We told you to watch this game. We told you to watch Rafael Furcal who has been hot, and sure enough he hit a homer tonight. But so did half of the Dodgers.
Four of them in a row.
In a game that might permanently stop LA fans from leaving early, in the bottom of the ninth, friends, down 9-5, after just giving up three runs to San Diego in the top of the ninth, the Dodgers slugged back to back to back to back home runs from Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin, and Marlon Anderson to send the game into extras.
The last two dingers were donged off Trevor Hoffman who had successfully closed 55 of 57 games against the Dodgers. Vin Scully had never called back to back to back to back homers in all of his years rocking the mic. In fact no team had pulled anything as ridiculous as that in 42 years when the 1964 Twins did it in the 11th inning.
But that feat just allowed the Dodgers to go into the 10th inning, where the shakey Aaron Sele climbed the mound and after getting a quick out, gave up a double to Brian Giles, gave a free pass to slugger Adrián González, got pinch-hitter Paul McAnulty to fly out and then winced as Josh Bard slammed a single to right that scored Giles and sent González to third.
Sele walked Mike Cameron to load the bases and then got Geoff Blum to fly out to right which set the stage for the Blue Crew to dig down to see if they could pull off one more miracle, down one run in the bottom of the 10th.
The Padres brought in Rudy Seánez to relieve the shell-shocked Hoffman. Seánez promptly walked the first batter he faced, Kenny Lofton and then gave up the long ball to Nomar Garciaparra which won it for the Dodgers in one of the wildest games of the year, if not the wildest.
After the cheering died down to just above blaring, Scully said, "I forgot to tell you, the Dodgers are in first place."
Indeed, they were back on top in the West, a game above San Diego who now get the hell out of town. And it allows the home team to stay at home for four against the lowly Pirates, and three versus the D-Backs.
The Padres at home against those same two teams for the next week, finishing up their home games.
Before tonight, there have only been three other teams that have hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back dingers:
Milwaukee Braves v. Cincinnati, June 8, 1961, 7th inning.
(Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock, Frank Thomas)
Cleveland Indians v. L.A. Angels, July 31, 1963, 2nd game, 6th inning.
(Woody Held, Pedro Ramos, Tito Francona, Larry Brown)
Minnesota Twins v. Kansas City Royals, May 2, 1964, 11th inning.
(Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, Harmon Killebrew)
AP photos: top by Francis Specker, above by Jeff Lewis
