Years from now anyone who looks at the box score from Friday night’s exciting Dodgers 3-2 come-from-behind victory over the Milwaukee Brewers will see that it was a huge error by Brewers third baseman Hernan Perez that turned an absolutely dominating should-have-won pitching performance by Brewers right-hander Jimmy Nelson into an eventual loss for the 26-year-old Klamath Falls, Oregon native.

With two outs in the in the bottom of the seventh inning, Nelson, who had held the Dodgers scoreless through 6.2 innings and actually took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, got Dodgers left fielder Alex Guerrero to hit a hard grounder to Perez that should have ended the inning. But for reasons that he will undoubtedly have to (try to) explain to Brewers manager Craig Counsell, Perez tried to showboat the play by flipping the ball from his glove into his throwing hand instead of just reaching into his glove to grab the ball and throw out the jogging Guerrero – who will have to (try to) explain to Dodgers manager Don Mattingly why he wasn’t running hard to first base.

Perez ended up dropping the ball which, of course now got Guerrero to ran harder than he ever has. Luckily for Guerrero, Perez’s now-rushed throw sailed wide of the bag and was dropped by Brewers first baseman Adam Lind and Guerrero was safe. Because of Perez’s two-out error, the Dodgers now had a pulse – albeit a weak one.

That pulse got a bit stronger when suddenly-hot Dodgers shortstop Jimmy Rollins followed with a line drive single to center that allowed a now very hard running Guerrero to take third base. This brought pinch-hitter Andre Ethier (who was nursing a sore quad muscle) to the plate. On a 1-1 count, Rollins surprised the crowd of 44,200 when he stole second base off of Nelson and Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy without a throw. What was surprising about it is that the Dodgers are not a base-stealing team. In fact, they are dead last in all of baseball with only 19 steals.

With the tying run now at second base, Perez’s crucial error became a fatal error when Ethier lined Nelson’s 88-MPH slider into center field on a 2-2 count scoring both Guerrero and Rollins to tie the game at 2-2.

With Rollins on second base instead of first, the dynamics of the inning changed for Brewers right-hander Jimmy Nelson. It allowed Rollins to score the tying run on Andre Ethier’s clutch pinch-hit single to shallow center field.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Joc Pederson followed with an opposite field double down the left field line that just missed going out but instead caromed off the wall allowing Ethier to score from first base – bad quad and all.

“He had one good run in him,” Mattingly kidded with reporters after the game about the ailing Ethier.

Pederson’s opposite field double just missed becoming his 21st home run of the season. It did, however, allow Andre Ethier to score the eventual winning run from first base.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

The Dodgers bullpen did the rest with left-hander J.P. Howell (pitching in relief of recent arrival Chin-hui Tsao) threw a scoreless eighth and closer Kenley Jansen a scoreless ninth to pick up his 15th save of the season.

“I’d like to thank God and the team for this game today,” Tsao said through an interpreter. “I’m very lucky to get this win, this feels like a dream.”

Taiwanese right-hander Chin-hui Tsao picked up his first MLB win since July 14, 2007.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Although Tsao was credited with the win, Dodgers starter Mike Bolsinger was every bit as good as Nelson had been, allowing only two runs on four hits with one walk and six strikeouts in his six innings of work. But is was Nelson who was the ultimate victim of Perez’s costly error as he finished his seven innings of brilliant work allowing zero earned runs on five hits (three in that fateful seventh inning after the Perez two-out error) while walking two and striking out six, dropping his record to 6-9 and (ironically) lowering his ERA to 4.21.

Any while it will be the Perez error, the Ethier single and the Pederson double that will be remembered in this Dodgers win, their 50th of the season, it was Rollins’s stolen base that changed the dynamics of the inning to allow Ethier to tie it and Pederson to win it with their subsequent hits.