The All - Star Chad Billingsley Show ruined by the All-Star Broxton Implosion

This game is now in extra innings. Broxton completely destroyed my game recap that was written in the ninth.

Chad Billingsley took the mound today with the knowledge he'd made his first of probably many all - star games, and then proceeded to put on an all - star performance.

• Pitched eight great inning with nary a walk
• Started the scoring with a double
• Tried to run over the Padre catcher in a close play at the plate
• Hit his first major league home

Not much else he could do as the he led the Dodgers to  a 6 - 1 lead heading into the 9th inning.  With Manny being rested after an exhaustive 14 innings from the two previous games the Dodgers brought out little ball and big ball .

• Andre Ethier hit a 400 foot home run. 
• Casey Blake hit  a 400 foot three run bomb.
  
• Chad hit his first major league home run.
  
• The rabbits Rafael Furcal / Juan Pierre combined to get on base six times in 10 plate appearanes and if James Loney had been able to come through we would have had a double digit runs scored game.

The only drawback to the game until Broxton showed up was Loney not producing with runners in scoring position and Chad not being able to convert this into a complete game victory.  With the zero walks Chad threw less then 100 pitches and looked to be in total command as he went out to take the mound in the 9th. However he quickly gave up a  home run and double and that was that. Little surprised that Joe Torre went with All - Star Jonathan Broxton with a four run lead and Mcdonald warmed up but Joe only trusts his core group when he's worried about a game.

Big Jon struggled big time from the time he took the mound. He struck out Gonzalez but couldn't put away the punch and judy hitters and what started out as a little heartburn late Sunday afternoon turned into full blown case of heartburn by the time he had finished his time on the hill. His 9th inning looked like this:

Fly Ball by Eckstein for an out, walked Hairston, struck out Gonzales, single by Venerable, Edgar Gonzalez walked, Alfonzo walked, and then Everth Cabrera bounced a single up the middle and the 6 - 1 lead was now 6 - 6.  Luckily for Broxton, Alfonzo came off the bag at 3rd and was tagged out for the 3rd out.

The third All-Star on the team, Orlando Hudson was rested today and yesterday, and boy did he need it. In his last 94 plate appearances Orlando has the following line:.218/.239/.345/.584 . So as hot as Orlando was in his first 100 plate appearances he has been just as cold in his last 100 plate appearances.

With the victory the Dodgers picked up a game on both the Giants and Rockies. Roy Oswalt finally brought his A game and shut down a Sandoval less Giant team. Dan Haren then did what he's done all year and pitched well enough to ride a three run home run by Mark Reynolds to a victory over the Rockies.