Donnie baseball is catching his share of heat after Bruce Bochy enforced rule 8.06 to force Dodgers’ closer Jonathan Broxton off the mound, and spur the Giants to a come-from-behind 7-5 win in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

While it was Mattingly’s untimely two-step that is catching the headlines, it was Matt Kemp’s Rude-boy behavior that sent the dominoes tumbling.

First of all, there was absolutely no fiber in Kemp’s body that actually wanted to fight – even if his opponent was going to be the diminutive Tim Lincecum. Boxer’s don’t come out of the corner and position themselves between their trainer, the referee, and the other fighter. But instead Kemp gave everyone – in particularly Pablo Sandoval who rushed toward his teammate like a bounding rottweiler – ample opportunity to prevent the fisticuffs from developing.

Here’s an excerpt from Bay Area News Group Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly’s blog. And remember, Baggarly covered the Dodgers for many years, too.

“Let’s get this out of the way: Kemp is a headcase. He’s a tremendously talented baseball player, but he’s had his share of run-ins with teammates over the years. Lord knows how many times Joe Torre has reached for his favorite migraine medicine on Kemp’s account.

So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see Kemp make like Billy from Family Circus and take a rather curved path toward first base. But like a good college basketball team, it was really interesting to watch everything that happened away from the guy with the ball, er, beef.”

Kemp took exception to a pitch that “clipped” his jersey. This is when the wheels began to loosen.
Home-plate umpire Adrian Johnson was forced to issue warning to both clubs simply because of Kemp’s overreaction.

Also irked by the pitch’s proximity was Joe Torre’s bench coach Bob Schaefer, who began to fume, and was later ejected when Giants reliever Denny Bautista came up and in to Russell Martin. An ejection that would prove critical.

In the sixth inning, Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw was kept in to bat for himself — during a one-run game — then hit Aaron Rowand with the first pitch in the top of the seventh. Rowand took his base without a scene as both Kershaw and Torre were ejected.

As a result, instead of Torre’s second-in-command (Schaefer) taking the reins, it was the inexperienced Mattingly who became the acting manager – all because Kemp couldn’t distinguish between a bad outing for Lincecum and a pitch with intent.

This all resulted in a thrilling win for the Giants, and a frustrating moment — if not extremely embarrassing — loss for the Dodgers.

Used with permission of the author.

Theo is a staff reporter and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal where he covers local prep and college sports. As an Associate Production Manager for ESPN, he helped produce Sunday Night Baseball among other national ESPN and ABC Sports telecasts. In addition to his contributions to Sports Climax, he is a columnist for Examiner.com and is the play-by-play voice for Sonoma State University baseball and softball.

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