Dodgers win long game full of dubious decisions

“The Giants have nothing to lose here, except the game.”

— Vin Scully in the 10th inning

In the 10th inning of a 2-2 game, the Dodgers had Carl Crawford on second with one out. The Giants had lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt pitching to Adrian Gonzalez. On deck was Andre Ethier, who hits lefties only in times of national emergency.

But Affeldt went after Gonzalez, who lined a single to center to score Crawford with the winning run. The Dodgers 3-2 win dropped their magic number to 5 over the idle Diamondbacks. Brian Wilson picked up the win in relief against his former team after Kenley Jansen failed to hold a ninth inning lead.

Dodgers starter Zack Greinke gave up a 2nd inning home run to Hunter Pence and the Dodgers parlayed a Matt Cain error into a run in the bottom half.

The Dodgers took a 2-1 lead in the 7th on a Yasiel Puig double and that looked like it would be enough, especially after a puzzling 8th inning by the Giants.

Angel Pagan led off the 8th with a single off of Chris Withrow. Pagan stole second and Marco Scutaro walked. That put two on and none out for the Giants #3 hitter, Brandon Belt.

Enter Paco Rodriguez (or re-enter, as he mistakenly entered the game in the 7th inning when Don Mattingly called for the wrong lefty to enter the game. He tabbed it a “Freudian slip” in his postgame press conference. This leads me to believe that Don Mattingly has not studied the work of Sigmund Freud very closely. A Freudian slip would mean that Mattingly would have asked for the pitcher he subconsciously wanted [Rodriguez] instead of the one he actually asked for [Howell]. But he did the opposite. Don’t believe me. Read all about it here!) to face Belt. Belt sacrificed the runners over. Buster Posey received an expected intentional walk. This loaded the bases for Pence.

Enter Ronald Belisario, who threw one pitch to Pence, who hit a two-hopper to Juan Uribe that was converted into a 5-3 double play to get out of the inning.

The Giants tied the game in the ninth when they got three singles (along with a stolen base and a bad passed ball from Ted Federowicz) to score a run.

Hanley Ramirez left the game early with a tight left hamstring, which Mattingly downplayed the severity of after the game, but don’t be surprised to see some high quality Nick Punto action the next few days.

The Dodgers lead Arizona by 12 1/2 games with 16 left to play. Which is considered good by most people. Kerhsaw vs Bumgarner on Friday night. Arizona hosts Colorado Friday.

The Braves beat the Marlins a long time ago to keep a 2-game lead over the Dodgers for best record. The Dodgers lead the two NL Central leaders, St. Louis and Pittsburgh, by one game now.