During Sunday afternoon’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium, Dodgers utility infielder Clint Robinson was called upon to pinch hit in the bottom of the eighth inning. As he stepped into the batters box, the crowd of 47,739 let out a huge roar. After the game Robinson (who drew a walk) posted this on Twitter:

As it turns out, the loud cheer was the result of the Dodgers posting on the big screen video boards that the Reds had just defeated the Giants, thus putting the Dodgers in a virtual tie for first place with The Hated Ones (separated by .001).

Obviously, Robinson’s tweet was all in fun and shows Dodger fans what a great sense of humor he has.

On Monday night there was another huge roar at Dodger Stadium and this time the cheers were for Robinson.

In what can only be described as an epic pitchers duel between Dodgers right-hander Dan Haren and Cleveland Indians right-hander Corey Kluber, Robinson was again called upon to pinch hit in the bottom of the seventh inning of the scoreless game. To this point Haren had allowed only one hit to the Indians and Kluber only five hits to the Dodgers. One of those five hits, however, was a leadoff triple to Dodgers center fielder Andre Ethier – that’s the good news. The bad news is that Dodgers third baseman Juan Uribe grounded out to short preventing Ethier from scoring and A.J. Ellis struck out looking on an Angel Hernandez called third strike (which, of course, meant it was actually ball four).

With two outs, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly elected to have an ailing Hanley Ramirez pinch hit for Miguel Rojas, who was 0 for 2 on the night. Apparently Indians manager Terry Francona was unaware of Hanley’s sore calf and troublesome right shoulder because Francona had Kluber intentionally walk Ramirez.

Mattingly then had Robinson pinch hit for Haren. After falling behind 0-2 with the go-ahead run 90 feet away, Robinson, who was still looking for his first major league hit, worked the count full and on a 3-2 slider, he laced a single up the middle for his first MLB hit and RBI giving the Dodgers the eventual 1-0 win and sole possession of first place in the NL West.

“That’s kind of the way I hit,” said an obviously happy Robinson after the game. “I go up there and look for something right over the plate. I’m not afraid to hit with two strikes and just go up there and try to get a pitch in the zone and do something with it. I mean there’s nothing really too special about it, it’s just see ball – hit ball and I got lucky enough to get a pitch I could hit and I did something with it. It just worked out this time in my favor.”

Robinson was looking for a cookie right over the middle of the plate and he got one for his first MLB hit and RBI. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Prior to his June 25 call-up to the Dodgers, Robinson had four pinch hit at bats in 2012 while with the Kansas City Royals but went 0 for 4 before being sent back down to the minors. The Royals traded Robinson to the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 2012-2013 off-season but he was waived before spring training began. He was picked up off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays and spent the entire 2013 season at Triple-A Buffalo. He became a free agent at the conclusion of the season and was signed to a minor league contract by the Dodgers on November 18, 2013 with an invitation to big league camp, where he did quite well.

Robinson’s great spring carried over to Triple-A Albuquerque where the 6′ 5″ 230-pound left-handed first baseman hit .309 with 14 home runs and 56 RBIs, earning him a call-up to the Dodgers to replace the struggling Jamie Romak, who was designated for assignment and returned to Albuquerque.

After his call-up Robinson appeared in three games as a pinch hitter in which he lined out, grounded out and walked (when he received those misdirected cheers) until his game-winning hit on Monday night.

“I was happy for the kid,” said Mattingly. “We [saw] him in spring training and right away he reminded me of [John] Olerud. He had a real simple swing and he had good minor league numbers for years. He had a good spring for us early, swung the bat really well. We liked his swing and he was kind of  tearing it up in Triple-A. It was good to see him get another chance.”

When the dust finally settled after Monday night’s exciting game Robinson sent out another tweet – one that shows the kind of person he really is:

There’s just something comforting about having a guy named Robinson in a Dodger uniform.