Dodgers Appearance Deceiving, Lose to Mets 5-2

With the Dodgers, appearances can be deceiving. Despite being sixth in the National League in batting average, they couldn’t string together enough hits as they fell to the New York Mets 5-2.

Exhibit A: The two runs they scored against New York Mets’ starter Chris Capuano (W, 8-7), one each in the second and fourth innings on James Loney RBI singles, looked to be enough for a Dodger win. Dodgers’ starter Rubby De La Rosa (L, 3-4) was pitching a no-hitter through five innings confounding the Mets’ hitters.

“I was aware of it,” De La Rosa said of the no-hitter.

It was Ruben Tejada who broke up the no-hitter to lead off the sixth inning. After a sacrifice bunt by Capuano, Angel Pagan doubled Tejada home. After all was said and done, Beltran and Daniel Murphy each had RBI doubles to give the Mets that three-run sixth inning.

“I was behind the count a lot,” De La Rosa said about that sixth inning. “I didn’t lose my concentration. I didn’t lose my focus. I was pitching the same.”

So now the Dodgers trailed by a run. With four frames to get one run to tie the game all hope shouldn’t be lost. But the Dodgers only mustered one hit for the rest of the game, a leadoff double in the ninth inning by Aaron Miles off of closer Francisco Rodriguez (S, 21).

“I think we got deflated in that inning,” Dodgers’ manager Don Mattingly said. “We’ve got to keep playing.”

“I don’t think we felt deflated,” Miles countered. “We had four innings to put something together. They just shut us down.”

Exhibit B: Relief pitcher Matt Guerrier did not allow an earned run in the eighth inning.

Scott Elbert came in to start the eighth inning giving up a double to Pagan and hitting Justin Turner with a pitch. After Beltran grounded to a fielders’ choice and Murphy flied out to left field, in came Guerrier to get the final out of the eighth.

Coming into the game Guerrier allowed seven of 19 inherited runners to score - none of which get charged to his 4.38 ERA. Before Guerrier got that third out he gave up RBI singles to Jason Bay and Lucas Duda to give the Mets the 5-2 lead. Both runs were charged to Elbert leaving Guerrier’s tally spotless.

Guerrier did pitch the ninth inning and retired the side in order.

Exhibit C: If someone were living under a rock for the last four months and just tuned into this game, it would seem there was nothing wrong with the Dodgers financially. The Dodgers had sold out the game, all 56,000 of the tickets.

“It’s nice to see the place full like that,” Mattingly noted.

But this was only the Dodgers’ second sellout of the season, Opening Day being the other. The Dodgers had to offer tickets with a deep discount: $4 for reserve level seats; $14 for loge level seats; $24 for field level seats.

Closing: In 1988 World Series the venerable Vin Scully proclaimed, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!” In this game, the impossible was the Stadium selling out. The lack of hitting, the lack of clutch pitching out of the bullpen - all of that has been witnessed from the Dodgers all season long.

But as the Dodgers continue to circle down the drain despite having Kemp, All Star pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Final Vote candidate Andre Ethier, one question needs to be asked. With the Mets also in financial straits and bitten by the injury bug, how are they treading water with a 43-42 record?

LA Angels defeat Detroit Tigers 5-1. The Angels got homers by Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells. But perhaps most peculiarly was the run scored on a balk in the in the third inning to give the Angels the 2-0 lead.

LA Galaxy tied Seattle Sounders FC 0-0. I guess the players were just content to see the fireworks show at Home Depot Center.

TONIGHT’S ACTION

Detroit Tigers at LA Angels. 7:05 p.m. FSWest, AM 830 KLAA.

New York Mets at LA Dodgers. 7:10 p.m. KCAL9, AM 790 KABC.