Tag Archives: Dave Hansen

May 23

Game 49, 2018

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Rockies at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PDT, TV: SPNLA, ATT SportsNet-RM

The Rockies hand the ball to LHP Kyle Freeland (4-4, 3.17 ERA). He’s had five consecutive quality starts with a 1.59 ERA for those games. He’ll face the Dodgers’ RHP Kenta Maeda (3-3, 3.89 ERA), whose last start was his best of the year; he gave up only two hits to the Marlins over 8 scoreless innings.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 2002 Shawn Green hits four home runs in one game to become the 14th player in major league history, the second this month, to accomplish the feat. The Dodger right fielder’s 6-for-6 performance in Milwaukee’s Miller Park, which also includes a single and double, breaks Joe Adcock’s 1954 mark for total bases by one, with a total of 19. In the same game the Dodgers set a franchise mark when the team hits eight homers in one contest, bashing the Brewers, 16-3. Shawn Green’s four round-trippers accounts for half of the record-breaking barrage with Brian Jordan, Hiram Bocachica, Adrian Beltre, and Dave Hansen also contributing four-baggers in the Miller Park contest.

Lineup when available.

Sep 12

Game 145, 2017

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Dodgers at Giants, 7:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, NBCS-BA, KTLA

It’s LHP Clayton Kershaw (16-3, 2.15 ERA) for the Dodgers and RHP Johnny Cueto (7-7, 4.43 ERA) for the Giants.

Both former All-Stars made their returns Sept. 1. Cueto has had more success than Kershaw since returning, posting a 2.61 ERA in 10 1/3 innings. Kershaw, who was bumped up a day from his scheduled Wednesday start, has a 3.72 ERA in 9 2/3 innings.

Today in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1930 The last major league bounced home run is hit by Dodger catcher Al Lopez at Ebbets Field as the NL joins the American League, which had enacted the rule change in 1929. The player who hits the ball over the wall on a bounce will now be awarded a ground-rule double.
  • 1932 In the bottom of the ninth, Johnny Frederick hits his major league record-setting sixth pinch-homer of the season, giving the Dodgers a 4-3 victory over the Cubs. The Brooklyn outfielder’s major league mark will not be broken for 68 years until another Dodger, Dave Hansen, strokes seven round-trippers coming off the bench in 2000.
  • 1953 The Dodgers clinch a pennant at the earliest date ever in baseball history with a 5-2 victory over the Braves at County Stadium. Carl Erskine gets the win when Brooklyn, who clinches consecutive titles for the first time in franchise history, goes up 13 games up on Milwaukee with 12 left to play.
  • 1962 One game behind the front running Dodgers, the Giants lose Willie Mays, their All-Star center fielder, when he is hospitalized for nervous exhaustion. The ‘City by the Bay’ will drop six games in a row, but will recover along with ‘Say Hey Kid’ in time to beat Los Angeles in a playoff to win the National league pennant.
  • 1963

    “I look up into the stands, and it looks like Ebbets Field. The Mets are wonderful, but you can’t take the Dodger out of Brooklyn” – DUKE SNIDER, – addressing the Mets fans on his special night at the Polo Grounds.

    In a pregame ceremony with his former Dodgers teammates, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Ralph Branca in attendance, Duke Snider is honored by the Mets with a special ‘night’ at the Polo Grounds, which coincidentally marks the last time the Giants, now located in San Francisco, will ever play in once long-time home in Harlem. The ‘Silver Fox’, obtained by the last-place expansion team in April, has recently requested to be traded to a contender.

  • 1995 During a WGN pre-game radio broadcast at Wrigley Field, Cubs announcer Harry Caray remarks to the team’s skipper Jim Riggleman, “Well, my eyes are slanty enough, how ’bout yours?”, referring to Hideo Nomo, the Japanese rookie hurler scheduled to start for the Dodgers. The veteran announcer, known for not backing off for his on-the-air off-handed comments, does issue an apology, calling the incident “unfortunate.”
  • 2000 On the same date the mark was established 68 years ago, Dave Hansen breaks Johnny Frederick’s 1932 record for pinch-hit home runs in a single season with his seventh round-tripper coming off the bench. The Dodger pinch-hitter’s historic homer, a seventh-inning three-run blast off Diamondback right-hander Curt Schilling, isn’t enough to prevent the team’s 5-4 loss to Arizona at Bank One Ballpark.

Lineup when available.

Jul 24

Game 100, 2017

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Twins at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, FSNO

The Twins’s newly-signed RHP Bartolo Colon (2-9, 8.19 ERA) will face the Dodgers’ LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu (3-6, 4.21 ERA).

Colon was released by the Braves at the end of June. The Twins are his tenth MLB team; he’s 235-171 with a 4.02 ERA in his 20-year career, all but 4 years of it in the American League. Ryu is coming off the DL where he’s been for three weeks with a bruised foot.

Kershaw may be out 4-6 weeks, says a “baseball source” inside MLB. However, it’s also reported that there won’t be a firm time frame until the Dodgers’ go-to back specialist, Dr. Robert Watkins, has examined Kershaw. Presumably that will happen/has happened today.

Kershaw isn’t the only Dodger pitcher headed for the DL; Brandon McCarthy is as well. He’s got a blister. Kenta Maeda will take his start Tuesday night.

This date in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1909 At Washington Park, the Superbas sweep a twin bill from the visiting Cardinals with identical 1-0 scores. Brooklyn’s southpaw Nap Rucker, who will finish second in the NL with 200 strikeouts, whiffs 16 Redbirds in one of the contests.
  • 1931 For the second time in ten days, Babe Herman hits for the cycle. The Dodger outfielder joins “Long John” Reilly and Bob Meusel as one of only three ‘tricyclists’ to have accomplished the feat of collecting a single, double, triple, and home run in one game three times.
  • 1965 Unbeknownst to him at the time, 75 year-old Mets skipper Casey Stengel, who compiled a managerial record of 1,905-1,842 with the Dodgers, Braves, Yankees, and Mets, manages his final baseball game, a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia at Shea Stadium. After leaving a party after midnight at Toots Shor’s, the ‘Old Perfesser’ loses his balance and fractures his left hip, resulting in the unexpected retirement with the team.
  • 1968 ChiSox reliever Hoyt Wilhelm breaks Cy Young’s record when he makes his 907th career appearance, pitching a third of an inning in which he gives up a run on two hits to be on the short-side of the team’s 3-2 loss to Oakland. The 45 year-old knuckleballer, who will retire in 1972 after pitching in 1,070 games, will finish his 21-year major league career with a 143-122 (.540) won-loss record and 228 saves, hurling for the Giants, Cardinals, Indians, Orioles, White Sox, Angels, Braves, Cubs, and Dodgers.
  • 1970 Tommy Agee steals home with two outs in the bottom of the tenth inning, giving the Mets a 2-1 walk-off victory over the Dodgers at Shea Stadium. After reaching on a fielder’s choice, the New York center fielder stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch, before scoring the winning run with his thievery of home plate.
  • 1977 After his two-out foul pop-up is dropped by Mets’ right fielder Bruce Boisclair, Davey Lopes responds with a game-ending three-run home run off Bob Apodaca. The L.A. second baseman’s ninth inning dramatics provide the Dodgers with a 5-3 win, and spoils the opportunity for a victory for Nino Espinosa, who left the game needing just one more out for a complete-game victory.
  • 1993 In a 5-4 loss to the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine, Mets right-hander Anthony Young extends his record losing streak to 27 games. The latest defeat is the result of the hard-luck hurler walking Dave Hansen in with the winning run with two outs in the 10th inning.
  • 1993 Following the game at Dodger Stadium, Vince Coleman tosses a M-80 from a car, resulting in reported injuries to three fans in the Chavez Ravine parking lot, including an 11 year-old boy and a two year-old girl. The Mets’ player was a passenger in the 1991 Jeep Cherokee driven by LA outfielder Eric Davis, who acknowledges Coleman flipped the firecracker out of his vehicle as a ‘joke’, but not into a crowd of people.

Non-Dodger history of note: today is the anniversary of The Pine Tar Incident with George Brett.

Lineup when available.

Jul 03

Articles I noted in passing

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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?

  1. Doug Rau, 1,250 2/3
  2. Ismael Valdez, 1,065
  3. Tom Candiotti, 1,048
  4. Luke Hamlin, 1,011
  5. Joe Hatten, 961 1/3
  6. Pedro Astacio, 886 2/3
  7. Darren Dreifort, 872 2/3
  8. Hugh Casey, 867 2/3
  9. Roger Craig, 814
  10. Tim Belcher, 806

And which Dodgers batters appeared in the most games without ever making the All-Star team?

  1. Eric Karros, 1,601
  2. Wes Parker, 1,288
  3. Steve Yeager, 1,219
  4. Willie Crawford, 989
  5. James Loney, 896
  6. Dave Hansen, 884
  7. Billy Cox, 742
  8. Dave Anderson, 713
  9. Joe Ferguson, 699
  10. Alex Cora, 684

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.

May 23

Game 46, 2017

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Cardinals at Dodgers, 7:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ESPN, FS-M

RHP Lance Lynn (4-2, 2.78 ERA) goes for the Redbirds and LHP Clayton Kershaw (7-2, 2.15 ERA) pitches for the Dodgers.

Five of Lynn’s six career starts against the Dodgers have come in LA, where he hasn’t pitched past the sixth inning and has a 4.68 ERA. This season he’s given up eight HRs in eight starts, only five fewer than he gave up in 31 starts last year.

Kershaw is 6-5 against the Cardinals in the regular season, but 0-4 in the postseason. On the other hand, he has a career 3.18 ERA in 15 regular-season appearances against them — and an even better one (2.75) at home. He’s coming off a win against the Giants in which he went seven scoreless innings.

This day in Dodgers history:

  • 2002 Shawn Green hits four home runs (video) in one game to become the 14th player in major league history, the second this month, to accomplish the feat. The Dodger right fielder’s 6-for-6 performance in Milwaukee’s Miller Park, which also includes a single and double, breaks Joe Adcock’s 1954 mark for total bases by one, with a total of 19.
  • 2002 In the same game the Dodgers set a franchise mark when the team hits eight home runs in one game, bashing the Brewers, 16-3. Shawn Green’s four homers account for half of the record-breaking barrage with Brian Jordan, Hiram Bocachica, Adrian Beltre, and Dave Hansen also contributing round-trippers in the Miller Park contest.

The Dodgers reinstated Logan Forsythe from the DL and optioned Josh Ravin to OKC.

Lineup when available.