Category Archives: Spring Training

Mar 26

Freeway Series, Game Three, 2024

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Dodgers at Angels, 6:07 PM PDT, TV: Bally Sports West, SPNLA. The series moves south to Anaheim to wrap up.

LHP James Paxton (0-0, 4.50 ERA Spring Training) will make his second start of the spring for the Dodgers; he’ll face RHP Chase Silseth (1-0, 1.08 ERA Spring Training), who will make his fourth appearance of the spring and his third start for the Angels.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1984 President Ronald Reagan awards Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color line playing for the Dodgers in 1947, the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. On behalf of her late husband, Rachel Robinson accepts the award, the highest civilian honor given in the United States.

Lineups when available.

Mar 24

Freeway Series, Game One, 2024

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Angels at Dodgers, 4:10 PM PDT, TV: Bally Sports West, SPNLA

RHP Griffin Canning (Spring Training 0-1, 2.25 ERA) goes for the Angels and RHP Bobby Miller (Spring Training 0-1, 4.32 ERA) goes for the Dodgers.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1947 During a four-hour hearing with Commissioner Chandler at the Sarasota Terrace Hotel, Dodger manager Leo Durocher admits to playing occasional card games for money with Kirby Higbe. Before Opening Day, Chandler will suspend the Brooklyn skipper for the 1947 season for “association with known gamblers.”
  • 1959 A photo of Pete Whisenant taken before an exhibition game played against the Dodgers in Havana, Cuba, shows the Reds outfielder toting a machine gun. The weapon shown in the posed picture belongs to a rebel from Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army.
  • 1982 When Fernando Valenzuela ends his three-week holdout, the Dodgers automatically renew the southpaw’s contract for a reported $350,000. The National League Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year Award recipient, after earning just $42,500 in his freshman season, still refuses to sign the deal that makes him the highest-paid second-year player in baseball history, having asked for a raise to $850,000.
  • 2006 At Mickey Mantle’s Manhattan restaurant, the U.S. Postal Service unveils the Baseball Sluggers postage stamps, to be issued before the game against the White Sox at Yankee Stadium on July 15. The four featured Hall of Famers all have roots in New York, with Mickey Mantle (Yankees), Mel Ott (Giants), and Roy Campanella (Dodgers) playing their entire careers in the Big Apple, and the fourth, Hank Greenberg, setting schoolboy records at James Monroe High School in the Bronx.

Lineups:

Mar 13

Spring Training #3, 2024

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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!

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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

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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.