Dusty Baker retires.
Of all the World Series Game Ones, which are the best? Here’s a highly-subjective list.
The Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte has a 16-game hitting streak this postseason. 16 D-Backs games, 19 hits.
Rangers-D-backs. Hundred losses each two years ago. Maybe this series would have looked like a 1,000-to-1 shot at the time. Game 1 Friday night. Let’s play seven.
If you’re thinking of flying to Phoenix to see a World Series game, it’ll cost you between $480 – $2800 per ticket.
Cubs at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: Marquee Sports Network, MLBN (out-of-market only), SPNLA
RHP Keegan Thompson (7-3, 3.41 ERA) pitches for the Cubs tonight and LHP Tyler Anderson (9-1, 3.09 ERA) pitches for the Dodgers. Thompson was a reliever until May of this year when the Cubs turned him into a starter. He’s now made ten starts; only two of them have extended into the 6th inning. In his last start his defense made some errors behind him and he threw 86 pitches in just four innings. After losing his previous start in Colorado Anderson went 6 1/3 innings, gave up one run on six hits and got the win in his next one last Friday.
Today in Dodgers’ history:
In the “Dubious Moments in Baseball History” column comes this item: in 1979 the Mets announce the selection of Mettle as the name for the team’s new mascot mule. Dolores Mapps of Mercerville, N.J., who submitted the winning entry, believes the moniker captures the team’s “spirit, ardor, stamina, and courage, all of which the Mets have in abundance.”
In a slightly more aesthetic moment, back in 1994 Red Sox shortstop John Valentin snares Marc Newfield’s sixth-inning line drive, steps on second to retire Mike Blowers, and then tags the runner coming from first, Kevin Mitchell, to turn an unassisted triple play. After completing the rare feat, accomplishing a play that has occurred only ten times in major league history, the infielder begins a three-homer outburst by Boston in the bottom of the frame, helping the team defeat the Mariners at Fenway Park, 4-3.
Lineups when available.
Here is tonight's #Cubs starting lineup in Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/vs81QMUKXZ
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 8, 2022
Tonight’s #Dodgers lineup vs. Cubs: pic.twitter.com/H9EdzhxEJI
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 8, 2022
And, the game started and ended before I could write a post about it. Rats.
Oh well, the Dodgers won behind 7 strong innings from Julio Urías. Good thing, as the bullpen was pretty much gassed.
The Dodgers are generous hosts to the Cubs in the first of a four-game series, amassing no hits against an array of four Cubs pitchers.
Cardinals blasted by Dodgers, lose 14-3.
My radiation appointment was scheduled to end at 11:30. I thought I’d have plenty of time to write up a preview of this game. My radiation oncologist didn’t like the swelling in my left foot and sent me for ultrasounds. At 4:00 I was finally able to leave.
From The Athletic:
Machado and the Dodgers’ attempts to keep him from pressing.
Freese, seemingly impervious to big-moment pressure.
Madson and the late-season adjustment.
From the LA Times:
Plaschke on Game Four.
Dylan Hernandez on Freese.
Andy McCullough on Machado and more.
Jorge Castillo and Andy McCullough on NLCS Game One starter Kershaw.
Houston Mitchell on the Dodgers’ previous results against the Brewers.
In his regular Dodgers Dugout column Houston Mitchell of the LA Times does a position-by-position comparison between the Dodgers and Astros, which I think is tilted a little toward his hometown team. But here’s what I found interesting in the column: a discussion of ticket pricing and a prescription for what to do about the secondary market.
There’s something wrong in the world when I can fly to Houston, stay overnight and buy a ticket for a World Series game there for cheaper than I can stay in L.A. and buy a ticket for a game here.
Places like StubHub are asking for $1,250 for a seat in the top deck. Unless you were the lucky ones to win the chance to buy tickets through the Dodgers.com lottery, there’s no way an average fan can attend a game. That’s a crime. I have kids to send to college. Am I supposed to tell them, “Sorry, no college for you so we can go to a World Series game?”
If I was the Dodgers, here’s what I would do:
1. Discover which Dodgers fans are selling their tickets through a secondary market for a jacked-up price and bar them from ever buying a postseason ticket again.
2. Buy up as many secondary tickets as I could and pull more names from the online lottery. Sell the tickets to those people.
I was curious and looked at StubHub; I discovered that the least-expensive ticket available for a game at Dodger Stadium was $950, and that was a week ago. I don’t know if Mitchell’s suggestion would work, but he’s definitely got a point. Of course, this isn’t new. I remember a Roger Angell column from 40 years ago in which he wrote of a conversation with a player in the Series who looked up in the stands and asked “where are all the people who were here all year,” meaning all the seats were now in the hands and fannies of corporations and the like, not the long-term fans.
Seager is healthy enough to play, they and he say. Also, Charlie Culberson kept the ball he caught for the final out of NLCS Game Four, but he hasn’t yet found a really good place to display it.
Here’s an interview with Orel Hershiser in which he insists that what he did in 1988 (and there’s a brief recap of the number of appearances he made in the postseason) could still be done by today’s athletes if needed, but lineups and bullpens are built differently now.
Sports Illustrated baseball writers predict the Series outcome.
Venezuelan ballplayers move to Miami for safety.
USA Today picks its best All Star Game performers at each position. Garvey and Drysdale make the cut.
Miami is home to passionate players as well as fans.
Cheers, All-Stars! #LetsGoDodgers pic.twitter.com/6dXZSezGW0
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 10, 2017
What’s it like to be Latino in MLB today? Prospects, starters and future Hall of Famers share their stories.
From ESPN: Beisbol Experience MLB 50-man interview
“We are not understood. We have to adapt. There are things we are not used to doing in our countries. When you keep doing things wrong, people get tired; I even got tired myself. There should not be so many rules. You just have to do your job and let people have fun, which is what I was doing in 2013. They’ve wanted to change so many things about me that I feel so off. I don’t feel like the player I was in 2013.”
YASIEL PUIG, DODGERS, CUBA
Unused sports venues can represent millions in wasted money, but also in lost moments of joy and sorrow.
Via the Dodgers Dugout email from Houston Mitchell of the LA Times:
Since the All-Star game began in 1933, which Dodgers have pitched the most career innings for the team without ever appearing in the game?
And which Dodgers batters appeared in the most games without ever making the All-Star team?
It doesn’t startle me that none of those pitchers ever made the All Star Game, but I am surprised that neither Karros nor Parker ever made it. It may be that first base has been a traditionally star-laden position.
Phillies at Dodgers, 1:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, CSN-P
The Phillies send RHP Nick Pivetta out to make his major league debut. He was 3-0 with a 0.95 ERA in three starts in Triple-A. He’ll face the Dodgers’ Hyun-Jin Ryu (0-4, 4.64 ERA), who had a good start his last time out, holding the Giants to one run in six innings.
Note: Yasmani Grandal has a 1.117 OPS against the Phillies, the highest of any active player.
Lineup when available.
Corey Seager gets a day off. Dodgers lineup:
Toles CF
Bellinger LF
Turner 3B
Gonzalez 1B
Puig RF
Grandal C
Taylor 2B
Hernandez SS
Ryu P— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) April 30, 2017