The Dodger Blues: Chad Billingsley Needs to Grow Up

The Los Angeles Dodgers' 2008 season transformed from a disappointment, made up of young players having poor seasons, to full-fledged championship contender when Manny Ramirez joined them in July. Manny completely changed the team dynamic, turning them into a group that believes they are going to win every game rather than one that simply hopes they are going to win.

Clearly, the whole team owes a lot to Ramirez and his .474 batting average this postseason. Unfortunately, Chad Billingsley, the young "ace" who took the loss in game two of the NLCS against the Phillies, has a weird way of showing his appreciation: he kicks his teammates in the private parts.

In game two, Brett Myers threw behind Manny in his second at-bat of the game. While Myers claimed that the ball slipped out of his hands, it was clearly an attempt to cool down the hottest hitter in the game and the Dodgers' most important player in the series.

Myers essentially told Manny, "I had nightmares about you walking around the bases against me all night last night so take this!"

Normally, when a team's best player is hit in an important game, his pitcher will respond by hitting or at least brushing back a player on the opposing team. Nobody ever admits to reacting in this way, but it's one of those unwritten baseball rules that has been ingrained in the game for years. You hit our best player? Fine, we'll hit yours. Tit for tat; let's kiss and make up.

Chad Billingsley's dog must have ate his unwritten rulebook. He was too busy giving up seven earned runs in 2.1 innings to defend the player on his team that is basically the only reason why he is even pitching in October at all. Good grief.

Luckily for the Dodgers, Manny did his own retaliating by hitting a three-run home run off Myers later in the game, but he still didn't let Billingsley off the hook. In his postgame comments

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