Game 2, 2019

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Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: FS-A, SPNLA

It’ll be Robbie Ray for the visitors versus Ross (Chicken Strip) Stripling for the Dodgers. Stripling has had all winter to fix his pitch-tipping problem, which kept him off postseason rosters for all three series the Dodgers played last year. Ray struggled for the first four months of last year and didn’t throw consecutive quality starts until September, but over his last eight starts he had a 2.09 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 43 innings.

MLB is all-in on technology these days, says Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Cold and clear as verity, a new dawn broke over Camelback Ranch, spring home of the Dodgers. So did morning. In one batting cage at the Glendale, Ariz., complex last month—not the cage with ground force measurement plates—rookie outfielder Alex Verdugo, 22, took batting practice while tethered to a laptop computer by two dozen thick white wires sprouting like vines from a harness around his hips and torso. Behind him, also in the cage, two technicians monitored the 3D motion images of Verdugo and his swing.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1935 The reigning National League champion Cardinals release 44 year-old right-hander Dazzy Vance, who appeared in his first and only World Series during his one season with the team. The future Hall of Fame hurler will return to the Dodgers, where he spent the most productive years of his career, finishing his major league 16-year tenure in the major leagues with a 197-140 (.585) record along with an ERA of 3.24.
  • 2008 In an exhibition game celebrating the club’s 50th anniversary of their move west from Brooklyn, the Dodgers lose to the Red Sox in front of 115,300 fans at the LA Coliseum. The crowd is the largest ever to watch a baseball game, surpassing the previous record when approximately 114,000 patrons attended an exhibition contest between the Australian national team and an American services team during the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.
  • 2017 The Dodgers commemorate Kirk Gibson’s historic pinch-hit, walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series by offering a special ticket package to sit in the right-field pavilion seat, recently painted blue and autographed by him, where the ball landed. The team is donating two-thirds of the $300 price of the ducats, which includes a companion seat, two commemorative T-shirts and food and drink, to the Kirk Gibson Foundation to raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s research, the neurological disease which affects the Fall Classic hero.

Lineup when available.


87 thoughts on “Game 2, 2019”

  2. Guess I didn’t miss much last night. I note that the game ended around 5 a.m. Chilean time.

    • It reminded me so much of an early season game against Arizona last year. The 8-7 extra inning loss where Jansen gave up a 2 out bottom of the ninth 3 run HR to send it to extras. That was a harder one to swallow than last night’s game.

      I know players have to produce when called upon but I still wonder why Roberts pulled Stripling before completeing the 6th inning. It felt like it caused the pen to cover extra outs that eventually cost them.

      • Things didn’t turn out, but hard to pin it on Doc taking out Stripling, which was not a particularly bad move either for the longer term (It being his first start out of ST) or the short term (you still had your pen rotation of Baez (7th), Kelley (8th) and Kenley (9th).

        • I do hear you on this. I guess in the end it comes down to players not performing. And not simply a couple of relievers. The hitters stranded 17 runners on base.

  15. Jansen needs to shut them down in the top of the ninth so that A.J. (and company as needed) can win it in the bottom of the ninth.

      • Yeah, but he’s a 20-HR guy too. One bunt to see if he could move them over, okay, but…as it was he hit a hard line drive when he was allowed to swing.

    • I actually think he will be (mostly) fine. Sometimes the opening act is not the best part of the show.

  45. So much for a healthy bullpen. Looking at you Báez. And you too Joe Kelly.

  49. Tuning in late tonight. Looks like A.J. is enjoying the night vs his former team.

      • Seemed a bit quick. But it’s early in the season and maybe Roberts wants to play a bit cautiously with Stripling.

    • As long as they don’t stay in the clubhouse, I think everything should be OK.

  58. I’ll be absent tonight, partly because it’s a late game and also because the country inn I’m staying cuts off the WiFi at midnight.