Dodgers News: Brett Anderson Confident Stretch Of Bad Luck Will Turn
In his healthiest season since his rookie year with the Oakland Athletics in 2009, Brett Anderson has faced frustrating circumstances in his first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. During a three-start stretch in May, Anderson was on the mound for games that were played in rainy weather.
His May 8 outing at Coors Field was called after five innings, making Anderson the Dodgers’ first complete-game winner this season — something he enjoyed and joked about. The left-hander’s next start was against the Rockies, though at Dodger Stadium, and it was delayed by over one hour due to unusual Southern California rain.
When Anderson faced the Giants a third time this season, there was more rain. While the string of wet pitching environments was a humorous coincidence, the 27 year old has also been the victim of infield hits proving to be costly on the scoreboard.
It happened April 21 at AT&T Park and again Friday night after sailed through seven scoreless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals. A leadoff walk issued to Yadier Molina in the eighth was followed by a Jason Heyward infield single and later a Kolten Wong RBI infield single that tied the game.
Kiké Hernandez and Jimmy Rollins explained what transpired in the strange inning, but there of course was no undoing of the Dodgers’ 2-1 loss. Despite losing a third decision in his last four starts, Anderson remains upbeat and sensible.
“Baseball is an infuriating game, but it’s also the best game in the world,” he said. Friday was not only the first time Anderson pitched eight innings this season, it was a first for him since 2011; he tossed at least eight frames four times that year.
For added perspective, he twice threw seven innings in 2014, once in 2013, twice in 2012, in 2010 once threw 7.2 innings and put eight in the books twice in 2009. The loss dropped the Dodgers to 3-11 this season against teams over .500 — read as Cardinals and Giants.
Anderson explained that as tough games are to be expected against a team like the Cardinals and the Dodgers simply have come up on the short end of the stick, but he’s not panicking. “It’s kind of fluky,” he said.
“We’re going to come out of it. We’re just in a funk right now. Baseball is a game of streaks and we could go out and put up 10 tomorrow, then ride that wave for a while.”
2015 Sports Spectacular — Chester Pitts
