McDonald Struggles as Dodgers Fall

James McDonald made his debut as a starter tonight and it wasn't pretty. He lasted only 2.1 innings, giving up 2 hits, 3 walks, and 5 runs while recording 3 strikeouts. He pitched two perfect innings before giving up a solo home run to Chris Young to lead off the 3rd. After getting Chris Snyder out, McDonald proceeded to fall apart. He walked Garland and Lopez, hit Byrnes, walked Stephen Drew to force in a run, and then allowed a two run single to Conor Jackson before being replaced by Ramon Troncoso. Troncoso allowed a sacrifice fly before finally ending the inning but not before five runs had scored, putting the Diamondbacks up 5-1.

Troncoso threw 3.2 innings and only allowed 1 run but the Dodger offense couldn't score any more runs off of D-Backs starter Jon Garland. Finally in the 7th inning Casey Blake hit a 2-run homer to close the gap to 6-3. In the eigth the Dodgers got another run on a Manny Ramirez RBI single but couldn't get any more once the Diamondbacks brought in Scott Schoeneweis to retire Andre Ethier and James Loney (Which brings into question why Torre wouldn't seperate Ethier and Loney with a righty).

In the bottom half of the eigth inning Guillermo Mota struggled, walking two men and giving up two hits, and ultimately had to be pulled in favor of Will Ohman because he couldn't get out of the inning. After allowing one more hit to score a run, the 8th ended with the score 9-4 and the game basically over.

While the Dodgers were fairly quiet at the plate, Brad Ausmus got 2 hits and an RBI single in his first game of the year. Manny also had 2 hits, an RBI and a walk. Rafael Furcal had a double off of the center field wall that might have been a home run at Dodger Stadium.

Because Hiroki Kuroda had to go on the disabled list, Eric Stults will be making the start tomorrow against the soft tossing righty Yusmeiro Petit at 5:10 PM. Petit will also be filling in for an injured pitcher, Brandon Webb. The Dodgers will hope to get back in the win column after a disappointing last few days, particularly for the pitchers. The loss drops the Dodgers to 2-3 while the D-Backs are 2-2 on the year.

Box Score