No Dodger was seriously injured while playing in the World Baseball Classic. Freddie Freeman says his hamstring is okay, even when pushing it by running and cutting. That’s a relief.
In light of this season’s rules changes, here’s a primer from the likes of Bryan Cranston (Walter White to you), Joey Votto and Sebastian Maniscalco.
The Dodgers are 13-9 in Cactus League play with only a few games left. They open the season a week from tonight in Dodger Stadium against the Diamondbacks.
The World Baseball Classic started two days ago. USA’s first game is Saturday, March 11, and Adam Wainwright will start. The opponent will be Team Great Britain.
MLB has a very good story of Team USA’s construction; it started with Mike Trout and snowballed. Great Britain’s story obviously doesn’t include players of Trout’s caliber, but it’s still good.
If spring training standings meant anything, at this stage the 11-2 Kansas City Royals would be headed for the Cactus League Championship Series to face the 9-4 Chicago Cubs. The Grapefruit League series would have the 9-0 Red Sox versus the 7-4 Cardinals. In the Cactus League the Angels and Dodgers are third and fourth in the standings; the Angels are 8-4 and the Dodgers are 6-3.
Dodgers at Brewers at American Family Fields of Phoenix. 12:10 PM PDT, TV: SPNLA
MLB’s Matthew Ritchie says: Dodgers have several lineup options in Cactus League opener
In terms of who plays where and when against Milwaukee, Gavin Lux will likely be paired up the middle with rookie infielder Miguel Vargas, who hasn’t been swinging due to a hairline fracture on his pinky finger, but he should play about five innings. David Peralta could be in the lineup as well. Aside from knowing that starter Michael Grove will be the starting pitcher on Saturday, there are still questions brewing, especially with lineup construction.
“I’ve thought about it, you know,” said Roberts, when asked about how much time he’s spent on lineup combinations. “It’s just trying to figure out, you know, Mookie [Betts] at the top, is it best? Where to put J.D., where to put Will Smith, where’s Max [Muncy]? I don’t think there’s a right answer. As we have conversations and let things play out, it’ll show itself a little more.”
In another MLB article, Juan Toribio previews spring camp:Three things to look for:
Top prospects Gavin Stone and Bobby Miller will also be in the mix. Stone is the Dodgers’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year and is the more polished of the two pitchers. Miller, on the other hand, hits triple digits with ease, and scouts fall in love with his ability to spin the baseball.
“It’s going to be important,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ young pitchers continuing to develop. “They have to take the next step because we expect more from them this year than we did last year.”
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.”
Kershaw started today’s game and Bauer picked up after him. The two of them went the full nine innings and gave up 11 hits and seven runs.
The game was notable only in that it occasioned Bellinger’s first start of Spring Training, a test of his surgically-repaired shoulder.
Oh by the way, Seager had hit 5 HRs in his last six games before going 1 for 3 today.
Molly Knight at The Athletic:
Lux’s 2020 campaign was a train wreck.
He reported late to the Dodgers’ summer camp due to an unexplained absence, but he did reveal that he did not take part in baseball activities for two weeks. He began the season at the team’s alternate site at USC, and when he finally did get called up to the Dodgers, he looked like a mess. In 19 games, Lux had an OPS of .596. He made throwing errors that made it look like he had the yips. He was left off the postseason roster as the Dodgers went on to win the franchise’s first World Series title since 1988.
This year, the Dodgers can make do with some combination of Chris Taylor, Zach McKinstry and Max Muncy at second base in the event that Lux can’t immediately rebound from his disappointing 2020. But he is only 23 years old and can be forgiven for experiencing a lost season during the pandemic.
Cubs star Javier Báez said earlier this week that he simply was not mentally prepared for last season, and here’s betting Lux wasn’t, either. It’s not fair to judge anyone on how well they performed amid COVID-19. And that is why I’m excited to see if Lux can put last year behind him, secure the second base job and rake his way back into the hearts of Dodgers fans.
Today’s lineup, including one Trevor Bauer making his first start in Dodger Blue:
Today's #DodgersST lineup vs. Rockies:
📺: @SportsNetLA
📻: @AM570LASports, @KTNQ1020 pic.twitter.com/bohvIbz6LO— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 1, 2021
Barring a sudden increase in COVID-19 cases, as of January 28
Dodgers pitchers and catchers will report to spring training at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona on Wednesday, Feb. 17, with their first workout one day later. Position players are set to report a few days later, with the first full-squad workout on Tuesday, Feb. 23.
The Dodgers’ first Cactus League game is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 27 against the Cubs in Mesa, with LA’s first home game the next day against the Rangers at Camelback Ranch.
There will be a lot of virus-related protocols:
Major League Baseball players won’t be required to take a COVID-19 vaccination, though it will be strongly encouraged by the players’ union and the league when the time comes.
The voluntary program won’t proceed until health officials deem it appropriate, but players who are otherwise eligible for a vaccine, before league implementation, will be allowed to receive one
[snip]
Before arriving at spring training, players will be required to self-quarantine for five days and fill out a health questionnaire. They’ll undergo intake testing once in Arizona or Florida and, similar to last season, testing will continue at least every other day throughout spring training and the regular season.
It looks like there will be no DH in the National League, partly because MLB, as usual, created a false equivalence. It said “We’ll give you, players, a DH, which we know you want to keep your older players in work. In return, you’ll give us extended playoffs. Most of the revenue from the postseason goes to us, but hey, that one extra guy on the payroll for each team is just the same, right?” The players and their union balked.
Remainder of spring training is canceled and the regular season has been delayed.
Following a call with the 30 clubs, and after consultation with the Major League Baseball Players Association, Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. today announced that MLB has decided to suspend Spring Training games and to delay the start of the 2020 regular season by at least two weeks due to the national emergency created by the coronavirus pandemic. This action is being taken in the interests of the safety and well-being of our players, clubs and our millions of loyal fans.
MLB will continue to evaluate ongoing events leading up to the start of the season. Guidance related to daily operations and workouts will be relayed to Clubs in the coming days. As of 4 p.m. ET today, forthcoming Spring Training games have been cancelled, and 2020 World Baseball Classic Qualifier games in Tucson, Ariz., have been postponed indefinitely.
MLB and the clubs have been preparing a variety of contingency plans regarding the 2020 regular season schedule. MLB will announce the effects on the schedule at an appropriate time and will remain flexible as events warrant, with the hope of resuming normal operations as soon as possible.
Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our players, employees and fans. MLB will continue to undertake the precautions and best practices recommended by public health experts. We send our best wishes to all individuals and communities that have been impacted by coronavirus.
For the ninth time in ten years. He started last season on the injured list. Buehler will start Game Two and Price Game Three of the first series against the Giants at Dodger Stadium.
That assumes that MLB starts its season on time, of course. The coronavirus is moving quite quickly around the country; some events (SXSW!) have been canceled altogether, others (Coachella) have been postponed. Some events have turned away spectators, playing games in empty arenas.
In an abundance of caution all of the major sports leagues (MLB, NHL, MLS and NBA) have closed their locker rooms to the press. One wonders how quickly they’ll rescind that order once the virus is controlled (assuming it is).
In other Dodgers’ news, Corey Seager says he’s feeling better than he has since his Rookie of the Year season of 2016.
Diamondbacks starter Madison Bumgarner has been competing in rodeos under a fake name as recently as December.
One of the most famous pitchers in baseball has been competing in team-roping events under an alias for some time. Was he the Mason Saunders who competed alongside Colorado-based roper Tammy Ellerman in March of last year, two days before Bumgarner pitched for the Giants in a Cactus League game against the Athletics? “That was me, too,” Bumgarner said. Has “Saunders” won other events? “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”
[snip]
Bumgarner has been roping so long that “it’s just part of who you are,” he said Sunday. He learned the sport at 15 or 16 under the instruction of the man who became his father-in-law. (His brother-in-law also “rodeos full time during the summer,” the pitcher said.) He’s practiced roping on everything from a statue of a bull at Scottsdale’s Fashion Square Mall to Jeremy Affeldt’s patio furniture.
In other news, the Dodgers are atop the Cactus League with a 2 – 0 record.