Game Two, 2023

Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: Bally Sports Arizona Extra, SPNLA

The D-Backs send RHP Merrill Kelly (2022: 13-8, 3.37 ERA) to the hill to face the Dodgers’ RHP Dustin May (2022: 2-3, 4.50 ERA). May and the Dodgers hope that his second year after Tommy John surgery will show marked improvement over the first.

Jon Weisman has a new site called “Slayed By Voices.” It’s linked over on the sidebar to the right in the “Non-Baseball Sites” section. It’s usually a subscription-only site but his Opening Day entry, Major League Baseball returns, and it’s fun!, is free to all. It includes a very good “In Memoriam” video of the losses suffered by the MLB family in the past year put together by Paul Sullivan.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1948 At Ebbets Field No. 2, the Dodgers play their first exhibition game at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, which will remain the team’s home for 61 years. Amidst much fanfare, including Governor Millard Caldwell throwing the ceremonial first pitch, Jackie Robinson homers in the first inning as Brooklyn beats its top farm club, the Montreal Royals, 5-4.
  • 2018 Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who goes 3-for-4 in the team’s 3-2 victory over the Rays at Tropicana Field, becomes the first American Leaguer to have multiple extra-base hits in the first three games of the season. In 2015, Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez also accomplished the feat, collecting at least two hits in each of LA’s first three contests when he compiled ten hits his first 14 at-bats of the season.

Lineups when available.

31 thoughts on “Game Two, 2023

      • It’s what happens when you use your second best reliever in the 9th inning the night before with a six-run lead. So now we’re stuck with Vesia trying to hold a one-run lead in the 8th, and he got rocked.

  1. Rats!! Well, Vesia sucked, but 1 run will not win many games. O for 7 RISP, 12 LOB. Pitiful offense.

  2. One thing I do approve of in the new rules – that managers must decide within 15 seconds whether to challenge an umpire’s call. That should mean fewer time-wasting challenges, which is fine with me.

  3. If you think the Dodgers’ injuries are testing their depth, the NYMutts have lost elite reliever Edwin Díaz for the season, starter José Quintana until at least mid-season, and now Justin Verlander for an unknown period.