Dodgers watch another one get away in 3-1 loss to Reds
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Exhibits were on display Friday night. The classic baseball kind. The kind the Dodgers really didn’t need to see, nor demonstrate.
The old baseball refrain is that good teams find ways to win, bad teams find ways to lose.
Any guesses yet as to Friday’s outcome?
The Reds are a good team -- also a hot team -- which they showed again in their 3-1 victory over the Dodgers.
They started a pitcher who just last week made his first start in almost three months, Homer Bailey, and let him throw 114 pitches. They got three runs batted in from their leadoff hitter, Brandon Phillips.
And they made it hold up for their seventh consecutive victory, pushing their lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central to 4½ games.
The Dodgers, remarkably, found still another way to lose.
They were locked in a 1-1 tie in the fourth inning when right-hander Carlos Monasterios fielded a bunt by Drew Stubbs ... and threw it to Chinatown.
That would be Monasterios, the starting pitcher. A guy capable of throwing 90 pitchers around the plate but unable to make a routine throw to first.
Monasterios managed to pick up a couple of ground balls for outs, which would have ended the inning. But Phillips, who had singled in the Reds’ first run in the second, lined another hit to center to score two more.
Three Dodgers relievers -- Ronald Belisario, Kenley Jansen and Octavio Dotel -- held the Reds scoreless the rest of the game, but the damage had been done.
Monasterios (3-4), subbing for injured Vicente Padilla and starting for the first time since July 30, went 4 1/3 innings and was something less than sharp. He gave up eight hits and walked one, but did strike out a career-high six.
The Dodgers scored their run off Bailey (3-2) in the third after Jamey Carroll walked and went to second on a single by Brad Ausmus. Monasterios’ sacrifice bunt advanced the runners. After Scott Podsednik lined out to short, Ryan Theriot beat out a bunt single that drove in Carroll.
Otherwise, Bailey was tough all night. He went seven innings, giving up four hits and two walks. He struck out six.
-- Steve Dilbeck