Tuesday night’s Dodger loss here in Philadelphia got me thinking:

In the first inning, Orlando Hudson’s knocks in the first run of the game with an RBI single to right.  Hudson is then thrown out at second.  The putout goes 9-2-6-4-7.  92647 is the zip code for Huntington Beach.  Hudson is taking over at second base for Jeff Kent.  Kent played high school baseball at Edison HS in Huntington Beach.  There’s got to be something connected there.

Jayson Werth steals four bases in the game including three in the 7th inning.  Werth played 191 games with the Dodgers in 2004-2005.  He steals a grand total of 15 bases in those 191 games.  That’s one steal every 12.7 games.  Since Tuesday’s game didn’t have a bottom half of a 9th … Werth averages a steal every two innings against the Dodgers.

Maybe even more amazing than Werth’s legwork is the steal by Ryan Howard.  Howard piggybacking on the back-end of a double-steal in the fourth.  Coming into the game Howard has 2 steals in 598 career games.  Howard was first called up to the big leagues in 2004 and makes it until 2007 before he steals his first base.  Before the 2007 steal, only 4 non-pitchers in the history of baseball have more career plate appearances than Howard without a swipe … three of them are catchers.

Potential history to be made by Shane Victorino in this series.  The former Dodger farmhand is just one home run away from tying Benny Agbayani for the 2nd most home runs by anyone born in the state of Hawaii.  Victorino has 38 career homers.  Mike Lum is tops in Hawaii homers with 90.
 
Former Dodgers who lead the states where they were born in homers include Eric Karros (New Jersey 284), Gil Hodges (Indiana 370), Kirk Gibson (Michigan 255), Todd Hundley (202 Virginia), and Mike Devereaux (Wyoming 105).

The American soft pretzel may have been invented in Philadelphia … but it hasn’t been perfected here.  Had a couple of them today.  Maybe I’m missing something?  

Jamie Moyer, the Phillies Wednesday starting pitcher, is a year and a month older that Clayton Kershaw and Xavier Paul … if you add Kershaw and Paul’s ages together.

Time to pick up a book and stop thinking about baseball for a while … my brain is turning to mush.

Until next time ….