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.”

Feb 18

Open Thread #8, 2022

The only thing new about the negotiations between players and owners is the brevity of yesterday’s meeting: 15 minutes. From SB Nation:

ESPN’s Jeff Passan has some details of the MLBPA’s proposal. The union backed off its request for salary arbitration for all players with 2+ years of service time and instead requested 80% of the players. The players also requested an increase in the pre-arb bonus pool from $100 million to $115 million. Remember the league offered just $15 million for the bonus pool in their latest offer.

USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that the league consider’s the union’s most recent proposal of changes to the arbitration system a non-starter.

In other unhappy news, Calvin Jones has died of cancer. He was 58. He was the Dodger scout who studied and advocated signing Clayton Kershaw back in 2005-2006. Published six years ago at Bleacher Report, it’s a good story.

A couple of things about the 2006 draft: it had some very good pitchers in it. Here are the six players who went ahead of Kershaw:

  1. Luke Hochevar
  2. Greg Reynolds
  3. Evan Longoria
  4. Brad Lincoln
  5. Brandon Morrow
  6. Andrew Miller
  7. Clayton Kershaw

Then, three picks later, the Giants selected Tim Lincecum. Right after that the Diamondbacks picked Max Scherzer.

Not a bad draft, huh?

Feb 02

Open Thread #7, 2022

As if losing Seager and Scherzer and possibly Kershaw aren’t enough, now comes word that the Dodgers tried to extend RHP Walker Buehler’s contract last spring and he turned the offer down. Now, he’s under club control for another three years, hard as that may be to believe, but he’s in line for big raises through arbitration in each of the next two years, and by the time he hits free agency he’ll be about to enter his age-30 season in 2025. What if Turner, Kershaw, Bellinger and Urias are gone by that point? All of them will have completed their current contracts by that season. Will the team want to spend millions on one pitcher if the entire roster has been depleted?

Or maybe their roster will have been reloaded by then, given their Baseball American farm system ranking of #8. But is that a good bet?

The future is occasionally scary to contemplate.

Dec 03

Open Thread #3, 2021

As it stands, Max Scherzer and Corey Seager have left the Dodgers for greener pastures. Kenley Jansen may have found several teams willing to give him a longer term contract than the Dodgers are. They did re-sign Chris Taylor. Trea Turner can slide from second base to shortstop, where he’s played most of his MLB career. They’re hoping Max Muncy returns to full health, but he admitted earlier in the week that he’d torn his UCL in that last game and he wasn’t healing as quickly as he’d like.

They need starting pitching; right now they have Walker Buehler and Julio Urías. They need to re-sign Clayton Kershaw not just for sentimental reasons but because he’s still a very good starter. Their other starters include David Price and Tony Gonsolin and possibly newly-signed Andrew Heaney, whom they believe they can help improve and reduce his tendency to give up home runs.

Heaney has allowed home runs at a higher-than-average clip in three of the past four years, and he was among the game’s most homer-prone arms this past season. The former first-round pick allowed 2.01 HR per nine innings in 2021, a rate eclipsed by just five other hurlers (minimum 100 IP).

On the free agent market, the best starting pitching remaining includes Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Carlos Rodón. Trading for starters is another option, of course. And they’re waiting for Dustin May to rehabilitate from Tommy John surgery.

The lockout precludes any activities by teams or players until a new collective bargaining agreement is completed, so we may be in limbo for a while.

Oct 01

Game 160, 2021

Brewers at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: Bally Sports Wisconsin, MLBN (out-of-market only), SPNLA

LHP Eric Lauer (7-5, 2.93 ERA) pitches for the Brewers while LHP Clayton Kershaw (10-8, 3.38 ERA) takes the mound for the Dodgers.

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. On this date 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.

Lineup when available.

Sep 25

Game 155, 2021

Dodgers at Diamondbacks, 5:10 PM PDT, TV: Bally Sports Arizona, SPNLA

Note: The Giants’ game begins at the same time in Colorado.

The Dodgers’ LHP Clayton Kershaw (10-7, 3.27 ERA) makes his third start after 2 1/2 months on the injured list. He’ll face the D-Backs RHP Zac Gallen (2-10, 4.53 ERA).

This day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1941 Combined with a Cardinal defeat, the Dodgers win their first pennant in 21 years when they beat Boston at Braves Field, 6-0. Whitlow Wyatt throws a five-hitter and Pete Reiser hits a homer in the winning cause.
  • 1956 Dodger right-hander Sal Maglie no-hits the Phillies at Ebbets Field, 5-0. The ‘Barber’s’ gem helps second-place Brooklyn to keep pace in the pennant race with Milwaukee and Cincinnati.

  • 1962 After appearing in 60 games over a two-year span, Dodger reliever Ed Roebuck suffers his first loss. The LA right-hander gives up a 10th inning home run to Houston’s Al Spangler, breaking the 2-2 deadlock at Chavez Ravine.
  • 1974 In the first-of-its-kind operation, Dr. Frank Jobe transplants a tendon from Tommy John’s right wrist to the Dodger pitcher’s left elbow. The revolutionary ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, which will become a standard surgical procedure better known as Tommy John surgery, enables the southpaw to win an additional 164 games, more than half of his career total of 288 victories.
  • 1996 Giants slugger Barry Bonds draws an intentional walk which gives him the National League record with 149 bases-on-balls in a season. The free pass is issued in the seventh inning by LA’s Mark Guthrie with two outs and a runner on third base in the team’s 7-5 loss at Dodger Stadium. (Note: Bonds wasn’t done. He now holds down the top three spots in Most Walks, Hitter, Season).
  • 2008 The Diamondbacks, defending division champions, lose to St. Louis, 12-3, allowing the Dodgers to clinch the NL West. Los Angeles first-year skipper Joe Torre’s 13-year postseason streak continues, unlike the Yankees, his former team.

Lineup when available.

Sep 19

Game 150, 2021

Dodgers at Reds, Bally Sports Ohio, SPNLA, TBS

LHP Clayton Kershaw (9-7, 3.33 ERA) makes his second start for the Dodgers after 10 weeks on the IL. He’ll face the Reds’ LHP Wade Miley, (12-6, 3.09 ERA).

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1935 The Cubs win their 16th consecutive game as they beat Carl Hubbell, completing a four-game sweep of the Giants. The mark is the most since the 1924 Dodgers won 15 straight games.
  • 1964 With two outs in the bottom of the 16th inning, Willie Davis, after singling, swiping second, and advancing to third on a wild pitch, steals home, giving the Dodgers a 4-3 victory over Philadelphia. The fleet outfielder’s theft of the plate is in the latest frame in a National League game the feat has ever been accomplished and ties Hal Trosky’s major league record set in 1944.
  • 1973 Astros’ infielder Dave Campbell hits a first-inning two-run double against San Diego right-hander Clay Kirby to snap an 0-for-45 drought, tying a major league record set in 1909 by Bill Bergen, a catcher who played with Brooklyn. ‘Soup’, who will become a respected national baseball broadcaster, endured the futility while playing for three teams, combining a 17 at-bat hitless streak with the Padres and another 21 at-bat hitless streak for the Cardinals before hitting the two-bagger in his eighth at-bat with Houston.
  • 2000 A Dodger fan, in addition to other court-ordered restrictions, has been banned from attending home games in Los Angeles for 18 months. The irate patron threw coffee in the face of a Mets fan who was cheering a grand slam hit by New York’s catcher Todd Pratt.
  • 2014 LA’s Clayton Kershaw becomes the first 20-game winner of the season when the team routs Chicago at a windy Wrigley Field, 14-5. The 26 year-old southpaw, who has compiled a 20-3 (.870) record along with an ERA of 1.80. is the first Dodger hurler to reach the 20-win plateau twice since Claude Osteen accomplished the feat in 1969 and 1972.

Lineup when available.

Sep 13

Game 145, 2021

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

RHP Zac Gallen (2-9, 4.32 ERA) pitches for the D-Backs against the freshly-off-the-IL LHP Clayton Kershaw (9-7, 3.39 ERA). I expect that Kershaw will pitch no more than four innings unless the Dodgers are leading, in which case I suspect he’ll try to talk Roberts into letting him go one more to become eligible for the win.

On this day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1925 In the first game of a twin bill, Robins’ (Dodgers) starter Dazzy Vance no-hits the Phillies at Ebbets Field, 10-1. The Brooklyn hurler had one-hit the team from the City of Brotherly Love five days earlier.
  • 2005 During the six-run second inning uprising by San Diego, each Dodger outfielder commits an error. The fielding of Ricky Ledee (lf), Jose Cruz Jr. (right field), and Jayson Werth (cf) contributes to the 6-4 loss to the first place Padres.

Lineup when available.

Aug 28

Game 130, 2021

Rockies at Dodgers, 6:10 PM PDT, TV: Bally SportsNet RM, SPNLA

RHP Jon Gray (7-10, 4.13 ERA) gets the ball for the Rockies and LHP David Price (4-2, 3.82 ERA) takes it for the Dodgers.

Kershaw threw another bullpen session:

throwing about 30 pitches, which is closer to his normal workload. He also threw sliders and curveballs for the first time.

Betts may play at 2B today, and Muncy could start today as well.

This day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1945 A moment in American history takes place in Brooklyn as Branch Rickey meets with Jackie Robinson to share his plans to integrate the major leagues. During the three hour meeting, the Dodgers’ president will shout racial epithets to ‘test’ the 26 year-old ballplayer’s mettle to withstand the abuse which will come with being the first player to cross the color line this century.
  • 1951 The Giants’ 16-game winning streak comes to end when Howie Pollet six-hits the team in the Pirates’ 2-0 victory at the Polo Grounds. The consecutive victories enabled Leo Durocher and his club to narrow the Dodgers’ lead from 13.5 to six games.
  • 1967 Giants hurler Gaylord Perry begins the longest consecutive inning scoreless streak in franchise history when he shuts out the Dodgers at Candlestick Park, 7-0. The right-hander will not give up another run over a span of 40 innings, a feat the son of a tenant farmer from North Carolina will repeat three seasons later.
  • 1977 Steve Garvey collects five extra-base hits in one game when he bashes three doubles and two homers, including a grand slam, in the Dodgers’ 11-0 rout over St. Louis at Chavez Ravine. The LA first baseman becomes just the fourth major leaguer to accomplish the feat, joining Lou Boudreau (1946 Indians – HR, four 2B), Joe Adcock (1954 Braves – four HR, 2B), and Willie Stargell (1970 Pirates – two HR, three 2B).
  • 2003 Eric Gagne earns his 44th straight save in the Dodgers’ 6-3 victory over the Astros at Minute Maid Park. The Los Angeles reliever’s effort establishes a new major league record, surpassing Tom Gordon, who had saved 43 in a row to begin a season with the Red Sox in 1998.
  • 2008 In the 11-2 victory over the Dodgers, Cristian Guzman becomes the second player in Nationals history to hit for the cycle, joining Brad Wilkerson, who accomplished the feat in 2005, the team’s first year in Washington, D.C. The 30 year-old shortstop completes his cycle with an eighth inning triple.
  • 2015 “Vin will be back for one more year (at least). God bless us, everyone” – JIMMY KIMMEL’s cue card message to the crowd.

    Team executive Magic Johnson, appearing on the Dodger Stadium video board, introduces Jimmy Kimmel to report “big, breaking news.” The ABC late-night television host, who waves to the fans without saying a word, displays a succession of cue cards, informing the Chavez Ravine crowd the 87 year-old Vin Scully will be returning to broadcast Dodgers games in 2016 for his 67th season.

Lineup when available.

Aug 17

Game 120, 2021

Today’s game marks exactly twice the number of games played last year.

Pirates at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: ATT SportsNet PIT, SPNLA

RHP Wil Crowe (3-7, 5.27 ERA) goes for the Buccos and LHP David Price (4-1, 3.60 ERA) goes for the Dodgers.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1992 Kevin Gross, retiring 22 of the final 23 batters he faces on his wife’s birthday, no-hits the Giants at Dodger Stadium, 2-0. The LA right-hander’s no-no averts the team from being swept in a four-game series at home against the Giants for the first time in 69 years.
  • 2013 Clayton Kershaw blanks the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, 5-0, giving the Dodgers their first double-digit winning streak since 2006. The team’s 42 victories in their last fifty games, including a 25-3 mark since the All-Star break, equals the 1941 Yankees and 1942 Cardinals for the best record for that span of games since 1900.

Lineup when available.