By KEN PETERS, AP
Posted: 4:14 am
June 29, 2008
LOS ANGELES - Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo combined to hold the Dodgers without a hit last night - and it still wasn't good enough for the Angels.
The Dodgers became the fifth team in modern major-league history to win a game in which they didn't get a hit, defeating the Angels 1-0. Weaver's error on a slow roller allowed the Dodgers to score an unearned run in the fifth.
With the Angels trailing in the interleague game at Dodger Stadium, Weaver was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning after throwing 97 pitches. Arredondo pitched the next two innings.
Because the Dodgers didn't have to bat in the ninth, the game doesn't qualify as a no-hitter. It was only the fifth such game since 1900, and first since Boston's Matt Young in 1992, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The Dodgers' Chad Billingsley (7-7) scattered three hits over seven innings, then Jonathan Broxton and Takashi Saito took over.
Weaver (7-8) was victimized by his own fielding error with one out in the fifth inning that allowed Matt Kemp to reach first.
Kemp's spinning squibber rolled to the right of the mound and Weaver rushed toward first base to grab the ball, but bobbled it. The ruling on whether it was a hit or an error was a close one, since Weaver would have had to field the ball cleanly - and first baseman Casey Kotchman was off the bag. But official scorer Don Hartack ruled it an error.
"I believe if he just picked it up with his bare hand and flipped it, he gets him by a good step and a half," Hartack said. "So my thinking was, it really wasn't a bang-bang play. I looked at the replay once and it looked like Kemp was a good seven steps away, so my thinking was Weaver had plenty of time to make the out."
Kemp stole second and continued to third on catcher Jeff Mathis' throwing error, then scored on Blake DeWitt's sacrifice fly. The run was unearned.
Weaver struck out six, walked three and hit a batter in his six innings. Chone Figgins pinch-hit for him.
Baseball's other no-hit losers were Andy Hawkins of the Yankees in 1990, Steve Barber and Stu Miller of Baltimore in 1967, and Ken Johnson of Houston in 1964.
