By request...

It's always nice to be able to fulfill a request for a topic, right? Right!

So, how about the weekend the Dodgers had?

In case you were in baseball seclusion soaking up the insanity of the NBA Playoffs this past weekend, here's a sample of the bizarre weekend series the Rockies and Dodgers had.

*** The never-ending saga of Nomar Garciaparra and his on-again/off-again torrid love affair with the disabled list continued when he strained a calf muscle in the ninth inning, the same injury that ended his season early last year. While it's sad and/or frustrating to see him go down injured again after just getting off the DL, well... it's Nomar... so what did you expect really? But the two things that resulted because of this injury were far more interesting.

1] Rookie Blake DeWitt was sent down to AAA on Thursday so that he could get regular playing time. His "minutes" had dropped drastically since the return of Nomar from the DL [the first time] so they sent him down to get him steady work. He played on Friday for the Las Vegas 51s, the Dodgers' AAA affiliate. After the game, the 51s gathered in their lounge to watch the big club's game. When Nomar went down, the 51s manager advised DeWitt to hang around and sure enough, the call came. After a less than 24 hour stint back in AAA, the rookie was on his way back to The Show. I love this game.

2] When DeWitt was sent down to AAA, legendary Dodger announcer Vin Scully had speculated several times on the "nightmare scenario." With DeWitt back in AAA, the Dodgers really didn't have a backup 3B if Nomar happened to go down. And since this is Dodgers baseball, you could be almost certain that it would happen. And when it did, what did Joe Torre do to earn his high salary? He walked up to Catcher Russell Martin and asked him what IF position he could play. Thus, Dodger fans got the bizarre sight of Russell Martin in the dugout frantically trying to find a 3B mitt before taking the position for the first time since A ball. As a side note to this, Martin leaving his normal position brought in Dodger backup catcher Gary Bennett... who promptly just flat out missed the first pitch thrown to him, bringing the tying run across the plate and sending the game to extra innings. And to top it all off, Third Baseman Russell Martin got the sac fly in the 13th to give the Dodgers the win.

** With a game like that on Friday night, it couldn't get much weirder on Saturday, right? Well, as Vin Scully would say, "before the seats were warm" the Dodgers erupted for a 10 run bottom of the first inning including the first ever career Grand Slam for Matt Kemp.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

Check out what else happened in this game [and get to see the Slam as well.]



Crazy, right? The guy's okay so we can all laugh about it now. Well, maybe not... but sweet Jesus, that must have hurt.

** Okay, so a crazy Friday... a weird Saturday... Sunday must have been normal, right?

WRONG!

WE'RE GOING BACK TO EXTRA INNINGS!

But the Dodgers won on a James Loney seeing-eye single in the 10th to give them their first sweep of the year and their first three-game win streak.

It's been a long and painful April for the Dodgers but they're oh-so-close to coming out of it in second place and over .500. Keep it up, boys! It's a marathon, not a sprint.