Kemp 4, Astros 3

Rarely can you say that one guy singlehandedly won the game in the sport of baseball, but Matt Kemp showed that his career-high 4 runs were enough to take the final game of the series against the Houston Astros. Ever since being put into the Final Vote ballot, Kemp has been impressing fans on both sides of the ball. Today, he went 3-3, stole a base, scored 3 runs, and hit the game winning home run on the bottom of the 8th, allowing the Dodgers to fuel another comeback and win another one-run game. His homer was a massive blast to left-center, measuring about 450 feet.

The bottom of the lineup did all of the damage for the Comeback Kids. Andre Ethier, Brad Ausmus, and Kemp accounted for all of the team's hits. Ausmus had 2 timely doubles and 2 RBI filling in very well defensively and offensively for Russell Martin. Hiroki Kuroda looked very shaky in 5 innings of work, as his pitches weren't fulling anyone in the Astros lineup. He was fortunate not to give up more than the 3 runs he gave up in the 3rd inning.

It was another hot day at the ballpark, as I kept drinking a lot of fluids to keep from getting heatstroke. But I was glad to finally witness a late-inning comeback in person. This is my 3rd blog posting about Matt Kemp, so I might as well be joining the Kemp and also the Clayton Kershaw fan club.

Speaking of Clayton, he had another magnificent pitching performance last night, picking up his 5th straight win with his 7 shutout innings. By far, these two youngsters have carried the load for this team for the past month. Kershaw has given up 4 earned runs in the past 7 outtings (42-2/3 innings). In that same stretch, Chad Billingsley has not won a game in 6 tries, including losing 2 of them, and allowing 25 earned runs in the last 33-1/3 innings. Very interesting numbers to consider for fans and observers.

Anyways, I will be at the game tomorrow to watch the return of Jason Schmidt, our highest paid player in the pitching rotation.