Oct 26

World Series Game Three, 2018


Red Sox at Dodgers, 5:09 PM PDT, TV: Fox

The visiting Sox send RHP Rick Porcello (17-7, 4.28 ERA) to the Dodger Stadium mound to face the Dodgers’ RHP Walker Buehler (8=5, 2.62 ERA). Porcello has made several relief appearances in this postseason as well as two starts, and he’s 1-0 with a 4.22 ERA. Buehler is 0-1 with a 3.86 ERA in his three starts this postseason. He started Game Seven of the NLCS and gave up one run on a homer by Yelich in the 4 2/3 innings he worked.

Which Dodgers are hitting well in the postseason and which are not?

From The Athletic:

…37 percent of the 38 teams to return home down 0-2 in a World Series battled back to tie the Series by Game 4. That doesn’t mean the odds are in L.A.’s favor, but the history is more favorable than you might expect.

This will be the third time this postseason Buehler has started “the most important game” for his team.

Today in Red Sox’ history:

  • 1934 While Washington Senators player-manager Joe Cronin honeymoons with Mildred Robertson, owner Clark Griffith’s niece and adopted daughter, he is sold to Red Sox.
  • 2004 Pedro Martinez, Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke combine on a four-hitter to lead the Red Sox to a 4-1 victory in Game Three of the World Series.
  • 2013 The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Boston Red Sox to lead the MLB 2013 World Series 2-1

Today in Dodgers’ history: They’ve never played a game on October 26 until this year.

Lineups when available.

Dodgers:


Red Sox:


Jul 13

Game 94, 2018

Angels at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: SPNLA, FS-W

The visiting Angels send out RHP Felix Peña (1-0, 3.63 ERA), who will be making his fifth start. He went 5 1/3 innings against the Dodgers last Friday and gave up two runs. The Angels came out on top thanks to a two-error 9th inning by the Dodgers, but he didn’t figure in the decision. He’ll face the Dodgers’ RHP Walker Buehler (4-2, 3.44 ERA), who’s been on the DL with microfractured ribs suffered on May 21. He’s had one rehab start and a five-inning simulated game and the Dodgers think he’s healed.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1939 The Red Sox send 21 year-old farmhand Pee Wee Reese to the Dodgers for $35,000 and a player to be named later (Red Evans), along with three minor leaguers due to a less-than-enthusiastic scouting report filed by Joe Cronin, the team’s current player-manager, who deliberately downplayed the prospect’s talent to keep his own job in the Boston infield. The Louisville Colonels regular shortstop, a future Hall of Famer, will become a crowd favorite, helping Brooklyn to win seven pennants during his 16 seasons with the team.
  • 1949 Jackie Robinson testifies in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, reading a carefully worded statement put together with the help of Dodger GM Branch Rickey. The Brooklyn second baseman’s statement makes it clear he disagrees with singer and actor Paul Robeson’s belief that American Negroes would refuse to fight in any war against Russia due to the country’s racial discrimination toward blacks.

Chase Utley announced he will retire at the end of this season.

Lineup:


Jul 10

Game 91, 2018

Dodgers at Padres, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: SPNLA, FSSD

Today’s menu has two lefties, Rich Hill (2-3, 4.56 ERA) for the Dodgers and Eric Lauer (4-5, 4.54 ERA) for the Friars. Hill seems to have recovered from his blister problems (knock on wood) and is making his regular turn despite sustaining a stiff neck in a headfirst slide his last time out. Lauer is a rookie who’s 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA since the first of June.

On this date in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1943 Some of the Dodgers, led by infielder Arky Vaughan, threaten not to play in today’s game to protest the suspension of their teammate Bobo Newsome by manager Leo Durocher. The Ebbets Field contest begins ten minutes late. Brooklyn plundered the Pirates, 23-6, and in a few days, Newsome, who had argued with his skipper over a pitch selection in a previous game, is traded to the Browns for Archie McKain and Fritz Ostermueller.
  • 1953 With Roy Campanella’s home run off Giants hurler Sal Maglie, the Dodgers establish a National League record, homering in their 24th consecutive game. Campy’s homer is the only run Brooklyn scores as the Giants extend their winning streak to seven with the 6-1 victory.
  • 1979 With his team trailing the Padres 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs at Veterans Stadium, Phillies pinch hitter Del Unser hits a three-run walk-off home run, giving the team a 6-5 comeback victory. The dramatic dinger makes Del Unser only the second player in major league history to hit a homer in three consecutive at bats as a pinch hitter, a feat also accomplished by Lee Lacy of the Dodgers last season.
  • 1984 At San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, Dodger southpaw Fernando Valenzuela and Mets rookie Dwight Gooden combine to strike out six consecutive American League All-Stars on the 50th anniversary of Carl Hubbell’s memorable 1934 Midsummer Classic performance of setting down five future Hall of Famers on strikes. Dwight Gooden, at the age of 19, becomes the youngest player ever to participate in an All-Star Game.

In one of the most famous events in baseball history, at the All Star Game in 1934 in New York’s Polo Grounds, Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell faces a starting lineup comprised of nine eventual Hall of Famers. ‘King Carl’ is up to the unique occurrence in baseball history when he fans five batters in a row after letting the first two hitters reach base: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin.

Lineup when available.


Sep 20

Game 152, 2017

Dodgers at Phillies, 4:05 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, CSN-P

If the Dodgers win and the D-Backs lose the Dodgers clinch the NL West.

LHP Alex Wood (15-3, 2.69 ERA) goes for the Dodgers and RHP Jake Thompson (2-2, 4.46 ERA) goes for the Phillies.

Wood seems to be mostly recovered from the sternum problem which sent him to the DL. In his last start he pitched six scoreless innings and gave up just three hits to the Nats. Thompson is making only his seventh start of the year and has given up one or no runs in two of his last three starts. In that other one, however, he gave up seven runs, five earned, in five innings.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1907 At Exposition Park in Pittsburgh, Nick Maddox no-hits the Dodgers, 2-1. At the age of 20 years and ten months, the Pirates hurler becomes the youngest pitcher and the second rookie to throw a no-hitter.
  • 1911 Bill Bergen ends his major league career with the lowest lifetime batting average for a position player in major league history by hitting an anemic .170 during his 11-year tenure with the Reds and Superbas. The 33 year-old backstop, who had only one year of batting above .200, also holds the records for lowest season batting average for a regular season (.139 in 1909) and the longest streak of at-bats without a hit (46 in 1909).
  • 1954 The Giants clinch the pennant when they beat the Dodgers at Ebbets Field, 7-1. The National League champs, finishing the season five games ahead of second-place Brooklyn, will go on to sweep Cleveland in the Fall Classic.
  • 1959 The San Francisco Giants, bowing to the Dodgers, 8-2, play their last game at Seals Stadium. The transplanted New York team, who compiled a 163-145 record in their two-year stay in the former PCL park, will move to the newly constructed Candlestick Park next season.
  • 1961 In a 13-inning contest, Sandy Koufax goes the distance, beating the Cubs, 3-2, in the last regular season game to be played at the LA Memorial Coliseum, which was originally built for the 1932 Olympics. The Dodgers are leaving the only home they have known since moving from Brooklyn four seasons ago to play in a brand new stadium in Chavez Ravine, located a few miles from downtown Los Angeles.
  • 2011 Clayton Kershaw becomes the Dodgers’ first 20-game winner since Ramon Martinez accomplished the feat in 1990. Allowing just one run in 7 1/3 innings, the southpaw gets the victory when LA beats the visiting Giants, 2-1.
  • 2012 Washington secures a playoff spot when they beat the Dodgers at Nationals Park, 4-1. The last time there was postseason baseball in the nation’s capital occurred 79 years ago, when player-skipper Joe Cronin and the Senators lost to the Giants in five games in the 1933 World Series.

Lineup:

Jul 18

Game 94, 2017

Dodgers at White Sox, 5:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, WGN

The Dodgers try to make it ten straight wins tonight in Chicago at what was once called “New Comiskey Park” and is now called “Guaranteed Rate Field.” Blech. That name is newer (2016) than the two teams by a long shot: the Dodgers were first established in the late 1800s and the White Sox were charter members of the American League in 1901.

The teams first met in the 1959 World Series when the Dodgers claimed the title in six games. The teams first got together during the regular season in 2003 with the White Sox taking two of three games. They haven’t played each other since Chicago took two of three in ’14. The White Sox hold a 16-11 advantage all-time over the Dodgers.

Is the Dodgers’ “surge” sustainable for the rest of the year?

The Dodgers send LHP Clayton Kershaw (14-2, 2.18 ERA) out tonight to face RHP Miguel Gonzalez (4-8, 5.15 ERA). Kershaw has been on a roll; he’s won ten straight and his last loss was May 1. Gonzalez has been rehabbing shoulder joint inflammation since mid-June and has lost eight of his last nine decisions.

This day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1939 The Red Sox send 21 year-old farmhand Pee Wee Reese to the Dodgers for $35,000 and a player to be named later (Red Evans), along with three minor leaguers due to a less-than-enthusiastic scouting report filed by Joe Cronin, the team’s current player-manager, who deliberately downplayed the prospect’s talent to keep his own job in the Boston infield. The Louisville Colonels regular shortstop, a future Hall of Famer, will become a crowd favorite, helping Brooklyn to win seven pennants during his 16 seasons with the team.
  • 1949 Jackie Robinson testifies in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, reading a carefully worded statement put together with the help of Dodger GM Branch Rickey. The Brooklyn second baseman’s statement makes it clear he disagrees with singer and actor Paul Robeson’s belief that American Negroes would refuse to fight in any war against Russia due to the country’s racial discrimination toward blacks.

Lineup when available.