Game 159, 2017

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Padres at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, FSSD, ESPN (out-of-market only)

The Dodgers are up three games in the win column over the Indians for the best record in baseball (and home field advantage through the playoffs and World Series if they get that far) with four games left to play.

The Padres send LHP Clayton Richard (8-14, 4.63 ERA) to the mound to face the Dodgers’ LHP Rich Hill (11-8, 3.50 ERA).

These pitchers have faced their respective opposing teams before this season:

Hill will be making his final tuneup ahead of a probable start in Game 3 of the NL Division Series. The southpaw is 2-0 in four starts vs. the Padres this season, owning 1.50 ERA to go along with 25 strikeouts. Richard is 1-0 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts at Dodger Stadium this season. The southpaw is 3-4 with a 3.61 ERA over his last 11 starts.

On this date in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1936 Replacing Johnny Mize, tossed by an ump for arguing, Cardinal rookie first baseman Walter Alston makes an error in handling two chances and strikes out in his only major league at-bat. ‘Smokey’ will, however, win seven pennants and four World Series in his 23-year Hall of Fame career as Dodger manager from 1954 to 1976.
  • 1951 Bill Sharman, recently called up from Fort Worth, is one of 15 Dodgers who are ejected by umpire Frank Dascoli for bench jockeying after a close call at home plate. The future basketball Hall of Famer will never play in the big leagues, and thus he will become the only player to be ejected from a major league game without ever appearing in one.
  • 1960 Ryne Duren makes his first start in two years memorable when he strikes out the first five batters he faces in the Yankees’ 5-1 victory over Washington. The feat ties a modern major league record shared by Lefty Gomez (Yankees), Dazzy Vance (Dodgers), and Walter Johnson (Senators).
  • 1961 Sandy Koufax breaks the National League mark for strikeouts in a season, surpassing Christy Mathewson’s mark of 267 established in 1903. Unlike the turmoil caused by commissioner Ford Frick’s edict of having to hit 61 homers by the 154th game in the extended 162-game schedule to break Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, little is made that the Dodgers southpaw’s 268th punch-out occurs in the 151st game of the season, compared to the 142-game sked played early in the century.
  • 1964 The Houston Colt .45’s play their final game in Colt Stadium, the team’s home ballpark since joining the National League in 1962. The future Astros beat the Dodgers in the 12th inning, 1-0, when Jimmy Wynn’s single plates Bob Aspromonte.
  • 1993 In a 7-3 victory over the Dodgers, Cubs’ reliever Randy Myers becomes the first National League pitcher to record 50 saves in a season.
  • 1993 Mike Piazza, who broke the major league rookie record for home runs by a catcher earlier in the month, sets another mark for round-trippers when he hits his 34th, surpassing the previous L.A. Dodger mark shared by Steve Garvey (1977) and Pedro Guerrero (1985). Duke Snider established the franchise record with 43 homers playing with Brooklyn in 1956.
  • 2000 The United States Olympic team, managed by former Dodger skipper Tommy Lasorda, stuns the world, beating the much-favored Cuban team to win the country’s first gold medal in its national pastime. Ben Sheets ends Cuba’s 21-game Olympic winning streak with a 4-0 shutout.
  • 2011 After giving up five runs in the top of the tenth inning, the Diamondbacks score six times in the bottom of the frame in an amazing 7-6 come-from-behind victory over the Dodgers. Arizona infielder Ryan Roberts delivers the decisive blow in the Chase Field contest, a walk-off grand slam with two outs.

Adrian Gonzáles is done for the season, it appears.

Lineup when available.

105 thoughts on “Game 159, 2017”

      • Hard to think otherwise when the ball glances off his mitt, which is the nice thing about statcast as it looks at what it took for him to get there. Matty can look like a great outfielder as he dives for balls that actually have a 95% catch probability.

      • Not really the case here, I guess, but the Stacast people note that they have not been able to factor in nearness to the wall. If they ever do, perhaps they can dub it the “Pete Reiser” factor.

    • Statcast rates the ball at 50% catch probability, so really a toss up. Was Taylor “penalized” for being able to get to the ball in the first place? He is rated as among the top 20 outfielders in MLB and makes those sorts of catches around 80% of the time (data is very gross as he catches 25-50% 71% of the time and 50-75% around 95% of the time).

  4. Just read the recap and saw that Rich went 7 innings –didn’t all three starters do that? That might be even better than during the great streak.

  5. contusion:

    Another name for a bruise. What is a bruise ? A bruise, or contusion, is caused when blood vessels are damaged or broken as the result of a blow to the skin (be it bumping against something or hitting yourself with a hammer). The raised area of a bump or bruise results from blood leaking from these injured blood vessels into the tissues as well as from the body’s response to the injury. A purplish, flat bruise that occurs when blood leaks out into the top layers of skin is referred to as an ecchymosis.

    I saw the video of Taylor injuring himself and I saw nothing which hit his leg. He might have twisted it. I hope he recovers quickly.

  13. Davis bringing up that idea floating around to enhance the WC structure. Sounds good to me. 1st WC only has to win one game, but 2nd WC has to win two, with a doubleheader format.

    • Better yet: Two divisions in each league, and the winners play each other to advance to the Series.

          • The thing I like about the WC is that it helps to mitigate the arbitrary nature of divisions.

          • More so than divisions? Are the Cubbies more deserving than the Snakes?The proposal would seek to limit the reward, especially for the 2nd WC and possibly for the 1st if they have to play two games. Leagues ain’t never going back to two divisions.

          • With unbalanced schedules, there’s no way to determine who’s most deserving except for the division champions. We also need to eliminate the DH and interleague play.

          • As they will never go back to two divisions, we are left with the best way to deal with three. The proposal seems better than the current arrangement in limiting reward to the “undeserving”. The DH no longer even fulfills the original promise of helping to keep around fan-popular, but aging hitters. That slot in recent years has feature among the poorest hitters.

          • Teams that fail to finish first have no business continuing their season. The DH, meanwhile, has destroyed strategy in the AL.

  31. Both Cleveland and Houston won today, so the Dodgers lead reduced by half a game at this point.

  32. Good start with the 2-0 lead. Granderson in for Taylor but perhaps it’s just extra caution on the Dodgers part.

  33. Link, I would like to remark that the Disqus comment system is often agonizingly slow and erratic – sometimes it open as a sidebar, other times as a new page. Lotsa buffering.

  34. My hope is that Gonzalez is the lightening rod that prevents other Dodgers from being injured from here on out.

  35. I cannot believe that Alex Wood is not a shoe-in to start a post season game. He has pitched better than everyone not named Kershaw. I wonder if they are worried about his arm?

    • His fastball was below par last night, even though he was mostly getting weak contact, and he only struck out one.

    • They are looking at his more recent performance, not what he did in the first half. As WBBsAs notes, his velocity has been trending down and it shows in the outcomes. Based on the second half, his results are the fifth best among the starters and not on par with Klayton. His ERA during that period is 3.89 and k rate at 6.8, compared to first half of 1.68 and 10.8. Meanwhile Darvish is at 3.44 and 11.1, Hill 3.33 and 11.4, Ryu 2.42 and 8.0.

  38. Keeping alive their shot at 100 losses, the Gnats lose in Phoenix on a literal walk-off from “closer” Sam Dyson.

  39. In the ninth, in Denver, the Fish have hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back doubles, but still trail 15-8.

  41. Even if the Dodgers finish tied with the Spiders, they get HFA because of an edge in season series, as they won two of three in June. That said, HFA means relatively little in baseball, except to the home fans who get to see their team more.