Game 162, 2023

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Giants at Dodgers, 12:05 PM PDT, TV: NBCS BA, SPNLA

RHP Bobby Miller (11-4, 3.89 ERA) starts the last game of the regular season for the Dodgers. He’ll face the Giants’ LHP Kyle Harrison (1-1, 4.85 ERA).

Because the Dodgers have been in more tie-breaking series than any other team in baseball, they’ve had a lot of activity on the first day of October over the years. Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1944 Dixie Walker, an outfielder on the seventh-place Dodgers, wins the National League batting crown with a .357 batting average, finishing ten points higher than runner-up Stan Musial. In 1947, the ‘People’s Cherce’s younger brother, Harry ‘the Hat’, will also lead the Senior Circuit, hitting .363 in the year when he is traded, after playing ten games for St. Louis, to Philadelphia.
  • 1946 The Dodgers and Cardinals, who both finished the season with a 96-58 record, play the first game of a best-of-three series to determine the National League’s championship, marking the first time in major league history a playoff is needed to send a team to the World Series. St. Louis wins today’s Sportsman’s Park contest, 4-2, and will clinch the pennant in Game 2, beating the Brooklyn at Ebbets Field, 8-4.
  • 1950 On the last day of the season, Pee Wee Reese, ignoring second base ump Frank Dascoli’s directive to slow down when his high outfield fly becomes stuck between the screen and the right field wall, continues sprinting around the bases at full speed, crossing home plate with the tying run in a game the team needs to win to finish tied with Philadelphia for the NL flag. The Dodgers shortstop’s unusual inside-the-park homer, due to an odd ground rule, will be the only run Robin Roberts allows in the Phillies’ pennant clinching 4-1 victory at Ebbets Field.
  • 1950 After they retire today, Burt Shotton of the Dodgers and the A’s Connie Mack will become the last managers to wear street clothes. Although no edict specifically mandates a skipper must wear a uniform, there is now a rule that states that a person not wearing a uniform, except medical personnel, isn’t allowed on the field of play during a game.
  • 1950 In the season finale, Robin Roberts, in the first of his six consecutive 20-win seasons, becomes the first Phillies right-hander to win twenty games for the team since Grover Cleveland Alexander accomplished the feat with a total of 30 victories in 1917. The complete-game, ten-inning 4-1 Ebbets Field victory over the Dodgers hurled by the Whiz Kid from Springfield (IL) clinches Philadelphia’s first NL pennant since 1915.
  • 1951 The Giants’ 3-1 victory over the Dodgers in the first game of the National League playoffs is the first major league contest to be televised coast-to-coast. CBS, who obtained rights to the game, transmits the picture from Ebbets Field, but has to get the signal from ABC, who had made previous arrangements with WOR-TV, the New York station which carried Brooklyn’s regular season games.
  • 1955 After losing the first two contests in the Bronx, the Dodgers even the World Series at a pair of games apiece when they defeat the Yankees at Ebbets Field, 8-5. Brooklyn will make it three victories in a row tomorrow with a 5-3 victory over the Bronx Bombers, but it will take a dramatic Game 7 for the ‘Bums’ to capture their first World Championship.
  • 1961 The Wrigley Field on the West Coast hosts its last professional baseball game when the Angels, who will play at Dodger Stadium next season, are defeated by Cleveland, 8-5, in front of 9,868 fans at the 36 year-old ballpark, which will be torn down in five years to make room for an eventual public playground and senior center. In addition to being the home for the American League expansion team, the venue housed the PCL’s Angels from 1925 through 1957 and served as the location for the 1960 television series Home Run Derby.
  • 1974 At the Astrodome, Mike Marshall establishes the major league mark for the most appearances by a pitcher when he throws two innings in the Dodgers’ 8-5 victory over Houston. With his 106 appearances, the right-handed reliever appears in 65% of the games that his team played this season.
  • 1993 Mike Piazza plates Jose Offerman with a first-inning single to set a new team mark for runs driven in by a rookie with 107. The 24 year-old Dodgers catcher breaks the franchise record for rookie RBIs established by Del Bissonette, a freshman first baseman who played with Brooklyn in 1928.
  • 2009 The Rockies’ 9-2 win over Milwaukee assures the team of a wild card berth in the postseason, and puts the team in position to still win the NL West by sweeping the Dodgers this weekend in L.A. Although the team was 12 games under .500 on June 3, today’s victory, their 91st – a club record – puts Colorado 23 games over .500, another first in the 17 year history of franchise.
  • 2018 Two divisional tiebreakers are needed to determine the National League Central and West champs after Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Colorado won yesterday. The Brewers/Cubs and Rockies/Dodgers winners will advance to the NLDS, with the losers facing one another tomorrow in the Wild-Card game.

Lineups when available.

72 thoughts on “Game 162, 2023”

  4. Next season I’m going to put up a separate post for pre-season predictions. I can’t find one which contained a string of them in the first week of 2023 games.

  5. Last Woo-HOO of the season. 100 wins!!! What a fun team to watch. I hope the Gnats didn’t wreck two of our players.

  7. Dodgers finish one game shy of Baltimore’s record. If they had tied and if they had met in the WS – Dodgers had won the season series.

    Anyone else in the AL, Dodgers would have home field advantage in the WS.

  20. So Mookie ends a great regular season with 39 homers. Saving some for the postseason.

    • Precisely identical, with same numbers of ABs and hits? Otherwise it could come down to additional decimals.

  33. Yesterdays game was very disappointing for me. I know it was basically a meaningless game as far as our position in the standings and playoff position. However, what made it meaningful for me was that it was most likely the last regular season start for Kershaw as a Dodger. Would have been great to get him a win.

    • I hear you on that. The good news going forward is that Kershaw has looked extremely sharp lately. Whether he returns next season as a Dodger (or with any other team) remains high up in the air.

      • I am not very optimistic about Kersh returning next year. I think he will retire.