Chad Billingsley cuts Giants down to size
On the night Don Mattingly managed the Dodgers in place of a suspended Joe Torre, he didn’t take any chances.
He didn’t make a single trip to the mound.
Mattingly was spared a return visit to the site of his first major managerial debacle by Chad Billingsley, who pitched the Dodgers’ first complete game of the season in a 2-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium.
Billingsley was, in a word, magnificent.
He held the Giants to five hits and two walks and ended the Dodgers’ season-long losing streak at six games.
“You get pitching like that, it’s pretty easy, I guess,” Mattingly said.
The previous night, Mattingly was forced to take over as manager when Torre was ejected in the seventh inning. With the Dodgers up by a run and the bases loaded in the ninth inning, Mattingly visited closer Jonathan Broxton. Mattingly stepped off the mound and stepped back on when James Loney called to him. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said that should count as two trips to the mound and the umpires agreed, resulting in Broxton’s removal from the game. A cold George Sherrill served up a two-run double and the Dodgers went on to lose.
“You’re a better starter than you are a reliever,” bench coach Bob Schaefer said he told Mattingly.
And for the first time this season, not a single Dodgers reliever had to pitch. The Dodgers became the last club to have one of their starters pitch a complete game.
“That was a good pickup by Bills, giving these guys a day off,” said Ken Howell, the coach of the Dodgers’ overtaxed bullpen. “They could use the break.”
But the game was probably more important for Billingsley than it was for Mattingly or the bullpen.
These were circumstances under which Billingsley hadn’t pitched well in the past.
Tension was in the air, the result of Tim Lincecum hitting Matt Kemp on Tuesday and Clayton Kershaw drilling Aaron Rowand in retaliation. Plus, the Dodgers were in a rut. So was Billingsley.
Billingsley gave up seven runs and 10 hits in four innings in St. Louis in his previous start, prompting Torre to say that he hoped the former All-Star hadn’t slipped back into his fragile mental state from earlier in the season.
The shutout was the second of Billingsley’s career and first in nearly two years. His first was also against the Giants, on July 30, 2008.
Billingsley tried to downplay any differences from this start in and his previous one.
Asked if he changed anything mechanically, Billingsley replied, “Same mentality.”
But pitching coach Honeycutt said that he noticed a flaw in Billingsley’s delivery in St. Louis.
“We noticed something in the last game where he was getting a little closed off again, letting his shoulder get a little too rotated,” Honeycutt said. “When he stays in line and his command is better, but it’s more about deception. When he was getting rotation, I think, obviously, the hitters saw the ball better.”
The Giants had men in scoring position in every inning from the third to the sixth, but Billingsley fought his way out of every jam.
“If he’s that good every time out, I like our chances,” Casey Blake said.
Blake was responsible for both of the Dodgers’ runs, as he hit a solo home run to left in the second inning and knocked in Rafael Furcal with a bloop single to center in the ninth.
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