Dodgers versus Lackey – Lackey owns Dodgers
Line: LAD -120
O/U: 7.5 Runs
Zero homer runs against and low OPS of .526 against. Most of the poor OPS comes from Gutierrez who won’t be playing today but Chase is also a big contributor. All that came against Lackey when he was mostly a front line pitcher, he’s now the weakest link in the Cub rotation. Some think he is done? Is he? If he is, the Cubs rotation is in trouble.
Name PA H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO OPS
Adrian Gonzalez 29 8 1 0 0 4 1 7 .632
Franklin Gutierrez 23 4 0 0 0 0 2 2 .451
Chase Utley 20 2 0 1 0 0 2 2 .422
Yasmani Grandal 8 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 .250
Yasiel Puig 8 2 0 1 0 0 0 4 .750
Logan Forsythe 7 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 .143
Corey Seager 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 .900
Enrique Hernandez 3 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1.167
Total 107 18 2 2 0 5 10 23 .526
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Generated 5/27/2017.
How about Cubs against McCarthy? Zobrist is the only Cub with much of a sample size.
Name PA H 2B 3B HR RBI BB OPS
Ben Zobrist 26 6 1 0 1 1 2 .724
Jason Heyward 6 3 0 0 1 2 1 1.867
Anthony Rizzo 6 1 0 0 0 0 2 .750
Jon Jay 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 .400
Kris Bryant 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 .667
Kyle Schwarber 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 .333
Willson Contreras 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.000
Addison Russell 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Total 56 12 1 0 2 3 8 .768
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Generated 5/27/2017.
Dodgers versus Arrieta
Only Grandal and Gonzalez have homered off of Arrieta. Seager has had three singles in just six plate appearances.
Name PA H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO OPS Adrian Gonzalez 24 6 1 0 1 2 1 4 .726 Chase Utley 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 .000 Yasmani Grandal 8 1 0 0 1 2 2 3 1.042 Corey Seager 6 3 0 0 0 1 0 2 1.000 Enrique Hernandez 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Yasiel Puig 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1.667 Franklin Gutierrez 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 Total 66 13 2 0 2 5 3 14 .585
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Generated 5/26/2017.
Cubs versus Wood, beware the MVP
Name PA H 2B 3B HR RBI BB OPS Anthony Rizzo 13 3 2 0 0 1 1 .724 Kris Bryant 9 3 1 0 1 3 1 1.556 Addison Russell 9 3 0 0 0 0 0 .667 Jon Jay 7 1 0 0 0 0 2 .629 Jason Heyward 6 1 0 0 0 1 0 .333 Ben Zobrist 6 1 0 0 0 0 1 .533 Jake Arrieta 5 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 Javier Baez 5 1 0 0 0 0 1 .650 Willson Contreras 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 .667 Miguel Montero 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 .667 Kyle Schwarber 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 .667 Albert Almora 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Total 72 15 3 0 1 7 8 .687
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Generated 5/26/2017.
OTDIB – May 26th – Ken Brett outshines his brother
On this date in baseball – May 26th
May 26th, 1976 – Ken Brett goes 10 ten innings to win 1 – 0
Ken Brett’s no-hit bid ends with two outs in the ninth, when White Sox third baseman Jorge Orta hopes Jerry Remy’s slow roller will go foul. The no-hitter is lost when the ball stays fair, but the southpaw, who tosses 10 innings of two-hit ball, gets the victory when the Pale Hose beat California in the 11th, 1-0.
Ken Brett was the famous brother first. Jonathan Arnold from sabr.org gives us the scoop.
The Red Sox were involved in what many consider the greatest pennant race of all time. They prevailed, and faced the St. Louis Cardinals in a rematch of their previous World Series appearance 21 years earlier. Because he was a September call-up, Brett wasn’t expected to be on the postseason roster. But one bullpen lefty (Bill Landis) went into the service, while another (Sparky Lyle) developed late-season arm trouble. So the Red Sox got approval from both Commissioner William Eckert and the Cardinals to put Brett on the roster, using the same loophole used by the California Angels for Francisco Rodriguez (K-Rod) 35 years later.
Brett pitched twice in the World Series, becoming, at 19 years and one month, the youngest pitcher to ever appear in the fall classic. He pitched 1⅓ innings, with no runs, one strikeout, and one walk, but even that short stint was enough for the opposing manager to praise the phenom. “Where has he been?” said Cardinals skipper Red Schoendienst after his first appearance. “With the kind of stuff he showed us, you wonder why he isn’t starting the Series. But don’t let me give the Red Sox any ideas.”
Kershaw/Koufax share the K top
Kershaw and Koufax both struck out 14 Cubs at Dodger Stadium to share the top spot on the strikeout leaderboard.
Pitchers on this list which includes every double digit strikeout game against the games that didn’t crack to top game score list (80 is the cut off point) are Kevin Gross, Burt Hooten, and Ramon Martinez.
Kevin Gross and Don Sutton were the only two who lost a game that had double digit strikeouts by the starting pitcher.
LAD who had double digit strikeouts against the Cubs at Dodger Stadium
Player Date Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc Clayton Kershaw 2015-08-28 W 4-1 8.0 3 1 1 14 85 Sandy Koufax 1965-09-09 W 1-0 9.0 0 0 0 14 101 Sandy Koufax 1964-05-04 W 2-1 10.0 3 1 3 13 92 Clayton Kershaw 2010-07-08 W 3-2 8.0 7 2 0 12 72 Kevin Gross 1992-05-18 L 0-3 7.0 3 1 1 12 78 Ricky Nolasco 2013-08-28 W 4-0 8.0 3 0 1 11 86 Hiroki Kuroda 2008-06-06 W 3-0 9.0 4 0 0 11 90 Ismael Valdez 1995-08-16 W 6-1 9.0 7 0 0 11 82 Burt Hooton 1975-05-22 W 8-3 7.2 8 3 0 11 62 Don Sutton 1975-05-20 L 1-2 9.0 5 2 2 11 78 Sandy Koufax 1966-08-13 W 6-1 9.0 5 1 3 11 81 Tim Belcher 1991-08-30 W 2-0 9.0 4 0 0 10 89 Ramon Martinez 1990-04-28 W 5-4 9.0 7 3 1 10 68 Fernando Valenzuela 1981-08-27 W 6-0 9.0 4 0 2 10 87 Don Drysdale 1967-07-15 W 5-1 9.0 5 1 0 10 83 Sandy Koufax 1964-07-18 W 3-1 9.0 8 1 1 10 76 Don Drysdale 1964-07-17 W 3-2 9.0 6 1 0 10 79
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Generated 5/26/2017.
Koufax perfect game rides on top
The highest game score by a LAD pitcher against the Cubs at Dodger Stadium is, of course, the perfect game by Sandy Koufax.
I like this list because it has some names on it that had been missing in my other game score leaderboards. Like Hiroki Kuroda, Bill Singer, Tim Belcher, Ricky Nolasco, Rick Honeycut, John Purdin, Bob Miller, Vincente Padilla, Nick Willhite, Chan Ho Park, and Bob Welch.
Most of you should recognize those names but I bet you don’t recognize John Purdin, Bob Miller, or Nick Willhite?
John Purdin was one of my first ever LAD rookie baseball cards. The kind that comes with two players combined on one card. In this case Purdin was lumped in with the Bull Al Ferrera. I think he was painted. I had never seen Purdin pitch or ever saw a scouting report on him but I always wanted him to succeed. Sadly, Purdin would only make five starts and this one in 1964 would be his best by far. It was his first major league start and he shutout the Cubs in late Sept. Can you imagine the expectations for him in the winter of 1965? The blogosphere had to have been going wild.
Player Date Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc Sandy Koufax 1965-09-09 W 1-0 9.0 0 0 0 14 101 Sandy Koufax 1964-05-04 W 2-1 10.0 3 1 3 13 92 Hiroki Kuroda 2008-06-06 W 3-0 9.0 4 0 0 11 90 Bill Singer 1969-08-08 W 5-0 9.0 2 0 0 7 90 Tim Belcher 1991-08-30 W 2-0 9.0 4 0 0 10 89 Fernando Valenzuela 1981-08-27 W 6-0 9.0 4 0 2 10 87 Don Drysdale 1968-05-14 W 1-0 9.0 2 0 3 7 87 Ricky Nolasco 2013-08-28 W 4-0 8.0 3 0 1 11 86 Sandy Koufax 1965-07-16 W 3-0 9.0 4 0 2 9 86 Clayton Kershaw 2015-08-28 W 4-1 8.0 3 1 1 14 85 Rick Honeycutt 1987-05-12 W 7-0 9.0 4 0 1 6 84 John Purdin 1964-09-30 W 2-0 9.0 2 0 1 2 84 Bob Miller 1963-04-17 W 1-0 9.0 3 0 2 5 84 Don Drysdale 1962-09-10 W 8-1 8.0 3 0 1 9 84 Vicente Padilla 2010-07-11 W 7-0 8.0 2 0 1 6 83 Fernando Valenzuela 1990-04-27 W 5-0 9.0 4 0 0 4 83 Don Drysdale 1967-07-15 W 5-1 9.0 5 1 0 10 83 Don Drysdale 1967-05-14(1) W 2-1 10.0 5 1 1 6 83 Ismael Valdez 1995-08-16 W 6-1 9.0 7 0 0 11 82 Orel Hershiser 1989-07-18 W 4-1 9.0 4 0 0 5 82 Nick Willhite 1963-06-16(2) W 2-0 9.0 5 0 1 6 82 Chan Ho Park 1997-08-11 W 2-1 9.0 4 1 1 7 81 Andy Messersmith 1975-07-21 L 0-1 9.0 6 0 0 8 81 Don Sutton 1973-05-02 W 4-1 9.0 6 0 1 9 81 Sandy Koufax 1966-08-13 W 6-1 9.0 5 1 3 11 81 Don Drysdale 1965-07-15 W 5-0 9.0 3 0 3 3 81 Bob Welch 1986-04-30 W 4-0 9.0 6 0 1 6 80
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Generated 5/26/2017.
What an unlikely quartet
Most total bases by a Dodger at Dodger Stadium against the Cubs involves four of the most unlikely players. We had to drop down to nine total bases to even find four. Only one player has managed a double-digit total base game against the Cubs at Dodger Stadium.
Player Date Rslt PA R H 2B HR TB RBI Willie Davis 1973-05-02 W 4-1 4 2 4 1 2 11 3 A.J. Ellis 2012-08-03 W 6-1 3 2 3 0 2 9 3 Darren Dreifort 2000-08-08 W 7-5 4 2 3 0 2 9 2 Derrel Thomas 1979-08-31 W 6-4 3 3 3 0 2 9 2
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Generated 5/26/2017.
OK, Willie Davis does not surprise me, though I would have thought a big game like that would have involved a triple, but it didn’t. Just a single, double, and two home runs.
Next up is A.J. Ellis? For a minute I thought that was his season line.
Third up is a pitcher. We all knew Dreifort could hit and that he had one huge game in his career as a hitter and this was it. The surprise was that as a pitcher, Dreifort was able to get four at-bats in a game. If you think I’m being snarky I’m not. Dreifort made 113 starts and only had four plate appearances in six of them. This was one of them.
Derrel Thomas? I feel I’m being trolled. Two home runs? He hit all of twelve home runs in his five-year Dodger career.
Now we have to look at the Cub side. Greatest Total base game by a Cub at Dodger Stadium.
Player Date Rslt PA R H 2B HR TB RBI Dave Kingman 1978-05-14 W 10-7 8 3 4 0 3 13 8 Andre Dawson 1989-05-05 W 4-2 4 2 4 0 2 10 2 Jim Hickman 1969-08-09 W 4-0 4 2 3 1 2 10 2
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Generated 5/26/2017.
This was the infamous Dave Kingman game against the Dodgers where a reporter asked Lasorda what he thought of the performance by Kingman and Lasorda went on a profanity-laced tirade that has been played over and over.
Jim Hickman died last year. The ex-Dodger sucked for the Dodgers in 1967, gets traded to the Cubs and by 1970 was an all-star hitting 32 home runs and finishing 8th in MVP voting.
Kenta makes Roberts look good
Many questions, and many answers last night.
We will start with the NL baseball decision.
Should you pinch hit for your starting pitchers as early as the 4th inning?
Your pitcher struggled in the first inning putting the team in a hole by three runs, but has gotten his act together and kept the score close at 3 – 1 as you head into the bottom of the 4th. A few hits later and the score is 3 – 2, runners on 2nd/3rd and your pitcher due up. You have two outs so a hit is needed to bring in a run. You have Logan Forsythe normally a starting player ready to pinch hit. At most your pitcher might have another inning in him.
You decide to let your pitcher hit emitting groans throughout the Twittersphere and everyone is already getting ready to ask the question “why did you let Kenta hit in that spot”. Instead of that being a combative question, it becomes a question of respect, because Kenta Maeda delivered two out two-run single that put the Dodgers in front 4 -3, a lead they would never let go off.
Kenta delivered his flawless 5th inning, and another question needed to be answered.
Could Ryu pitch effectively in relief?
It would seem that Ryu has lost his spot in the starting rotation. Earlier in the day, Roberts had signaled what his rotation was going to look like going forward and Ryu was not in it. Ryu had never pitched in relief, so it was a legitimate question. Rarely has a question been answered with such an exclamation point. Ryu not only pitched in relief he threw four scoreless innings for the rare four innings save and allowed the rest of the bullpen to be fully ready for the Cubs this weekend.
Can Chris Taylor handle CF?
Oh boy, can he. Two games, two highlight catches, no mistakes, and he’s still hitting rockets everywhere. The Taylor Train is bypassing small city stops and headed straight for the big city.
Could this strange Dodger lineup score some runs against the might Cardinal rotation?
The Cardinal rotation entering last night had been as stingy as any in baseball and the Dodger lineup had a cleanup hitter who had yet to hit a home run in over 100 PA. The answer was yes and the scoring came from up and down the lineup. Chase Utley got it started with his first home run of 2017. The big rally was started by Cody Bellinger blasting a single into RF. Enrique Hernandez squeezed a single into RF after a brilliant at-bat. Puig takes a nasty strike two that was down and away. Not being able to take a chance on another bad call he swings at a pitch out of the strike zone but is able to deliver a to RF driving in Bellinger with Hernandez taking 3rd. Puig steals second, and Kenta brings them both home with a ball down the line just eluding the Gyorko glove putting the Dodgers ahead 4 – 3. In the 5th it is the top of the lineup that puts up two runs with Taylor getting it started and Gonzalez putting up the finishing touches with a touch double to LF. The final and seventh run is driven in by Taylor, plating Hernandez who had doubled.
Ready for more? The Cubs are coming in red hot, can the Dodgers cool their jets?
Can Kenta break the 4 game DL losing streak?
So far this year the Dodgers have lost the first game of every starter who has come back from the disabled list. They are 0 -4 in those games, with only one pitcher pitching notably well.
The Games:
- 4/16/2017 – Rich Hill makes his first return from the DL and loses 3 – 1. Hill would only get nine outs in his first game back.
- Ryu lost 10 – 7 at Coors on 5/11. Hey, welcome back, now go get those Rockie hitters out.
- Brandon McCarthy lost on 5/15 to the Giants 8 – 4 giving up six earned runs in five innings.
- Rich Hill tried again on May 16th but lost to the Giants 2 – 1. Hill pitched well, the Dodgers just didn’t give him any support.
It is now Kenta Maeda’s turn to break the four-game DL losing streak. Kenta had made three straight good starts including an eight-inning stint in his last start and then he was on the DL. Lets hope he can find the same rhythm he had going in his last three starts before the DL transaction.
The time was right for Joe Davis
Part of the reason I stopped being a Laker fan was because of the loss of Chick Hearn. I often wondered if the same would happen when Vin Scully was no longer calling Dodger games. Those were the only voices I’d heard from age 12 on up. They were part of my Los Angeles DNA.
I needn’t have worried.
Dodger fans have to feel lucky that by the time Vin decided to hang it up, a fresh face appeared to take his spot.
Laker fans weren’t so lucky when Chick Hearn left us. We not only didn’t get to say good-bye, the replacements have been horrible with the exception of Spero Dedes. The Lakers should have done everything they could to make sure that Spero would be the new voice for the Lakers but like everything else, in the past five years they bungled it and Spero left for greener pastures.
The Dodgers didn’t bungle it. They realized they had found the TV face for the franchise going forward and signed him up for the long term. The young, good looking, articulate, well mannered Davis brings his mid-western friendliness to the Dodger broadcasts and interacts quite well with his color analyst Orel Hershiser.
This is Joe’s first year calling the full complement of TV games for the Dodgers and he may be going overboard trying to replace Vin’s penchant for story telling but that is what Dodger fans are used to, so he’s giving them a bit of the old storytelling with a bit of the new sabermetric bent that has entered the vernacular of the baseball world. I don’t think it would have been the same if Vin had started telling us about WAR/Exit Velocities/Launch Angles but they roll off the tongue of Joe Davis in a non-threatening way.
Originally I felt that Joe was too much of a homer. He used the word “we” too easily. I looked at my feeling on this and came to the conclusion that this only bothers me because Vin never did it. If I removed Vin from the equation I realized that. Hey, I like my announcer rooting for my team. Damn.
This is a new era of baseball, where technology has given the game a whole new dimension, and Joe Davis is the guy who can deliver this information and still not interfere with the basic tenants of the game. Pitch/Hit/Field.
Some might feel this is too daunting, too much too soon, and just another indication that Millennials are bad people. I, on the other hand, enjoy avocado on my toast and am enjoying the transition just fine.
I feel that Vin retiring as he did, allowing him to say good-by to us, for us as fans to say good-bye to him, and thus letting him know what he meant to us has gone a long way in making this transition easier. I know it did for me. You never want to miss a good-bye because you may never get another chance.
I expect Joe Davis to be calling Dodger games long after I’ve passed on and become his own fabric to the young Dodger fans just learning about the great game. Those kids got lucky, if you peruse baseball on TV, you will find that most announcers are simply not very good.
We got a good one.
The ball finds you
Chris Taylor made his first ever start in CF last night and on the second pitch, Fowler hit a deep drive to straight away CF that seemed destined for a leadoff double or triple, but Chris Taylor tracked it down and leaped at the wall to snare the out leading Joe Davis to exclaim “The ball finds you”. Indeed it did, but Chris Taylor was up to the task looking like he had played CF for more than one pitch.
That was the highlight of the game. Rich Hill looked like the guy I saw in spring training in 2016 when he made a start for the A’s against the Dodgers and walked the bases loaded in the first inning. He never got out of the first inning in that start, but last night he managed to limit the damage to two runs until the 5th when his walks and Cody Bellinger’s error put the game out of reach and ended an erratic start by Hill.
History will show I was never a fan of the three-year deal for the 37-year-old journeyman, and so far it has been a bumpy ride in the first year of the deal.
If anyone can be critical of the front office it would have to start with how they have spent money on multi-year deals for oft-injured starting pitching. This front office is full of smart people and they have made wonderful below the radar trades but their free agent signings for the rotation are another manner.
McCarthy / Kazmir / Hill
We will look into that in further detail later, but for now, Rich Hill is not helping the resume.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 