Game 160, 2017

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Dodgers at Rockies, 5:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ATT Sportsnet RM, MLBN (out-of-market only)

Why are baseball games always scheduled to start at five or ten minutes after the hour?

The Dodgers open their final series of the 2017 season with LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu (5-8, 3.47 ERA) pitching in the rarefied air of Coors Field against RHP Chad Bettis (1-4, 5.72 ERA).

Ryu has been very good since the All Star break, going 2-2 in ten starts with a 2.42 ERA. He’s in a tussle with Alex Wood for a spot in the post-season rotation. Bettis had a good outing his last time out, giving up just one run on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings last weekend in San Diego. He’s battling for a spot on the Rockies’ post-season roster if they get in. The Rockies have a two-game lead over the Brewers for the second National League Wild Card spot. If they win and a Brewers lose tonight they’ll clinch it.

The Dodgers select IF/OF Tim Locastro’s contract from OKC.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1951 Don Newcombe becomes the first African-American to win twenty games in a season. In a must win for the Dodgers, the right-hander bests Robin Roberts, also a 20-game-winner, when he blanks the Phillies at Shibe Park, 5-0.
  • 1959 At the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, the Dodgers capture the NL flag with a dramatic 6-5 come-from-behind victory over the Braves, taking the first two games of the three-game playoff necessitated by the teams being tied on the last day of the season. The deciding run comes in the bottom of the 12th inning, after the first two batters make outs, when Gil Hodges walks and scores on singles by Joe Pignatano and Carl Furillo.
  • 1976 Tommy Lasorda is named to succeed Walter Alston as Dodger manager. ‘Smokey’ compiled a 2040-1613 record (.558), during his 23-year tenure with the club, winning seven pennants, and four world championships.
  • 1979 Manny Mota sets a major league record with his 146th career pinch hit, a single to right field, in LA’s 6-2 victory over Chicago at Dodger Stadium. The Dominican Republic native surpasses the all-time record set by Smoky Burgess, who collected his last hit as a pinch-hitter in 1967.
  • 2000 Gary Sheffield ties the Dodgers’ franchise single-season home run record when he goes deep off Woody Williams in the team’s 3-0 victory over San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium. The left fielder, with his career best 43rd round tripper, now shares the team mark with Duke Snider, who established the record in 1956 when he played for Brooklyn.

Today is also the anniversary of The Catch (the Willie Mays one, not the Dwight Clark one):

Lineup when available.

124 thoughts on “Game 160, 2017”

      • Klayton has been used on short rest the past three NLDS when the Dodgers were down 1-2, so yeah. Wood might still be used to start game 4 depending on the circumstances and still appear in game 1 or 2 as a short reliever, which would be like off day work. It was Mattingly who used him to start game 4 in 2013, when the Dodgers were up 2-1, looking for the kill.

    • The effectiveness of curve balls is said to be diminished in Coors, and even in the Snake Pit, so that probably contributes to Ryu’s woes. Perhaps Hill’s is so good that he would have less of a problem. Still, if it is to be the Rox, then maybe Darvish and Hill switch for the start in Coors.

      • I was thinking about the breaking ball up there as well, so as you mentioned last night, I was wondering about judging just on that one game (it IS Coors Field — I know it’s not the favorite place for Kersh . . . we’ll find out).
        But apparently Ryu hasn’t done well vs. CO wherever the game is played, so that’s a contributing factor.
        It’s apparent the FO are fans of metrics, as it appears they have all these stats.

        • Hill has never pitched for the Dodgers in Coors. Very poor record prior to that there, though he was a different pitcher then.

  5. Those recent laughers vs. SD were nice, and needed.
    Lack of connection to postseason or not, it would be nice to beat a winning team going into it since they haven’t done it since two weeks ago tomorrow.

  14. Since the Astros have won, “it will be is the first season since 2003 with three 100-win teams and just the sixth in history (also 2002, 1998, 1977 and 1942).”

  17. Postseason roster rules:<

    (2) Submission of Rosters. Each Major League Club that participates in a postseason series (including the Wild Card Game) must establish for each such series, from its complement of eligible players, an active roster of no more than 25 (and no less than 24) players and transmit such active roster to the Office of the Commissioner at such time before the scheduled start of each post-season series as the Commissioner or the Commissioner’s designee may set. Each player named to the roster for a series must be expected to be physically able to perform at some point in such series. No player on the Disabled List whose minimum period of inactivity has not yet expired before the scheduled start of the post-season series may be named to the roster for such series or otherwise replaced under this Rule 40. Except as permitted in Rule 40(a)(4), there shall be no substitutions made during a post-season series following a Major League Club’s submission of its active roster for that series.

  19. Lose by 1, lose by a dozen, it’s still just one loss.
    The sloppy play, tho, is another matter.

  22. (If this has already been addressed, sorry)
    When are the rosters due before each round? I would think LA would have until after the WC game to determine theirs. If CO is in the mix, one would think pitching in Coors Field plays a big part in the final determinations, as tonight proves. (A very specific reason why HFA is important.)

    • I expect on the morning of the first game. However, it would seem only fair to require wild card teams to go with the same roster through the NLDS – otherwise, they can load up with bullpen and bench players instead of their starting pitchers.

  27. Did anyone catch what Alana was mentioning about one Dodger player possibly making the post-season roster as a burner (I.e. a pinch runner)? I didn’t hear who they were taking about.

  29. The ump is not at all consistent on his strike zone – especially low. Called low strikes vs Bellinger and Puig but not for Colorado.

  38. I look away for five minutes with two outs and the Rockies score three? Yikes. Could be a long night.

  44. HFA aside – the Spiders are winning 6-0 already – the Dodgers owe it to the Cerveceros to put their best possible lineup out there.

  45. Link! Look at you pulling out the philosophical questions right at the end of the regular season.
    Why do games start after the hour indeed?!

  47. The source on This Day in Dodger History left out a key element of the pennant-winning game in 1959, Felix Mantilla’s error. Here is part of the story by Braven Dyer of the L.A. Times:
    “Carl Furillo, at 37 the elder statesman of the Dodgers, was the last player to come to bat and his bounder behind second base with two outs in the 12th started the play which sent Gil
    Hodges across with the winning run.
    “It was ruled a hit, but what actually cooked the Braves was Felix Mantilla’s wild throw to first. The ball bounded in front of Frank Torre and then skidded by the Milwaukee first sacker, hit Dodger coach Greg Mulleavy on the shoulder and wound up in the stands while Hodges crossed the plate and ran into the wildest reception party in Coliseum history as all the Dodgers poured from the dugout and pounded him purple. … ”
    The Dodgers had trailed 5-2 but scored three runs in the bottom of the 9th to send the game into extra innings.

      • I expect the Spokane Spokesman-Review gave the story real good play because that is where the Dodgers had a Triple-A franchise for many years. My wife grew up in Spokane and she saw many of the past and future Dodgers, including, in 1959, Roger Craig, Tommy Davis, Frank Howard, Phil Ortega, Norm Sherry and Maury Wills, who was called up that June.

        • I was once on a plane with Peter O’Malley from Spokane to Seattle, and saw many of those future Dodgers when they visited Tacoma. I also saw Maury when he was a Seattle Rainier, but only on TV (I once had a Rainiers baseball card of his on the backing of a HyGrade Hotdogs package).