Who is the face of the current Dodger team? Russell Martin and Matt Kemp may be some day, but they don't have the skins on the wall at this point. Veterans Jeff Kent and Takashi Saito have been all-star players, but they've not spent enough time in Los Angeles to truly qualify as faces of the franchise.
Answering the same question was not a problem in the 1990's. From 1992 until his shocking trade to Florida in 1998, Mike Piazza was the Los Angeles Dodgers. Piazza stroked 177 homers for Los Angeles, hit over .300 five straight years from 1993 through 1997 and made five all-star teams as a Dodger. Twelve years ago today at Dodger Stadium, Piazza displayed his star power in a 4-3 Dodgers win over the Houston Astros.
The Sunday afternoon contest featured a pitching matchup between Houston's Daryl Kile and the Dodgers' Ismael Valdes. Kile had the best of in the matchup, holding the Dodgers to one run in seven innings while striking out twelve. He also broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the fourth with a two out double off of Valdes.
Houston held its lead until the bottom of the eighth when the Dodgers touched Billy Wagner for two runs. Mike Blowers led off the inning with a homer to cut the Astros' lead in half. Chad Fonville came through next with a pinch-hit bunt single. Fonville was bunted to second by another pinch-hitter, Juan Castro, and came home to tie the game on a single by Greg Gagne.
After Todd Worrell retired the Astros in order in the top of the ninth, the stage was set for Piazza. Astros' reliever Xavier Hernandez retired Roger Cedeno on a flyout to begin the inning, but saw his game go up in smoke when Piazza blasted a game ending home run to deep leftcenter field to give the Dodgers a 4-3 win. The homer was one of 36 Piazza would hit on the season, and one of three game ending homers he would hit as a Dodger. The homer was also typical of a year where Piazza tortured Astros' fans more than the Houston midsummer humidity. On the season, Piazza hit .549 in 51 at bats against the Astros with three homers and 11 RBI.
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Can we please cut out the last 20?
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Whatsittoya, NO
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