Game 111, 2017

Dodgers at Mets, 5:00 PM PT, TV: ESPN

If the Dodgers win they’ll sweep the season series with the Metropolitans.

A win on Sunday would also give the Dodgers their first sweep in New York since July 20-22, 2012, and would give them their first season sweep of the Mets ever. The Dodgers took five of six games from New York in 1981, 2009, and 2013, and won 16 of 18 in 1962 and 1963, but have never dropped a seasonal bagel on the Big Apple.

The Dodgers send LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu (3-6, 3.83 ERA) to the mound to face LHP Steven Matz (2-4, 5.30 ERA). Ryu has been very good in his last four starts, giving up just six runs and striking out 23. He has been far better at home than on the road, however; he’s got a 4.25 ERA and opponents are hitting .295 against him in their own parks. Matz is 0-2 with a 12.21 ERA in four starts after the All-Star break.

This day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1981 The players approved a split-season format necessitated by the seven-week strike. The Yankees, A’s, Phillies, and Dodgers are declared the first-half champions and will be automatically qualified for the divisional series.

Great moments in labor-management relations: In 1908 Detroit outfielder Ty Cobb gets married, having departed the Tigers three days ago to participate in the ceremony without the team’s permission. The 21 year-old Georgia Peach’s six-day defection during a pennant race will be described by club co-owner Frank Navin as the most arrogant act he had ever heard of in baseball. (Note: The Tigers got to the World Series anyway. They lost to the Cubs, the last time the Chicago team would win a World Series until 2016.)

Lineup:

143 thoughts on “Game 111, 2017

  1. From a Sunday recap, this seems to be missing a 5th pitch. What was/is it?

    “Ryu mixed five pitches to near perfection, earning two strikeouts each via the changeup, fourseam fastball, cutter and curveball.”

    • Slider would be my guess. Normally the third most thrown pitch by him. But, then the math wouldn’t work, since he got only 8 Ks.

      • Yeah. funny thing, that. Thought about it as I wrote.

        Simply amazing how many impact players can be home-grown, or maybe acquired by trade. Dodgers have racked up both ways.

        About the time FAZ took over, I remember reading that Friedman is rarely wrong about a player. Looking like that’s been borne out.

        This FO will miss on a few. All FOs do. But FAZ has been and will be right way more often than not.

    • He’s spent most of the year at AAA and is now rehabbing. It may just be opportunistic.

  2. Eric Stephen at True Blue LA:

    The franchise record for wins is 105, set by Brooklyn in 1953, back when the schedule was just 154 games. The 2017 club needs to finish just 27-24 to finish with 106 wins, a target that seems eminently doable.

    [snip]

    By winning percentage, the 1953 team is second-best in Dodgers history (.6818), trailing only the 1899 squad that finished 101-47 (.6824). Topping that would require 111 wins in 162 games, meaning a 32-19 finish (.627) for the 2017 club.

    Man, when you read it in print like that, it’s even more unbelievable than hearing it on the tube or the radio.

    • Better that it was a clean hit, relatively early in the game. Given his injury history, I don’t think Dodger mgmt wants Ryu to go nine – unless he can do it in fewer than 100 pitches. In any event, he looked dominant last night.

  3. Is Citi becoming Dodger Stadium East? Not only do the Dodgers own the Mets with a 7-0 season sweep, but I’ve seen some beach balls on the loose. 😉

    Camera also showing lots of Dodger gear in the stands.

  4. From dodgers.com–

    “I think some guys in the clubhouse here think I was on that team.” — Hill, age 37, on the current 43-7 run being the best since the 1912 New York Giants

  5. Been watching while exercising but have a meeting now so may have to delay my woo-hoo if it is called upon!

  6. It might interest you, Hendley, that my neighborhood brewpub serves choripan. I chose cider over beer, which I don’t care for.

  7. Not that I am hoping for the game to become closer but I am wondering if Jansen might pitch today. I see he hasn’t pitched in a week.

  8. As I continue to catch up, I see yesterday’s game was filled with long balls. Every run scored was via the HR. Glad to see that our bats woke up late.

  9. Just had the joyful experience at looking at the Dodgers baseball reference page for this season. Not many red lines in the last 50 games…

  10. Puig not too happy with the K. Haven’t seen much of that sort of fishing from him this year.

        • Roberts said Clayton Kershaw, who has been rehabbing his lower back strain in Los Angeles while the team has been out East, will continue his recovery with the club in Arizona on Tuesday, when the Dodgers open a three-game series vs. the D-backs.

      • Kershaw beginning to like mid-summer as a time for holidays apparently. Here’s hoping it just lengths his work in the fall.

  11. It was nice to score runs the old fashion way in the first, but now back to the Power!

  12. I realize this is an old topic, but I am imagining that most here were pleased/excited by the trade for Darvish. Did anyone think they gave up too much for him?

    • Flipped a good prospect, but he didn’t have a clear path to the majors with the Dodgers.

        • And from what I’ve read is not really good defensively anywhere, so his future might well be as a DH.

          The only downside to the Darvish deal is that he’s a free agent at the end of the season. But if they win it might cause him to decide he likes it in LA.

  13. Hello friends. I’m getting a rare off day and see that a Dodger game is happening at a time I can follow along with it!
    Nice to see the team winning today – and this summer!

      • When, as a kid, I was a Tacoma Giants fan, we heard radio re-creations that started at 11 p.m. Pacific time. One time I was stunned, after falling asleep early, to learn that Tacoma scored 11 runs in the ninth to beat the Islanders 11-8.

        I recall many of the PCL players you mention, most notably Carlos Bernier, who had a reputation as a bad guy. I also saw Bo Belinsky pitch for the Islanders in Tacoma.

  14. Fillies rally to smash the Rox in the ninth, while Gnats are leading the Snakes. Dodgers could gain ground on both.

    That said, with this big lead, it’s hard to care that much about what other teams are doing.

  15. Ryu is 2-0 with a 2.16 ERA and 23 Ks in 25 IP in 4 lifetime starts v the Mets.

    IIRC he tends to rise to the occasion, topping StL in playoffs one year for one example. For another, In his last out v Bumgarner, he matched pitching lines exactly… 7 5 0 0 1 7 on 14 less pitches. Especially in light of battling back from shoulder and other injuries, would love to see him have an overpowering pitch to combine with his psychological and mental game …but didn’t happen. Could be among the best if he did have one.

    You never know with this FO, but they probably won’t re-sign Ryu with all the rising young starters and his increasing age and high mileage. But he’s trending up recently and may make their decision a tough one. His first couple years in LA he pitched more like a #2 than a 4 or 5.

    • I’ve always liked Ryu, and his comeback is admirable even if he’s not what he once was – the Gnats have a poor offense and he benefited from multiple timely DPs, including Quique’s great throw to the plate.

    • One might say that his approach might be more sustainable as he ages, i, e. doesn’t have an overpowering pitch to lose. Not sure about high mileage, though. At least with the Dodgers has only average about 100 innings per year over four. He does have another year left, no?

    • Somehow the As are going to finance their new stadium privately, they say. $3B is a lot of money to find without taxpayers’ help. I hope they’re right, because the Coliseum has been a horrid place for baseball for years.

      • So behind the curve in this regard, no? In that taxpayers in general seem a lot less willing to provide financial support than in the past.

    • Ken lives nearby, in Alameda, though I’ve never met him. It’s Arneson, by the way – he’s a Swede.

  16. Last time the Dodgers won the WS, their season record against the Mets was 1-10, who the beat 4-3 in the NLCS.

  17. From TrueBlueLA: “Hyun-Jin Ryu gets the start in the series finale, his second straight start on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. He was brilliant last weekend against the Giants, striking out seven in his seven scoreless frames.”

    Somehow I hadn’t noticed he was the starter last Sunday on SNB.

    That blog post also has some interesting data on how well-rested most of the Dodgers’ starters are and have been all season long.

    Only 35 times this season has a Dodgers pitcher started on regular four days rest, the fewest starts in baseball, and 12 of those were by Kershaw. The average in MLB this season is 50.4 starts per team on four days rest.