5/27 23:02: Here’s the video:

5/27 22:18: The Dodgers had a few things to be frustrated with today as they blew a beautiful game by John Ely. The opposing starter was just as dominate as Ely.  But did he have an unfair advantage?  Casey Blake who had two hits off of Cubs starter Ted Lilly, felt he was cheating.  After a sixth inning single, Blake exchanged words with first-base umpire John Hirschbeck to the verge of ejection and was still hot after the game.

What was Blake so worked up about?  He accused Lilly of pitching from in front of the rubber.

“I know the guy doesn’t have the fastest fastball and he’s trying to get any edge he can, but the guy is just cheating,” said Blake. “John wouldn’t at least tell him to get on the rubber or move to get a better look at it. That’s what made me mad.”

Hirschbeck said he “couldn’t tell” if Lilly was in contact with the rubber, but couldn’t leave his position to get a better look.

“It’s a hard thing to see and you’ve got to know for sure [to issue a warning],” Hirschbeck said.

“There were a couple times I would get it and throw it. I think I was a little bit ahead of the rubber. I don’t know if it was that much. It wasn’t one of those things where I was thinking about it. [First baseman] Derrek Lee told me what he was saying to the umpires. If I was doing that, I might have done that a couple times, but I wasn’t real conscious of it. I was just trying to get good footing.”

In the end, the Dodgers had no hard evidence to prove Lilly may have been cheating.  A man once said, “If it doesn’t fit you must acquit.“  Time to lick your wounds and move on to the next series.

Information from MLB.com was used in this article.