joe Kelly, then struck out Skip Schumaker. Unfortunately, he would not record another out as Matt Carpenter singled to move Kelly to second, and Rafael Furcal singled to left fielder Tony Gwynn Jr., scoring Kelly. Gwynn had a definite chance to throw Kelly out at the plate, but he overran the ball in his hurry.

Dodgers conclude their season series with the Cardinals tomorrow at 11:45am PT.

Hanley Ramirez and RP Randy Choate are reportedly being sent to Los Angeles Dodgers for RHP Nathan Eovaldi and RP Scott McGough.

How do I feel about this trade?

That about sums it up.

The Dodgers needed a bat, or at the very least an improvement over Juan Uribe/Juan Rivera/Jerry Hairston Jr. With Dee Gordon out, Hanley could play SS or 3B. Nathan Eovaldi can throw the ball very hard, but he can’t throw a breaking ball. Perfect trade piece.

Culture Shock/Flickr

It was bound to happen at some point.

Clayton Kershaw cruised through his start, using 51 pitches to get through the first four innings before imploding and allowing 8 runs in the 6th inning, including 2 RBI double to pitcher Adam Wainwright. Very unlike Clayton to do that, but hey, it happens. It was super hot in St. Louis, Kershaw had thrown 120 pitches in his last start, and he’s human.

This happens to aces. It just does.

That the Dodgers lost 8-2 points both to a hot St. Louis Cardinals team and to the offensive woes that the Dodgers faced for the entirety of July. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier are good, but they are not enough, and the team cannot continue to rely on the likes of Luis Cruz for driving in runs if they want to sniff playoff contention.

Unfortunately, things are about to get a bit worse, as Adam Kennedy will hit the disabled list with a strained groin. While Kennedy hasn’t exactly been something to write home about, he hasn’t been horribly terribly awful enough to get DFA’d (he’s hitting .250/.331/.340). The two likely candidates to be called up, per Ken Gurnick, are Elian Herrera and Alex Castellanos. Or maybe the owners will get a new bat.

Anything is possible, right?

Look at him: that is a man who knows how to win.

Chad Billingsley often gets a lot of flack for not being Clayton Kershaw. The understanding is that Billz should have been an ace in his own right, because he has the stuff and the ability to be great. Instead, he’s just pretty good with flashes of great. This for some reason infuriates Dodger fans to no end, who claim that they can see the fear in Chad’s eyes and that he just doesn’t know how to win or keep a lead. Basically, it’s amazing that Chad Billingsley even knows how to throw a baseball.

Today, Billz showed people why he deserves to be treated with more respect. He allowed one run in the first inning (off several hits that steamed past Juan Rivera that I felt would have been fielded by James Loney), and then cruised five more innings without allowing a run. Billz only had 4 strikeouts but he was putting the ball where he wanted it, which is more important for a guy who has had control issues later in the game.

Matt Kemp was relatively quiet today, only going 1-4. He’s hitting .366/.395/.585 since coming off the disabled list. Once again, the heavy lifting seemed to come from the players that are not expected to do so, like Luis Cruz, hitting a three run home run in the second inning off of Joe Kelly, who was a bit wild early in the game). Mark Ellis lined a double beautifully down the third base line, scoring AJ Ellis and Tony Gywnn Jr.

Ronald Belisario allowed Carlos Beltran to homer after he pitched a belt high fastball down the middle in an 0-2 count. Baseball enthusiasts should note that guys who hit a lot of home runs (Beltran) really like fastballs down the middle. Like, a lot a lot. However, Beltran’s 2-run shot was not enough to bring the Cardinals back from the brink. The Dodgers extended their winning streak to 6 and are perfect so far on their road trip.

Tomorrow’s game should be awesome, since it’s Kershaw vs Wainwright, a 2009 rematch. Since I don’t expect many things to happen for the Dodgers on the trade front (though things are getting interesting with Ryan Dempster and the Cubs and their impending trade with the Atlanta Braves), that will be the only thing (Dodger related, anyway)to look forward to tomorrow.

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This game was almost 5 hours. I don’t remember what happened in the beginning of the game. I guess Juan Rivera hit a homerun. The Mets tied up the game and it got pretty crazy with a bunch of missed and/or questionable calls.

Belisario and Jansen were off-limits today as they have pitched several times in the past week. Josh Wall came in the 11th to make his  debut after sitting on the bench for a week (he’s also most likely to be moved when Chad Billingsley comes off the disabled list tomorrow in St. Louis). But you would not know that he hadn’t done much by the way that he pitched today.

Almost as impressive and certainly more surprising was the hit parade that erupted in the top of the 12th inning. Matt Treanor, coming in as pinch hitter, hit a 2 RBI single. Luis Cruz singled to drive in another runs, after having a rough day at the plate. And then Adam Kennedy doubled to drive in two more runs.

The 12th inning was fun, you guys.

Also impressive: Clayton Kershaw came in as a pinch hitter to successfully execute a sacrifice bunt. You go, Clayton. You go.

The Giants lost to the Phillies in extra innings, so the lead on the division is cut down by one game. The Dodgers are 7-0 in games played in the Eastern Time Zone.

Wonderful.

Knuckleballers don’t need as much rest as a regular pitcher because the force on the arm isn’t as great. The knuckleball relies more on seams than arm action for its wacky movement. R.A. Dickey has been a phenomenal pitcher for the Mets this year, which is good news on a team with the worst bullpen ERA in the Majors. So naturally, I was not thrilled to see him on the mound and James Loney at the plate. Loney has been one of the more infuriating players this year, as his 2011 was pretty abysmal until he decided to go on a tear in the second half, successfully avoiding being non-tendered at the end of the year. So yeah, I was pretty surprised when Loney managed to knock a knuckleball into shallow center field. And pleased, too. But Loney has been more Jim than James in the past few days, which means that if he goes on another tear…

Well, let’s not worry about that yet.

Anyway, Juan Uribe has been struggling. I mean, really really struggling. Prior to yesterday’s game, Uribe was 1-38. So I was even less excited to see him come up to bat against Dickey. And then what did he do?

He hit the life out of that baseball. It was one of those hits where you can just tell by the sound coming off the bat that it’s going to go very, very far. And it went just far enough to increase the Dodgers’ lead to 8-6.

It should be interesting to see what Uribe and Loney do moving forward, because if they can stay hot, then perhaps the Front Office can focus on getting more starting pitching before the trade deadline. This would be helpful because there are not overwhelming options for bats right now (though I could be persuaded into enjoying a trade for Michael Bourn).

Hit all the home runs!

Rivera solo home run in the second inning and an AJ Ellis single in the 6th, finishing with 4 strikeouts and 1 walk over 89 pitches.Clayton Kershaw matched Lee pitch for pitch, allowing 5 hits, 1 run with 7 strikeouts and no walks over 8 innings.

Hunter Pence tried to have his second game-winning bases-loaded single in a row when Javy Guerra struggled in the 10th inning, but a Luis Cruz double, Bobby Abreu single and Matt Kemp infield single pushed across two runs of their own in the bottom of the 10th the game 3-3.

Fast forward to the 12th inning, both teams low on bench players and bullpen pitchers, and none other than Matt Kemp steps up and drive a low-and-away fastball 10 rows deep into the right field pavilion for the win.

With the win, the Dodgers improve to 49-44 while the Phillies fall to 41-52.

“Oh, the Phillies are up.”

“Oh look, we’re winning!”

“Well, [redacted].”

Stephen Fife, who pitched 6 innings with 1 earned run and 1 strike out, had his effort wasted by Ronald Belisario and Kenley Jansen. Belisario walked the bases loaded and Jansen couldn’t convert a 4 out save.

But I hear that Matt Kemp cut down Ryan Howard at the plate when Howard tried to make it home from second base.

The game today is early (12:10 PDT), but I am not expecting anything different here. These are the 2012 Dodgers, kids: the same was they ever were.

Tolleson finally lived up to his hype by delivering two scoreless innings.

I need to work on this imagery thing.

Anyway, the Dodgers lost to the Phillies 3-2, despite the fact that Blanton is not that great of a pitcher. The Dodgers are now 2 games out of 1st place, which is currently occupied by the San Francisco Giants. The game was notable, though, for its TOOTBLAN demonstration. Shane Victornio attempted to steal third and then, for some reason, decided not to do that halfway there. So he got thrown out. Mark Ellis got called out for running out of the basepath as he tried to avoid being tagged by Carlos Ruiz – a tag, by the way, that wasn’t a tag, since Ruiz had the ball in his throwing hand and touched Ellis with his ball-less glove.

Notably, though, Shawn Tolleson pitched two perfect innings of relief.

Now, the big questions revolve around the trade deadline – will the new ownership group make a splash by bringing the Dodger fanbase a nice new pony to win our love – and Chad Billingsley, who was scratched from his most recent start with elbow tenderness. Two MRIs confirmed that it was elbow inflammation. Billingsley is set to start tomorrow, but I would not be surprised if someone from the minors, either Steven Fife or John Ely, is called up to take Billz’s place.

Regarding the trade deadline, though, it seems as those the Dodgers are in on everyone (and who can blame them), but hopefully, they will make sure not to overpay for someone performing above their head who is about to be a free agent (Dempster, I’m looking at you).