They travel in packs, don't they?

So, home runs are cool.  Especially when your team is hitting them.

My team is the LA Dodgers and they haven't been hitting a lot of home runs this season.  They've hit 77 home runs which is tied with the SF Giants for the least in baseball this season.

Before today, it was worse.

The Dodgers hit 4 home runs today off of Atlanta Braves pitchers.  Hanley Ramirez went deep twice, James Loney once and Luis Cruz once.

The first home run came on a 1-1 pitch to Hanley Ramirez with 1 out in the top of the 2nd.  The score was tied 0 - 0 and the Dodgers' win expectancy was 48%.

The second home run came on a 1-0 pitch to James Loney with 1 out in the top of the 2nd.  The score was 1 - 0 Dodgers and the Dodgers' win expectancy was 58%.

The third home run came on the first pitch to Luis Cruz with 1 out in the top of the 2nd.  The score was 2 - 0 Dodgers and the Dodgers' win expectancy was 68%.

The fourth home run came on a 3 - 0 pitch to Hanley Ramirez with 2 outs in the top of the 6th.  The score was 3 - 1 Dodgers and the Dodgers' win expectancy was 75%.

Now, if you were paying attention, you'd have noticed that 3 of those home runs came consecutively.  Not only that, they came in the span of 4 pitches by Ben Sheets.

Let's take a look at those pitches.

*brooksbaseball

Pay closest attention to the light blue pitches.  They should be somewhat easy to find as they are all right in the middle of the plate.  According to Brooksbaseball, Sheets threw 18 pitches in the inning and 12 were strikes. This data includes pitches out of the strike zone that Dodgers batters offered at.  By my count 8 of the 18 pitches Sheets threw were right down the middle, 7 of the pitches were well outside of the strike zone and 3 were borderline.  I don't think that's a recipe for success.  Looks like Sheets was having trouble locating his pitches in the second inning.  

Another interesting thing was Sheets' approach to the Dodger hitters.  This next chart shows pitches as if all batters were right-handed.  That is, inside pitches to left-handed hitters appear to the left of the chart while outside pitches to left-handed hitters appear to the right of the chart.  The same as to right-handed batters in both instances.

Easy to see that Sheets was trying to stay away from Dodger hitters, and generally missing with his location.  There are 9 pitches to the outside edge of the plate.  Dodger hitters took 7 of them.  5 were called balls.  

Sheets was missing away with pitches and was orced to throw back over the plate where Dodger hitters could drive the ball over the fence.   

Here's video of the back-to-back-to-back home runs.  

Of course, any time I am discussing Dodger back-to-back home run streaks I'm reminded of one of the most exciting moments in Dodger history.

Trailing 9 - 5 in the bottom of the 9th inning the Dodgers had a 3% chance of winning the game.  

Jeff Kent homered; 7% chance of winning.

JD Drew homered; 14% chance of winning.

Russ Martin homered; 27% chance of winning.

Marlin Anderson homered; 68% chance of winning.

Then, to top if off, Nomar Garciaparra homored in the 11th inning to give the Dodgers the win.

*boxscore