Rockies at Dodgers, 1:10 PM PDT, TV: ATT Sportsnet-RM, SPNLA
RHP Antonio Senzatela (10-10, 6.83 ERA) takes the mound for the Rockies and LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu (12-5, 2.35 ERA) does so for the Dodgers. Senzatela has had some hard luck this season but hasn’t helped himself much; he’s given up 147 hits in 114 innings, striking out 66 but walking 52. Ryu hasn’t picked up a win since August 11, but the Dodgers hope his last start put him back on track after three straight losses.
I heard some speculation on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball a week ago that Kiké Hernandez had the best arm of any Dodgers’ outfielder. I thought that was nonsense considering Bellinger and Verdugo play out there, but I gotta admit the throw he made on Saturday was brilliant:
Today in Dodgers’ history:
- 1925 Robins starter Burleigh Grimes accounts for seven outs in just three plate appearances in the team’s 3-2 loss to Chicago, a 12-inning game played at Cubs Park. The Brooklyn right-hander follows grounding into two double plays by hitting into a 6-4-3-2 triple play.
- 1926 At Ebbets Field, the aging 18-year veteran outfielder Zack Wheat hits his last homer as a Dodger, but severely pulls a muscle nearing second. The future Hall of Famer needs to rest nearly five minutes before completing his trip to home plate, making it the longest home run trot in major league history.li>strong>1947 On an off day, the Dodgers clinched the National League pennant when Chicago takes the nightcap of the twin bill against St. Louis. Although it is past midnight when the good news about their beloved team reaches the borough, Brooklynites begin to gather on Flatbush Avenue for an impromptu celebration.
- 1954 Karl Spooner, in his major league debut, blanks the Giants at Ebbets Field 3-0. The 23 year-old Dodger southpaw fans 15 batters, including six straight, recording the most strikeouts in a first appearance by a rookie.
- 1957 Duke Snider, with his second round-tripper in the Dodgers’ 7-3 victory over Philadelphia, hits his 40th home run, tying Ralph Kiner’s National League record of five consecutive seasons with forty or more homers. The Duke of Flatbush’s seventh-inning homer off future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts will prove to be the last one ever hit at Ebbets Field.
- 1976 Right-hander Don Sutton goes the distance to become a twenty-game winner for the first and last time when the Dodgers beat the Giants at Candlestick Park, 3-1. The future Hall of Famer will compile a 324-256 (.559) record during his 23-year career in the bigs.
- 1986 Dodger hurler Fernando Valenzuela (20-10) two-hits Houston en route to a 9-2 victory at the Astrodome. The 25 year-old southpaw becomes the first Mexican to win 20 games in the major leagues.
Lineup when available.
Today’s Dodger lineup vs. Rockies:
Pederson RF
Lux 2B
Turner 3B
Bellinger CF
Seager SS
Pollock LF
Beaty 1B
Smith C
Ryu P#Dodgers | @Biofreeze pic.twitter.com/SVe5miE0TM— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 22, 2019
NPUT
Tuesday Tedium – The worst thing about handegg season may be that it impinges on Monday baseball. Little of note yesterday, except that Redbirds – in a late-season surge – are closer to wrapping up their division. The winning Nats and the idle Beerguys seem pretty much set for the mild card, with only the venue left to be settled, so Dodgers will draw one of them in the NLDS. Nothing significant in the AL.
Ryu says young Smith wasn’t the cause of Ryu’s poor performances, just an innocent bystander.
This could suppress attendance in Phoenix. https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1176315838795845632?s=20
That even beats Disco Demolition Night.
https://twitter.com/jphoornstra/status/1176211654154964993
Monday Musings – Things went well in NL, not so well in AL. Both Minute Maids (106.3 projected wins) and Yanquis (105) won their games, so Dodgers (103.7) continue to trail Houston by two and NYY by 1-1/2. Time is getting short to pass either or both of them, but Yanquis have tougher schedule on the road with Devil Rays and Texas. Houston plays in Seattle and Anaheim.
Meanwhile, Barves (98.7) play in KC and Queens, and it’s hard to imagine that the Dodgers won’t clinch best in NL sooner rather than later.
With no games of significance scheduled today – at least from a Dodgers viewpoint – magic number over Atlanta will remain the legendary Rick Auerbach until at least tomorrow.
Ryu used Cody’s bat for his homer. The same bat was used four batters later for the Bellinger grand slam.
Just landed. Woo-HOO!!!
Smith breaks out of it! https://twitter.com/kengurnick/status/1175906907443191808?s=20
Babe Ryu!
Are you kidding me!? First career home run. And on an 0-2 pitch. Maybe that will wake the Dodgers up from their batting lethargy.
Clearly, it did!
It will look good on his Ryusume
Ouch! I hope you will not ryusume with similar remarks.
You misspelled ryumarks.
Is that a form of currency in South Korea?
Quique made a fine throw, but from relatively shallow CF. Martin’s scoop and tag was even better.
With today’s surgical options, Karl Spooner might have been another Koufax.
Koufax might have been an even better Koufax with today’s sports medicine.
His career might have been longer, but probably not any better.
Spooner was the starting pitcher in the only game I saw at Ebbets Field, on July 3, 1955. (First game of a DH). The Pirates roughed him up for four runs (3 earned) in 2 2/3 innings. He walked six, struck out three and allowed two hits. The Dodgers lost, 7-5. Ed Roebuck was the losing pitcher. Carl Furillo homered for the Dodgers, rookie Gene Freese, who later played for the Hollywood Stars of the PCL, homered for the Bucs.
Poor Roebuck. Part of the 1962 playoff Game Three disaster.
And Stan Williams and Larry Burright and whoever positioned second baseman Burright too far from the bag so the Harvey Kuenn ground ball to Maury Wills at short with one on and none out in the top of the 9th resulted only a force and not what could have been a rally-killing DP. Oh, the pain that caused me then.
It was awful.
You didn’t stick around for game two? I recall Gene Freese’s PCL days, but don’t think I ever saw him in person. He did play briefly for Tacoma, but I was living in Seattle then.
No, my dad and I stayed around for only for the first game. The family was readying to move to Los Angeles in nine days, a long cross-country drive, and my parents had a million-and-one things to do to prepare. Dad, who was born in Brooklyn in 1916, was a lifelong Dodgers fan — he died in 1993 — and fulfilled his promise to take me to one game before we left. Mom filled up our Scotch Kooler (that’s how it was spelled) with lemonade for the game. We drove a 1950 Hudson Hornet to Los Angeles.
We drove a 1962 Plymouth Valiant, the one with the pushbutton transmission, from LA to DC in 1962.
In 1947, my parents drove some kinda Ford from Comstock, Minnesota, toward California, but ran out of money in Tacoma – where we stayed. Only three years old then, I have very vague memories of crossing the Rockies.
That’s reminiscent of stories from a century earlier. “Oxen died, stop here.”
Both Minute Maids and Yanquis won today, but magic number over Barves is now… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/536bfe68b0ba912d3f2ea769942d5e072d336bccc67d4e708cc8c03c98c3a407.png
Kenley, you give me heart palpitations.
Gameday had those first two balls as strikes BTW.
Umpire’s leaving him no choice but to throw it straight down the middle.
Interesting that the Rockies reliever, Sam Howard, made four attempts to pick off Joc Pederson, who has one stolen base this season.
I’ll have a little more mustard on my crow, please.
He made Arenado look pretty bad.
There was value there seeing if he could pitch out of it whether he was successful or not.
Admittedly, I was very worried.
So was I.
He’s still not a lock, but this certainly doesn’t hurt.
Worked out of it impressively.
This is not the time to further audition May. Bring in the A team.
Arguably, the best time.
Agree.
Disagree.
When would you prefer to test him? This week’s games are relatively meaningless – except to somebody under pressure to make the post-season roster.
When we have more than a three-run lead, and when I don’t think a win is imperative. I just think we have a different perspective on this.
When you clinched the division long ago, and have a substantial lead for best record in league, a win isn’t exactly “imperative.” Testing an untested pitcher is more so.
I will not comment further on this matter. I have said my piece.
Corey now has two hits in six straight games and is 15 for his last 32, raising his average from .259 to .273 in that span.
Corey seems to have lost his doubles power.
Does a homer count as a double-double?
Only if ordered as animal style
Young Seager again. He’s en fuego!
¡En serio!
https://twitter.com/sung_minkim/status/1175886851845980160?s=20
Hilarious.
Roberts leaves the enthusiasm to the rest of the players on this occasion.
The Rockies have now hit eight HRs in this series to our four.
That’s 1-4-5-6 if you’re scoring at home, as Vinny used to say.
Ryu at only 80 pitches through six innings.
Joe and Orel have talked about Ryu’s power in pre-game BP before, and apparently coach Bob Geren has been saying he’d hit one sometime this season.
According to incomplete stats from his seven professional seasons in Korea, he never homered there.
A little surprising, as KBO’s widely considered a hitters’ league.
But is it a DH league too?
It hadn’t occurred to me, but that appears to be the case.
I guess this is more of a hitters league
I see where Turner was removed for a pinch-runner this inning. Anybody know why? Precautionary only, I hope.
It appears he was scheduled for just a few innings.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Doc’s strategy going into the game.
Beaty keeps the inning going.
Just peeked in at the airport waiting to fly home. Cody!!!!!!
Have a great and safe flight. I always preferred the Crimson to the Crimson Tide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27PSHASlGUU
Bellinger exceeded what I was hoping for.!
Belli Salami!
OK, Cody, time for a big redemption.
Ala Jon Weisman The Codshank Redemption.
Ha!
That will do extremely well. Thank you very much.
https://twitter.com/jonweisman/status/1175885883871883264?s=20
wow!
Cubbies’ collapse continues, as they blow another ninth-inning lead for a four-game sweep by the Redbirds.
The lack of production from our catchers, Smith and Martin, is yet something else that I am worried about as we prepare to head into the post-season.
Not that he can be relied upon to play/hit much, but Russell in his 23 PA in September has put up OPS+ 144.
I hadn’t realized that. He also is slashing this month at.286/.348/.671/.919. But he has fanned 10 times in 21 ABs.
Nor had I. Hard to keep track when his appearances are sporadic.
Ryu is looking a lot sharper than our other two aces have in this series.
The pitchers have made major adjustments with Bellinger; he is yet to counter.
Dodged a bullet with Vazquez and apparently with Kimbrel as well. The latter is at 0-4 ERA 6.35. Two of those losses came against the Cards on Thursday and Saturday. With 5 losses in a row, Cubbies now 3 GB of the Brew Crew for the WC.
Hard to think of any reliever with a worse outing than Kimbrel had yesterday. Maddon letting Darvish pitch the ninth, and he gave up a leadoff triple in a 2-1 game. Cubbies still led 2-1, but Fowler followed with a sac fly and Goldschmidt with an RBI double.
Miracles do happen! Gnats have beaten Barves, and magic number is now… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/571848d4de8b26ddb94d5689ce098be7c3ab3979ad357774e5bb78355d42b314.png
Vaelntine might have had a brilliant career, but a terrible ankle injury in 1973, after the Dodgers traded him to the Angels following the 1972 season, ruined that chance. From the Society for American Baseball Research:
“He got off to a good start in the American League in 1973, hitting
.302/.323/.397 for the Angels when the season started. But Valentine’s
season ended on May 17 when he suffered a season-ending injury.
Valentine attempted to make a leaping catch to rob the Athletics’ Dick Green
of a home run and his spikes got caught in the outfield’s chain link
fence. He suffered a multiple compound fracture in his right leg just
above the ankle. Valentine missed the rest of the 1973 season. His injury never healed
properly and his ankle was permanently bent in the wrong direction,
costing him a great deal of speed and athleticism. He returned in 1974
and made 414 plate appearances in the utility role, the second most of
his career. He batted .261/.308/.329 with three home runs and 39 RBIs.”
He still had a long career in baseball, though.