[PilotMan]

8/16 5-1 W over the Giants
If you told me that the $5.5 million dollar man, Jim Beattie, would pitch until mid August before he finally got a win, I'd hang my head and cry. Well, this was it. He finally got that W to go to 1-6. He threw 7 innings of 4 hit ball and 0 runs allowed. Toby Harrah went 2-4 and hit his first HR of the year. Poor Jim Beattie, even with this Dodger team, he's only getting 2.92 runs of support per game (he got 5.16 in his 19 win season last year). But he's only thrown 4 quality starts in 12 chances, so that's not helping himself either.


8/17 7-2 W over the Giants
Rhoden ran his record to 16-6 with 7.2 solid innings of work. Kittle grabbed a couple hits, but it was Rhoden and his 4 RBI's (2-run triple and 2 sac flies) that powered the team. LA beat up on Mark Dempsey who walked 8 in 4 innings and allowed 7 hits.


8/18 6-3 W over the Giants
Tanana (8-7) had another rough first inning. He's been getting beat up early all season long. We fought back with 2 in the 5^th and in the 6^th Stubbs hit a grand slam (16) that put us up. Reuss and Franco each pitched 2 scoreless and Franco picked up his 10^th save.


8/19 11-7 (12) L to the Phillies
LA handed the ball over to Franco with a 7-5 lead in the 8^th that got away from us. In the 12^th Alejandro Pena (4-3) served up a walk off grand slam to Dave Clark. Highlights for the Dodgers were Kittle going deep with 2 solo shots (3). He's done almost nothing up to this point of the year. He also pimped his avg to .274 with a 4-5 game. Valenzuela started and pitched like crap.


8/20 6-5 (10) L to the Phillies
This fucking Phillies team is one of the worst in baseball and now they've taken 2 extra inning games from us. We came from down 5-1 in the 9^th to tie this only to see it lost in the 10^th. Ken Howell (1-5) took the loss. Willie Randolph knocked home the tying run in the 9^th with his 2^nd hit of the game. John Denny got the start today, and it should have been enough, but another couple errors lead to unearned runs and cost us.


LA is still only a game behind the Padres at the moment. The Reds have fallen 4.5 back. In the NL East, the Expos are 6.5 up on the Cardinals. The AL has good races too. In the East, it's the Yankees 1.5 up on the Champion Blue Jays, and 3.5 up on the Red Sox. In the West, it's a tie between the Royals and Mariners, with both the White Sox and Angels 2.5 back, the Twins are 5 back. We'er hearing rumors that both Dwight Evans and Dennis Eckersley could be activated within a week. Niedenfeur and Dwayne Murphy might not be far behind, but don't count your chickens just yet.


8/21 3-2 L to the Phillies
Ouch. Just ouch. Steve Balboni hit his 22^nd HR off of Rhoden (16-7) in the 3^rd and that gave the Phils a 3-0 lead. Stubbs hit #17 in the 4^th that brought us back within 1, but we never could put that last runner across the plate. Luckily, we're still only 1 game back of SD after dropping 3 in a row.


8/23 3-2 (12) W over the Expos
Bob Knepper took a no-hitter into the 7^th inning only to have Randolph break it up, then later tie the game when he scored. LA went up in the 11 when Randolph drove in the go ahead run, but once again, Franco couldn't nail the game down and it kept going. In the 12^th, Mike Scioscia hit a go ahead, solo homer, his 10^th off of Jeff Reardon (5-2) to go on top again, and Franco closed out the 12^th for the win (2-1).


8/24 4-2 L to the Expos
LA struck first on a Toby Harrah HR (2), but the Expos would have success against Jim Beattie early. A hour plus long rain delay cost both teams starters though, and LA tied the game back up in the 4^th. The Expos had more success against Jerry Reuss (5-3) picking up runs in the 7^th and 8^th. LA brought the tying run to the plate in the 9^th, but it was no good.


8/25 3-2 L to the Expos
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Valenzuela went 8 strong and had only allowed 2 hits, striking out 10, until Mike Greenwell tied the game with a 2-run homer in the 8^th. Then came the 9^th. After we failed to score it was on Ken Howell (1-6). He gave up a leadoff hit, then Raines stole 2^nd, so he walked the next one. Raines stole third, so Howell walked the next one to load the bases, then he walked in Raines. Not the most glorious ending to a game.


8/26 3-0 L to the Mets
Good pitchers dual between John Denny (8-13) and Ron Darling. Both pitchers went 0's until the 8^th inning. Darling got pulled and Lasorda left Denny out there to allow back to back, 2-out singles, then a 3-run bomb to Strawberry (32) and that was that. Offensive highlight of the day? Sid Bream walked 4 times. That's it. John Denny is getting 2.46 RS/G this season. That's even worse than Beattie.


8/27 1-0 L to the Mets
The Mets are winners of 8 in a row right now, and are trying to climb back into the race in the East. We've dropped 4 straight, and haven't scored a run in over 20 innings and over 8 hours. Rick Rhoden (16-8) and Walt Terrell (12-12) went 0's again for 7 full innings. In the 8^th Dykstra lead off with a single, stole second and scored on a single by Bobby Bonilla. Dodgers offensive highlight? Ron Kittle had 2 singles. Wooowooo.


The first bit of good news is trickling out of Dodgertown. Eckersley, after some enough successful side throwing sessions was activated and sent to Albuquerque for rehab. We need him back ASAP. Evans and Neidenfeur are both expected back very soon.


8/29 5-1 W over the Phillies
Both teams come in with 4 game losing streaks. LA is back home again after a rough finish to the road trip. LA breaks the scoring drought in the first inning when Stubbs drills a 2-run homer into the right field seats (18). The rest of the scoring came on a Toby Harrah 3-run home run to left-center (3). Frank Tanana (9-7) went 8 and didn't allow that killer first inning run either.


8/30 5-1 W over the Phillies
Fernando (15-4) has the best game of the year. He goes the distance, allows 3 hits, 1 walk, and strikes out 15. We didn't need much offense but we did get another big fly from Toby Harrah (4). This one a 2-run shot in the 7^th off of Ken Dixon (8-13). Valenzuela struck out the side in the 3^rd, 6^th and 7^th innings. Had a streak of 7 in a row at one point and struck out the last 2 guys to end the game. Straight dominance. His performance overshadowed another sick show from Gooden who threw another 4-hit shutout (6 on the year) and got 14 K's. It goes down as the #2 overall pitching performance of 1985 behind a Bret Saberhagen 1-hitter, but ahead of the Danny Darwin no-hitter. Between Gooden and Valenzuela they have 7 of the top 12 in all of baseball. Wow!


Eckersley went 8 innings for the win in his rehab start, striking out 7. Dwight Evans was activated and Tony Brewer was optioned to make room. Evans' return pushes Marshall to left and Kittle out of a starting job.


8/31 6-1 W over the Phillies
Always love to beat up on a struggling team. John Denny (9-13) went 6.2 innings of shut out ball before giving way, and Dwight Evans made his return known. His first at bat he tripled then scored on a Mike Marshall 2-run homer (21). Later he doubled. Frank White added 3 more with his 6^th in the 5^th. We get 1 more game against the Phills, go sweep!