Aug 14

Game 21, 2020

Dodgers at Angels, 6:40 PM PDT, TV: FS-W, SPNLA

LHP Clayton Kershaw (1-1, 3.60 ERA) pitches for the visiting Dodgers against the Angels’ LHP Patrick Sandoval (0-1, 2.70 ERA). Kershaw gave up three homers to the Giants (the Giants!) and lasted only 4 1/3 innings. Sandoval’s last start was pretty good: he went six innings against the Rangers and gave up just two runs.

The LA Times has a whole bevy of interesting Dodgers stories today:

In Houston Mitchell’s Dodgers Dugout he lists all the Dodgers (Brooklyn and LA) who have hit three homers in a game; I was surprised to see that Adrian Gonzalez had done it twice while in a Dodgers uniform, and of the current players, Pollock, Turner, Seager and Hernandez have all done it in the last three years.

The LA Times’s game story recapping Mookie Betts’ 3-HR game is full of quotes from the happy guy.

The LA Times’s Bill Plaschke writes about his experience with COVID-19 in his column today.

Yesterday’s game had so many highlights that it takes five minutes of video to show them all:

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1919 In a total of two hours and seventeen minutes, the Dodgers and Cubs split a doubleheader. In the opener, the Cubs blank Brooklyn 2-0, in one hour and ten minutes, and in the nightcap, it takes the Dodgers one hour and seven minutes to shut out Chicago, 1-0.
  • 1932 Brooklyn’s 10-inning, 2-1 victory over the Giants at the Polo Grounds makes reliever John Quinn, at the age of 49, the oldest player to win a major league game. Johnny Frederick, who will have a total of only six home runs during the entire season, hits a ninth inning game-tying homer off Carl Hubbell, his fourth round-tripper as a pinch hitter, establishing a new major-league record.

Also, in 2015 the Padres’ Matt Kemp hits a ninth-inning triple to complete the cycle, making him the first player in the 35-year history of the franchise to accomplish the feat. The San Diego outfielder’s home run in the first, single in the third, and double in the seventh contribute to the team’s 9-5 victory over Colorado at Coors Field.

Lineup:

Jan 09

Biding their time

The Dodgers, for all of the hand-wringing and complaints about their offseason inaction, are actually sitting quite pretty when it comes to leverage. They can use it now. They can use it in July. They can be opportunistic. They do not have to feed the hot stove beast simply because it has hunger pangs.

So says ESPN’s Jeff Passan, and he’s a lot smarter than Bill Plaschke, who wrote a somewhat whiny column last week taking the Dodgers and their owners to task for not doing something, anything that would give the fans (and columnists) Dodger news to talk about.

Oct 09

NLDS Post-mortem stories

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.