It's Over for the Dodgers

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It was quite the warm night the Dodgers were going into as they tried to heed the advice of Dylan Thomas as told by Vin Scully. Refusing to succumb to their deficiencies, the Dodgers flailed and kicked and refused to go quietly "into that good night" but finally came up short in Game 161, a 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants.

"Obviously I'm proud of those guys and they way we didn't want to give in," manager Don Mattingly said. "Those guys did not want to lose."

It was this tenacity that made it exciting until that final out despite many instances in the game that should have sent the Dodgers crumbling.

1. Angela Meade. The Dodgers brought in soprano Angela Meade to sing the National Anthem. Making two appearances as Donna Anna in LA Opera's production of "Don Giovanni" in her Los Angeles debut this month, that probably should have been an omen for the game.

2. Chris Capuano's three-plus innings. In his biggest game for the Dodgers, Capuano couldn't get it done. He gave up leadoff homers to Buster Posey in the second inning and Joaquin Arias in the third inning. Hanley Ramirez helped to get the run back in the bottom of the second lining a triple down the right field line off of Giants starter Barry Zito and scoring on Luis Cruz's grounder.

Capuano got into trouble after his homer to Arias when Angel Pagan and Marco Scutaro hit consecutive singles, Scutaro extending his hitting streak to 19 games. Third baseman Cruz bailed Capuano out with a diving grab of Pablo Sandoval's grounder to start the inning-ending double play.

After Capuano gave up a leadoff single to Posey in the fourth inning, Mattingly gave him the hook bringing in Jamey Wright.

"You know that you're in an all-or-nothing game right now, so I knew that Donnie was managing like it was the seventh game of the World Series," Capuano said. "I knew there wasn't much margin for error especially the way Barry [Zito] has pitched. We knew that runs were at a premium."

Before the game Mattingly told reporters that Capuano bruised his shoulder in San Diego while warming up on deck swinging a bat with a weighted donut attached. Capuano did admit that it did cause him to cut short a bullpen session the other day but that he got plenty of treatment to be ready for this start.

"I did a lot of treatment the last couple of days and really felt good warming up. It didn't bother me out there. That wasn't a factor tonight."

It should be noted that when Wright jogged in from the bullpen, the Reds finished off the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1.

3. Walking Angel Pagan to get to Marco Scutaro. With Arias on first base with two outs in the fifth inning, Mattingly opted to walk Pagan in order to face Scutaro. In the Giant roadtrip Pagan had been batting .077 while Scutaro had been batting .333. On the season against the Dodgers, Pagan had been batting .328 while Scutaro was batting .359.

But Mattingly opted to go for the force play at every base and paid dearly for it: Scutaro laced a double down the right field line that cleared the bases giving the Giants the 4-1 lead.

"Scutaro was 2-for-19 off of Jamey before that," Mattingly explained. "It was pretty simple. It was one of those moves that when it doesn't work people question it. But it's one of the moves you make every time."

4. Mark Ellis trying to take third base on a double. Like the last week for the Dodgers, they refused to die. Even after Meade came back with two of her castmates to sing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch, the Dodgers kept going.

Zito started the bottom of the seventh by hitting Andre Ethier with a pitch. Guillermo Mota came in relief and found himself in a battle with A.J. Ellis. After nine pitches Ellis went opposite field hitting a two-run homer to right-center field cutting the Giants lead to 4-3.

After pinch hitter Nick Punto struck out, Mark Ellis lined a double to left-center field. As he rounded second base, Pagan fielded the ball off the wall and threw to third base. Ellis didn't stop and went sliding into third base where Sandoval greeted him with a tag for the second out.

"I saw he took a bad angle at it and he had a long way to go and pick it up," Ellis explained. "I saw it die at the wall and thought I could've made it to third. It was the wrong play."

Shane Victorino followed with a triple down the right field line. The game should have been tied.

5. Matt Kemp going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. "Very frustrating," Kemp expressed after the game. "It's going to stick with me for a little while. I just didn't do my job tonight. I came up short. It's my fault."

It's not completely Kemp's fault. Like a microcosm of the entire season the Dodgers just fell a little bit short. But the deafening silence in the clubhouse after the game told the whole story.

"If you walk through that room out there, there is huge disappointment," Mattingly said about the clubhouse. "If you got guys out there that don't care, it's not like that. It's quiet. They were invested in what they were trying to do. It just hurts."