Keeping our heads up

Kempblog.jpgWhen I left the stadium, some of my friends, we talked a little bit about the game, not too much. It’s good to talk about it. A little surprised, a little shocked. Grabbed something to eat at some diner near the hotel. It took a little while to fall asleep. I was in shock more than anything. It was like, I couldn’t believe it, did that really happen? We’ve been on the other side before, so we know how it feels to lose and we know how it feels to win.

Joe had a meeting before we went out to the field and just told us to take it one game at a time. You got to win one to win two, got to win two to win three. It’s a one-game series for us, that’s how we have to think. We get back home, I like our chances, I like the way we play there.

Our mood is good, man. I’m going to check out a haunted house tonight, supposed to be pretty scary. Can’t sit in the room all night and just think about last night’s game. Sleep in a little bit tomorrow, get some food, chill out. Same routine, nothing’s going to change.  Everybody has faith in us. My friends tell me to keep your head up. This is the right team to come back from 3 to 1. I’m good. I’d be way more looser if it was 2-2 going into tomorrow, because we hit Cole pretty good the first time we played him. But this is just something we have to deal with and fight through it.

We still have a lot of fight left

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Twenty seven outs, man. Twenty seven outs.

Until that last pitch, I was happy. We had played a very good game. That’s how baseball is. You gotta play 27 outs. Rollins hit a pretty good pitch and that’s just what happens. He hit the spot and Jimmy just threw his hands and squared the ball up. When it was hit, I knew it was the game. He put it in a perfect spot, that’s just the way it is.

We got to come back on Wednesday and we gotta fight and keep on pushing. We got practice tomorrow and we got to go about our business. We still have a lot of fight left, I really believe that. I know when it’s time to play a game, we’ll be ready. We need a win to take it back to L.A. It hurts right now. It happens to the best of us. We’re going to try to ride this thing out.

This game was just shocking. That team is so much like us, it’s kind of crazy. A very similar team as far as hitting. They never give up. They keep fighting. It’s crazy, same thing happened to us last year. Then it was a home run, but it’s just crazy what’s happened to us here.

All we can do is win three in a row. Hopefully we can go home happy, down 3-2. We get it back to L.A., I think we have a good chance. I really do.

Time to forget this loss and bounce back

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What can you say, Cliff Lee pitched a great game and hat’s off to him. He had good stuff and it showed. He was pounding the strike zone and we couldn’t do anything about it. Hard to get down against anybody especially him, he goes deep into games.

I mean, they did everything that we didn’t do. They out-pitched us, they out-hit, they did it all. It was one of those games. I won’t say you laugh about it, but we’ve got another game tomorrow and we can tie it at 2-2. We got worked tonight. We bounce back from things like this really quick. Come 8 o’clock tomorrow we’ll be a much different club.

This was just one of those games you’ve got to forget about. We face Blanton and we can just tie the series again. I don’t know what’s up with the offense, but we just faced two tough pitchers in Pedro and Lee and they got the best of us the last two games and we still won one of the game. We just didn’t have it today and they came out today and really out-hit us.

I’m not hitting the ball that well right now. But I’m going out there, playing hard. We know how to play. No pressure. We’ve got Randy going tomorrow and he always gives us a good chance to win a game. We’ve just got to keep fighting. That’s how we do it, keep fighting all the way.

Time to chill before Game 3

In the clubhouse now — our workout just ended and I’m watching the OU-Texas game. It’s looking bad now for my OU boys. Five turnovers, terrible. And they’re still trying to run the ball — negative 14 yards in the fourth quarter. We need to go to something else. It’s not working. They’ve got a young buck in their QB. Bradford hurt himself. It’s not looking good right now. This is the most sloppy OU game I’ve seen in a long time.
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This is what we do on Saturday, chill around, watch some footbal before we play. Everybody is watching their team play — no one around here has Texas. George Sherrill and myself are OU fans. No Texas boys here. Clayton Kershaw likes Texas Tech.

OU, they’re making a lot of mistakes today. You can’t make mistakes and expect to win, that goes for football and it goes for baseball. We haven’t made too many mistakes and we can’t afford to if we’re going to win this series. Let them make the mistakes and we’ve got to capitalize on them.

Fans here, they’re rowdy man. Just like we had on our side in L.A., their fans are loud, too — just as loud as our fans. Fans can make it hard. I don’t know if it’s pressure, but it might rattle you a little bit. We know how to go into it. Last year, I think the Phillies found ways to win and it wasn’t about the fans. The outcome was always in their favor. This year, it’s different. What happened last year makes us want it even more this year.

We need to score quick, what we did in St. Louis and what we did in Chicago last year. With Philadelphia, you’ve got to keep scoring. Look at them yesterday. They scored one run, but they didn’t keep scoring and we stayed close and won it late.

The weather, I don’t think it will be that bad. We have to play in it and they have to play in it. They’re not really used to it any more than we are, maybe a little earlier in the year. Once you get moving around, you don’t worry about the weather, you just worry about the win. So, tonight I’m going to get some dinner, watch the South Carolina-Alabama game and go about my business. We’ve got a lot of time to chill until the game tomorrow night.

Relaxed, all tied and ready for Philly fans

We came to the park today, you couldn’t tell what happened last night. That’s the way we’ve been all year. If something doesn’t go our way, we forget about it. We came in relaxed today. We haven’t let anything get to us all year, we weren’t going to let that game get to us. We don’t let anything rattle us.

kempbloggggg.jpgNow it’s 1-1 and now we go to Philly. We know there will be a hostile crowd, so we have to keep the same momentum as we had today. It was kind of cool to see Kobe there today by the batter’s box, an NBA champion wearing an L.A. hat like that, it got me pumped. The fans were great. They know how we can come back, they know the kind of club we are and how we’re always in the game.

Andre, what a great at-bat that was with the shadow and a tough lefty. Andre didn’t get a hit today but he helped the team win. Better than a hit. Pedro had us a bit off-balance, but we got him out of the game and got to their bullpen and won the game. Hat’s off the Pedro, he pitched an excellent game, we just got there at the end. We’ve been like that all year, we just keep on pushing to the end of the game.

Padilla was huge today. He kept it close so we could come back. And in that inning, we just grind it out. They made an error and we took advantage. ‘Dre had a great at-bat. That’s the thing about us. I struck out, ‘Dre picked me up. It’s been like that all year, the guy behind me or the guy ahead of me, we pick each other up. We’ve got a lot of fight in us. With ‘Dre, there’s always something special going to happen. Coming into the playoffs he wasn’t swinging that good, now he’s come alive. He’s a big reason why we are where we are.

Ready to bounce back in a big way

It was kind of frustrating the way we hit the ball tonight. We worked their starter and got him out of the game and had a good chance of winning. We probably should have scored more runs. They got the key hits and walks in big situations. We played pretty well, that’s just the way baseball is. We have to come back tomorrow with the same swag and do it over again.

blakkkkkeblog.jpgIt was a battle of the bullpens. We hit, they hit. They just won tonight. You can’t just score one run and think you can beat them. I’m not worried about Clayton Kershaw, he just lost his groove for a second. He’ll bounce back and do even better than he did tonight.

I like the way we kept coming back. We don’t ever give up. That’s the mentality that had us win 95 games and we have to have the same mentality tomorrow and try to get a win. I like our chances with Vicente Padilla. He pitched well in St. Louis. We’ve just got to hit the ball and get some runs for him.

The Phillies haven’t changed a bit. They find ways to win, like we do. We’ve got to find a way to get more wins than them.

Time to get down to business

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It’s time to play baseball. We had four days off to get our legs under us. We were still working hard, lifting weights, taking batting practice in the cage, watching video. Everything we had to do to prepare for the games. We’re excited and ready to go. Tomorrow is another big day, we’ve got four tough pitchers to face, and hopefully we’ll have the same approach and same outcome as when we faced the Cardinals.

Once we got home, I’ve been hanging out with a friend, he’s an R&B singer – Tank – I’m sure everybody knows who he is. We kind of celebrated, had some good seafood and caught a Clippers game with my people, and got to see Blake Griffin play for the first time and I was excited about that. Baron Davis and Rasual Butler were excited for us. Baron Davis comes to a lot of our games and he loves baseball and he told me it’s time for us to win a championship. Other than that, just been chillin’ out and letting my body rest. I feel good, no flu for me like some of the guys and I’m staying away from everybody, washing my hands a million times. No shaking hands, just a little tap.

I’m looking forward to playing back in our home. We believe it really is a home-field advantage. It’s tough playing in Philly but it’s tough for a visiting team playing here. Our fans are rowdy and with white towels they’ll be waving. I hope they’ll be more crazy and loud than when we played St. Louis. The fans are definitely a factor. When you have great fans, it makes you more confident. I’m not going to say it scares the other team, but maybe it’s a little rattling with all the noise. We’ll see how that works.

Popping champagne

101010.jpgWe came in as underdogs and had to prove everybody wrong. And that was a really good team we had to beat. They sent three great pitchers out there. And we proved we can beat No. 1 starters. We’re feeling really good about ourselves right now and we got to take it to the next round.

Tonight it looks like Manny’s gotten going. He looks good at the plate, he’s driving in runs. When you see that, you know we’re going to have a good game. I think we’re better this year than last year. Like me, I didn’t have a good game at the plate. But ‘Dre picked me up and Manny picked me up. We’re a better team this year because we’ve got guys to pick up other guys.

People say we don’t have real good pitching. I don’t know, our pitching was pretty good in this series. And Raffy, he brought his A game. So it’s a whole different team than last year. That’s why we’ve been talking since the beginning of the year that we expect big things.

So we’re popping champagne in the clubhouse tonight, but we still have a long road, we’ve still got eight games to win. We’re going crazy in here right now and I hope our fans are going crazy, popping champagne and waving the towels and I hope they’re ready to go to the stadium Thursday, because our fans are one of the big reasons why it’s so hard for other teams to come to L.A. and play the Dodgers.

We’re loose … the pressure is on them

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Man, can you believe that game last night? I mean, we’re still talking about it in here. It was amazing. For me, it was the most exciting game I’ve ever been a part of. When the game ended, I went straight for Mark Loretta. I was on the middle of the top step (of the dugout). I knew something good was going to happen. I had a feeling. And Loretta got that hit and I went for Loretta.

We were all surprised what happened to Matt Holliday, dropping the ball. We still thought we had a chance to win. Around the stadium, they made posters of us, talking about the comeback kids. And things like that really showed we keep fighting till the end and never give up and we got the win.

It carried over to the plane a little bit, but then everybody did their thing, maybe a game of cards or a movie or whatever they do on a plane, because it’s a regular plane ride and we still have one more game to win and it’s not going to be easy. Definitely not easy with the offense and pitching that team has. It’s two good teams going at it. All we got to do is keep the same approach of the first two games and make the pitcher work and keep them from scoring.

We’re loose today, just like when the playoffs began. It’s a little rainy today and you get a little sluggish, but we’ll be up for the game. The pressure’s not on us, it’s on them. Now I’m going out to eat with O-Dog and Loney and chill. Maybe we’ll watch the Angels game. My boy Torii went deep yesterday. I was watching on the plane and was pretty excited about that. He was pretty pumped about that. I shot him a text. Told him to pull this thing off and try to make it a little L.A. thing. That would be exciting.

Nothing we do surprises me

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We’ve been doing this all year, you know that. We’ve been coming back all year. It shows the character of our team. Now that’s two wins and one to go. It shows we can beat the best pitchers in the league and we definitely proved that the past two days and we got another tough pitcher on St. Louis and hope we can wrap it up Saturday.

I’m sure for the opposing side, it’s hard to play, but it pumps us up. Now we have to go there and listen to their crowd. We just have to be relaxed and grind out and get the job done.

Nothing we do surprises me. We’ve come back a lot this year. We showed we never give up. It’s hard to beat a team like that.

Ninth inning, we thought we had a chance. We got to their bullpen and got it done.  I gotta say, the ball off Loney’s bat, I thought it was over. But you never know, with all the towels waving. It was tough to see off the bat out there. And when it was over, on the field it was awesome, man.

I don’t want to get too excited, but at that moment that was the most exciting moment of my life in baseball right there. It feels good, man. Really, you can’t describe it. That was the loudest I’ve ever heard a crowd at Dodger Stadium.