Apr 08

Game Three, 2015

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Padres at Dodgers, 7:10PT, TV: SNLA Spanish, SportsNet LA, ESPN2

Each team has won one game in the opening Clash of the Titans of the NL West, so tonight is the rubber match. The Padres send out Andrew Cashner, who’s 1-2 lifetime against the Dodgers. Don’t let that fool you, though. He’s got a 1.53 ERA with 45 Ks in 53 innings against the home team. His opponent will be Brandon McCarthy, who last year had a 2.61 ERA against the Padres in two starts for the D-Backs, giving up one run in 14 innings.

Adrian Gonzalez is 6 for 9 (.667) to start the season, with 2 singles, 2 doubles, 2 home runs and 4 runs scored. Jimmy Rollins and Howie Kendrick are each 3 for 8 (.375), Carl Crawford is 2 for 6, and nobody else has more than one hit.

Lineup:

Apr 07

Game Two, 2015

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Padres at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PT, TV: SNLA Spanish, SportsNet LA

In their Opening Day game the Dodgers came back to win a game, something they had a terrible time doing last year. Better, they won it on the strength of a home run from one of their newcomers, Jimmy Rollins. Rollins went 2 for 4 on the day. Another Jimmy, Mr. Wynn, started his Dodger career the same way, going 3 for 5 with a home run in his first game in Blue back in 1974.

Today’s pitching matchup pits Zack Greinke for the Dodgers versus Tyson Ross (isn’t that name better suited for a prizefighter?) for the Padres. Greinke is 4-0 with a 1.84 ERA in his career against the Padres, while Ross was 0-4 against the Dodgers in four starts last year, albeit with a 2.67 ERA. He didn’t get a lot of help from his offense, obviously. Overall, Ross had a good year on a bad team. He was 13-14 with a 2.81 ERA. He struck out one batter per inning and gave up 30 fewer hits than innings pitched.

Lineup:

Apr 05

Opening Day 2015

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Padres at Dodgers, 1:10pm PT, Dodger Stadium

Here it is at last, the first day of the new season, with the changes the new management made over the winter soon to be on display.

Will Jimmy Rollins play better defense than Hanley Ramirez? Will Howie Kendrick hit better than Dee Gordon? Will Kershaw win a fourth Cy Young Award? Can he lead the National League in ERA for the fifth consecutive year? Will Hyun-Jin Ryu recover from his shoulder woes and win more than fourteen games? Can Kenley Jansen come back from his foot woes and regain his form as an elite closer? Will the Dodgers miss Matt Kemp’s bat more than they’ll be helped by Puig’s play in right field? Can Uribe play up to his standard of the past two years while remaining healthy enough to play 125 games or so? Can Justin Turner keep up his torrid hitting from last year while coming off the bench and playing all over the infield? Will Joc Pederson keep up the hitting he did in spring training? What’s going to happen with André Ethier?

Questions, we have questions. Today we start getting answers.

Lineup:

Apr 05

Pre-season predictions

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Anybody who wants to make a prediction about the Dodgers finish this year, here’s the place for it.

In the previous post Howard Fox said “2015 prediction: final record 85-77 due to lack of pitching consistency, miss playoffs by 1 or 2 games, Donnie fired the day after the season ends, Padres win the World Series.”

Who’s next?

Mar 27

Friday Night Giants

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Vinnie does his one-and-only game from Camelback Ranch tonight on SPNLA.

Lineup:

Mar 18

Yet another cutdown day

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The Dodgers sent six players to minor league camp after today’s game, including top prospect Corey Seager:

In addition to Seager, outfielder Scott Schebler was optioned, while infielder Buck Britton, utilityman Darnell Sweeney and catchers Shawn Zarraga and Chris O’Brien were assigned to Minor League camp.

The Dodgers have 42 active players in camp, plus injured pitchers Chris Withrow and Brandon Beachy.

Click the link if only to see what Seager looks like with his hat off. My lord, I think he’s 15 years old.

Mar 15

NCAA Tournament 2015

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Anyone interested in joining the Elysian Fields group to pick the winner(s) should go here and join up.

Group name: Elysian Fields
Password: hershiser59

From the rulebook:

Lock-time. All picks will lock at the scheduled tip off time of the Tournament currently scheduled for Thursday, March 19, 2015. Your picks for the matchups must be submitted, received and recorded by Sponsor’s computer by the scheduled locktime. Selections submitted after the deadline are considered invalid. Sponsor’s computer is the official time-keeping device for this Promotion.

Mar 09

Kershaw Day

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Not only does he get the start today against the Rockies, but Baseball Prospectus published several stories about the new daddy in their March 9 blog post. Look in the “Today at Baseball Prospectus” section on the front page.

Update: Headline: Time Warner Cable ‘Actively Pursuing’ Talks to Finally Lift Dodger Blackout

Nonsense. The article says TWC is trying to sign the other distributors up without lowering its $4.90 per subscriber fee. So what concession has TWC made to them? Looks like none to me.

Mar 01

First Cactus League game is Wednesday

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Erik Bedard will start it against the White Sox. He’ll probably go only two innings or so.

Thursday Clayton Kershaw will start, also against the White Sox. Friday is a split-squad day.

In much sadder news, Minnie Minoso passed away today. He was the first black player on either team in Chicago after he was traded to the White Sox in 1951, two years after he came up with the Cleveland Indians. Young people remember him, if they do at all, as the guy who kept getting active long enough to appear in a game or two in the Seventies and Eighties after his 40th birthday as an owner’s gimmick. That’s a shame, as he was a great ballplayer, a nine-time All Star who had nearly 2,000 hits and a career .298 batting average in his 15 years as a regular outfielder in the big leagues.