After suffering a right elbow injury and needing surgery just before this season, tonight Eric Gagne made his first appearance in a MLB game since June 12th of last season.  He suffered an elbow injury last season as well that landed him on the DL for the rest of the 2005 season.

Needless to say, the Dodger faithful have been waiting for a long time for their closer to get back on the hill.  Gagne came out in the ninth inning in a non-save situation to face the Philadelphia Phillies’ middle of the batting order.  The Dodgers were down 8-6 at that point and eventually would lose by that score.  Regardless, the crowd roared when Gagne came out of the bullpen and deservedly so.  Before getting injured last season, Gagne was considered a beast of a closer and, arguably, the best reliever in the game.

Gagne got clean-up hitter, Pat Burrell, to fly out to right field.  He struck out the powerful Ryan Howard, which just pumped up the crowd for the prospect of a 1-2-3 inning. However, Gagne hit Aaron Rowand with a pitch and walked David Bell before finally getting Mike Lieberthal to groundout into a force play.

Gagne came off the DL on Thursday and quickly got to work.  He should immediately reclaim his role of closing out games, as tonight’s appearance in the ninth hints at the inevitable.  How effective he’ll be remains to be seen, but considering he’s been resting his arm and he’s as competitive as anyone in the Majors, I’m thinking if you give him the baseball in the ninth, he’s going to get the job done.