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For Today, Miley Cyrus Brings the Hits for the Dodgers
There are no words for what the Dodgers are doing right now. With their 4-2 win over the Mets, they are now 39-8 in their last 47 games, a feat unseen, unheard, un-anything by most people alive right now watching baseball.
The Dodgers have been without Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez for some time now — Kemp keeps progressing according to manager Don Mattingly and Ramirez will be in the starting lineup on Wednesday barring catastrophe. But add to that pile the left calf of Andre Ethier.
"It sounds like he came in today, and the calf that he's been fighting was a lot tighter," Mattingly said. Apparently the fight started on Aug. 4 when Ethier was hit by a pitch in Chicago. "Since then he's been going kind of back-and-forth with it."
Ethier went to see a team doctor before the game to be sure that he didn't suffer the same fate that Mark Ellis endured last season when a fasciiotomy was required to drain fluids from his leg. "I'm all right," Ethier said.
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Despite being down three of their biggest sluggers and facing a pitcher second only to Clayton Kershaw in Matt Harvey, it seemed like this would be the night the Dodgers got their fourth post-All Star defeat.
Sure Juan Ligares belted a solo homer to left field in the first inning off of Dodger starter Ryu Hyun-Jin. Sure the Dodgers hit into double plays in the second, third and fourth innings.
But in the fifth inning the Dodgers got the help of Harvey who issued his second walk of the night to A.J. Ellis with one out. The two walks matched the amount of walks he issued in his last five starts combined. Juan Uribe singled to left sending Ellis to third, which set the tables for Nick Punto.
Punto seemed to have channeled some magic since changing his walkup music to Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" before the Tampa Bay series started on Friday. Coming into the game Punto has gone 5-for-11 (.455) with a walk, home run and four RBI. Prior to that Punto had only batted .226 since the Dodgers started taking off on June 22 with two RBI.
Much like the Dodgers, the magic did not leave Punto — he belted a two-run double down the left field line to give the Dodgers the lead.
"She's got hits," Punto explained. "Miley's got a few hits for us, so we'll keep it going."
Ellis in the sixth inning added two more runs with a single to left field.
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Again, the Dodgers pitching was par excellence: Ryu going seven innings giving up only that home run; Ronald Belisario pitched a scoreless eighth. But then the normally reliable Kenley Jansen did something odd. Not only did he give up a walk to Josh Satin, he allowed Satin to score thanks to John Buck's single.
Everything returned back to normal soon thereafter with a groundout by Ike Davis to clinch the Dodgers season-high seven-game win streak.
It's hard to explain what we're seeing. There's the pitching, the offense, the bullpen, the defense, the everything. Hell, even Nick Punto gets in on the action, and he doesn't play everyday. I don't know.
So on this day, at the very least, I'm going to chalk up the victory to Miley Cyrus.
Mets Scorecard: (click to embiggen)
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Dodgers Scorecard: (click to embiggen)
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