Last night's Dodgers/Rockies game had some interesting twists and turns. Leading 7-6, Saito took the ball for the Dodgers to tie up the win, but walked the first runner and allowed a hit up the third base line. Watching on MLB.TV, I noticed Garciaparra hold up and go lame. Uh oh. Sure enough, he walked off the field with an apparent hamstring pull. With Blake DeWitt having just been sent back down to the minors to make room for a 12th pitcher on the roster, Torre had a conundrum in hand: who to play at third? Russell Martin.

Martin played 3B in the minors but had never manned the corner hot spot at the major league level until Torre made the move last night.

Gary Bennett replaced Martin behind the plate and promptly missed Saito's first pitch to the next batter, allowing the tying run to score. The look on Martin's face after the play was uncanny. Would he have caught that ball and preserved the Dodgers' lead?

In the end, Martin took matters into his own hands, capping a 4-hit game with a sacrifice fly in the 13th to win it for LA, 8-7.

There should be no more talk about him being an emerging star–Russell Martin is a true leader who carries the Dodgers with his passionate, balls out playing style, and in my view, will be the face of the organization for years to come.

(I scored the autographed photos shown above earlier this week. My sister is friends with Russell's sister, who graciously passed these on to this Martinhead. I plan to get them framed for the office.)

This post was added on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Game Gab . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.