Mar 13

Spring Training #3, 2024

A week from today the Dodgers open the 2024 season with the Padres in Seoul, South Korea. This will be the third time the Dodgers will open their season in a foreign country: 2014 in Australia and 2018 in Mexico were the others. It’s also the third continent they’ll open on, more than any other team in MLB.

They still have some spring training games to play though, and today’s is against the Mariners at Camelback Ranch. The Dodgers’ Yoshi Yamamoto will be making his third start of the spring; he’s gone five innings, struck out seven, walked three, and had one good outing and one poor one.

The Dodgers are 13-4 so far this spring, which doesn’t mean anything except as a hopeful precursor of what’s to come this season.

Feb 28

Spring Training #2, 2024

Yesterday Shohei Ohtani made his spring training debut for the Dodgers and homered in three at-bats. Today it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s turn to make his first appearance. He performed really well, and it wasn’t his fault the Dodgers lost their first game after five consecutive wins to open the Cactus League season.

In his first Cactus League start Wednesday against the Rangers at Surprise Stadium, the Japanese phenom tossed two scoreless innings, striking out three and allowing just one hit in what ended up being the Dodgers’ first loss of the spring, a 6-4 defeat. Yamamoto threw 19 pitches, 16 for strikes, displaying his wide arsenal of pitches.

[snip]

In total, Yamamoto threw 11 four-seam fastballs and was clocked between 94-96 mph. He threw three curveballs, all of which went for strikes. Yamamoto also threw the splitter and cutter, showing why he won the Eiji Sawamura Award three consecutive years in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league.

In other news, Max Muncy got hit with a curveball in his first AB and left the game with a contusion. He’s day-to-day (as Vinnie said, “aren’t we all”).

Tomorrow’s starter is yet another new acquisition: James Paxton. He’s a 6’4″, 212-lb lefthander with a lifetime record of 64-38 and 3.69 ERA. His career started well; he went 56-32 with a 3.50 ERA from 2013-2019. He’s had a tough three-year stretch since:

He was limited to just five starts during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season after a strain of his left flexor tendon. Paxton also underwent spinal surgery in February 2020 as well.

One year later, Paxton’s 2021 season with the M’s lasted just one start after he was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. He missed all of 2022.

Mar 23

Last Spring post, 2023

No Dodger was seriously injured while playing in the World Baseball Classic. Freddie Freeman says his hamstring is okay, even when pushing it by running and cutting. That’s a relief.

In light of this season’s rules changes, here’s a primer from the likes of Bryan Cranston (Walter White to you), Joey Votto and Sebastian Maniscalco.

The Dodgers are 13-9 in Cactus League play with only a few games left. They open the season a week from tonight in Dodger Stadium against the Diamondbacks.

Mar 11

Spring Training continues

The World Baseball Classic started two days ago. USA’s first game is Saturday, March 11, and Adam Wainwright will start. The opponent will be Team Great Britain.

MLB has a very good story of Team USA’s construction; it started with Mike Trout and snowballed. Great Britain’s story obviously doesn’t include players of Trout’s caliber, but it’s still good.

If spring training standings meant anything, at this stage the 11-2 Kansas City Royals would be headed for the Cactus League Championship Series to face the 9-4 Chicago Cubs. The Grapefruit League series would have the 9-0 Red Sox versus the 7-4 Cardinals. In the Cactus League the Angels and Dodgers are third and fourth in the standings; the Angels are 8-4 and the Dodgers are 6-3.

Feb 24

Spring Training Games Begin!

Dodgers at Brewers at American Family Fields of Phoenix. 12:10 PM PDT, TV: SPNLA

MLB’s Matthew Ritchie says: Dodgers have several lineup options in Cactus League opener

In terms of who plays where and when against Milwaukee, Gavin Lux will likely be paired up the middle with rookie infielder Miguel Vargas, who hasn’t been swinging due to a hairline fracture on his pinky finger, but he should play about five innings. David Peralta could be in the lineup as well. Aside from knowing that starter Michael Grove will be the starting pitcher on Saturday, there are still questions brewing, especially with lineup construction.

“I’ve thought about it, you know,” said Roberts, when asked about how much time he’s spent on lineup combinations. “It’s just trying to figure out, you know, Mookie [Betts] at the top, is it best? Where to put J.D., where to put Will Smith, where’s Max [Muncy]? I don’t think there’s a right answer. As we have conversations and let things play out, it’ll show itself a little more.”

In another MLB article, Juan Toribio previews spring camp:Three things to look for:

  1. How does the up-the-middle defense hold up?
    The Dodgers will have a new starting shortstop, second baseman and center fielder. Lux moves to short, Vargas will start at second (not till next week when his hairline-fractured finger is fully healed), and center is still uncertain.

  2. Can Syndergaard turn back the clock?
    Can he get his velocity back, and will his command come with it?

  3. Which young pitchers take the next step?
    If there are no injuries the rotation on Opening Day will be Julio Urías, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Syndergaard. After them? Ryan Pepiot, Michael Grove and Andre Jackson. According to observers, Pepiot has impressed early in camp, and Grove will start the Dodgers’ opener on Saturday.

    Top prospects Gavin Stone and Bobby Miller will also be in the mix. Stone is the Dodgers’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year and is the more polished of the two pitchers. Miller, on the other hand, hits triple digits with ease, and scouts fall in love with his ability to spin the baseball.

    “It’s going to be important,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ young pitchers continuing to develop. “They have to take the next step because we expect more from them this year than we did last year.”

Mar 25

Pitchers, catchers, infielders, outfielders — everybody’s reported!

Calamity! The Dodgers are near the bottom of the Cactus League standings! They’re 1-3 with 3 ties!

Kershaw reflects on his past history and potential overuse which may have contributed to his recent injuries.

“I don’t have any regrets of what I did, whether it be the short rest or the bullpens or the different things like that,” Kershaw said. “At the end of the day, for the team to count on you and want you to go out there and do it, that’s a huge honor. They paid me a lot of money too.

“Looking back on it, the only thing I’d say is I wish I’d pitched better.”

He’s not entirely convinced his earlier workload contributed much to his more recent injury record.

“You just don’t know with pitchers,” he said. “You look at Adam Wainwright, we kind of thought, he had Tommy John [surgery], he had the Achilles thing and last year he threw the most innings in baseball, or close to it. (Wainwright’s 206 1/3 innings were third-most in the majors.)

“And then there are some guys that are so big and so strong and throw so hard and they haven’t pitched a full season in a while.”

Mar 16

Momma told me there’d be days like this

Kershaw started today’s game and Bauer picked up after him. The two of them went the full nine innings and gave up 11 hits and seven runs.

The game was notable only in that it occasioned Bellinger’s first start of Spring Training, a test of his surgically-repaired shoulder.

Oh by the way, Seager had hit 5 HRs in his last six games before going 1 for 3 today.

Mar 01

Lux-ury?

Molly Knight at The Athletic:

Lux’s 2020 campaign was a train wreck.

He reported late to the Dodgers’ summer camp due to an unexplained absence, but he did reveal that he did not take part in baseball activities for two weeks. He began the season at the team’s alternate site at USC, and when he finally did get called up to the Dodgers, he looked like a mess. In 19 games, Lux had an OPS of .596. He made throwing errors that made it look like he had the yips. He was left off the postseason roster as the Dodgers went on to win the franchise’s first World Series title since 1988.

This year, the Dodgers can make do with some combination of Chris Taylor, Zach McKinstry and Max Muncy at second base in the event that Lux can’t immediately rebound from his disappointing 2020. But he is only 23 years old and can be forgiven for experiencing a lost season during the pandemic.

Cubs star Javier Báez said earlier this week that he simply was not mentally prepared for last season, and here’s betting Lux wasn’t, either. It’s not fair to judge anyone on how well they performed amid COVID-19. And that is why I’m excited to see if Lux can put last year behind him, secure the second base job and rake his way back into the hearts of Dodgers fans.

Today’s lineup, including one Trevor Bauer making his first start in Dodger Blue:

Feb 14

Spring training begins very soon

Barring a sudden increase in COVID-19 cases, as of January 28

Dodgers pitchers and catchers will report to spring training at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona on Wednesday, Feb. 17, with their first workout one day later. Position players are set to report a few days later, with the first full-squad workout on Tuesday, Feb. 23.

The Dodgers’ first Cactus League game is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 27 against the Cubs in Mesa, with LA’s first home game the next day against the Rangers at Camelback Ranch.

There will be a lot of virus-related protocols:

Major League Baseball players won’t be required to take a COVID-19 vaccination, though it will be strongly encouraged by the players’ union and the league when the time comes.

The voluntary program won’t proceed until health officials deem it appropriate, but players who are otherwise eligible for a vaccine, before league implementation, will be allowed to receive one

[snip]

Before arriving at spring training, players will be required to self-quarantine for five days and fill out a health questionnaire. They’ll undergo intake testing once in Arizona or Florida and, similar to last season, testing will continue at least every other day throughout spring training and the regular season.

It looks like there will be no DH in the National League, partly because MLB, as usual, created a false equivalence. It said “We’ll give you, players, a DH, which we know you want to keep your older players in work. In return, you’ll give us extended playoffs. Most of the revenue from the postseason goes to us, but hey, that one extra guy on the payroll for each team is just the same, right?” The players and their union balked.