Dodgers Inch Closer to Mediocrity

Day games usually mean more offense, but the New York Mets and the Dodgers love to buck the trend. The Dodgers ended up holding on for a 3-2 win to take the two of three games in the series in their long standing quest towards mediocrity — they are now 10-11 in the season.

The two teams combined for five hits through six innings, a 1-1 tie that looked like would delay the Dodgers flight plans.

Ryu Hyun-Jin got the start for the Dodgers, and he was masterful in the first five innings. He only gave up a single to Lucas Duda in the fourth inning, and he was cruising right along.

Then the sixth inning happened when he went through the order for a third time. Ruben Tejada led off with a walk even though Ryu was ahead of him 0-2. A single, double, sacrifice fly, wild pitch on 32 pitches later, the Mets managed only one more run, a victory of sorts for Ryu and the Dodgers.

Ryu pitched a scoreless seventh inning to cap off his longest outing of the season.

Meanwhile the Dodgers had problems with Mets start Jeremy Hefner. Coming off of three horrid starts where he had a 11.25 ERA, the Dodgers only managed three hits. The only run they scored came in the first inning when Matt Kemp hit a single that score Carl Crawford who was hit by a pitch to lead off the game.

Andre Ethier pulled off the heroics in the ninth inning. With runners on the corners and one out, Ethier hit a fly ball single off of left handed reliever Scott Rice to score Nick Punto and give the Dodgers the 2-1 lead. Yes, the lefty hitting a lefty.

It's almost as scary as Juan Uribe walking three times in a game. Speaking of, with Matt Kemp at third on that Ethier single, Uribe fought through an eight-pitch at-bat to hit an infield single that scored Kemp. And people thought 2012 was going to be the end of the world.

Thanks to closer Brandon League giving up a solo homer to Ike Davis to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, Uribe's RBI ended up being the winning RBI. But after 22 pitches, League redeemed his blown save from yesterday to notch his sixth save of the season.

Kenley Jansen, who blew away the side after allowing the first two batters on base in the eighth inning, earned his first win of the season.

Eric Collins led off the broadcast saying that Ryu wanted his name pronounced "ROO". According to Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, apparently the edict was issued from his agency. You stupid Americans. It's like saying "you" but with a slight "l" in front.

It's not that hard really, people.

And while we're at it, in South Korea the 63-year old Cho Yong-Pil officially knocked off PSY's new song "Gentleman" off the top spot on the charts. When growing up I could tell my mom regretted marrying my dad and wished I was the her love child with Cho. Now she's just disappointed with my existence which is fine. She played his songs over and over when I was a kid.

Cho released his 19th album Hello with the eponymous lead single seen here:

At least if this takes off in America, I won't have to hear the title mispronounced by you people like you did with "Gangnam Style."