On a day that was supposed to be highlighted by great pitching, superb defense and monstrous home runs, the outcome for the Dodgers was quite the opposite. Clayton Kershaw didn’t have his best stuff and the offense seemed to be absent for the entire game. The only batters to get hits for the Dodgers were starting catcher Yasmani Grandal, Matt Kemp, Chase Utley and Clayton Kershaw. Grandal collected two hits and so did Kershaw. Kemp and Utley got late inning singles but that wasn’t enough to score anybody left on base.
Although the Dodgers lost the first game of the season, you don’t have to start jumping to crazy theories regarding their success this year. While I was at the game yesterday, I could already hear fans saying this and that about how Kershaw doesn’t have it this season. But lets not forget that Kershaw hadn’t given up a run at all during Spring Training. Anyways, besides hearing those outlandish claims and hearing about how much Dodger fans hate Yu Darvish, it was still an awesome day for baseball.
The only run that was scored yesterday was by a home run that was hit by Giants second baseman, Joe Panik. As he hit the ball, it looked like any other close call. It could’ve went foul or it could’ve went fair. Luck wasn’t on the Dodgers or Kershaw’s side in this instance. The ball barely scraped the foul ball pole going fair and left all of us in the stands, at home and on the field in awe. Even Kershaw had to smile about what had happened. After this happened everyone at the stadium didn’t feel a reason to be nervous. It was only 1-0 in the fifth inning and the fans were confident that the Dodgers were going to come from behind to win the game in Hollywood fashion. However, the boys in blue were facing Ty Blach.
As stated in a previous post of mine, Ty Blach has had the Dodgers number for a couple of seasons now. The story didn’t change at all yesterday. Blach had most of the Dodgers swinging and missing or just looking at the strikes get called. One after another the Dodgers went down in order. The only batters who had success were Grandal and Kershaw as I mentioned earlier. Being at the game yesterday, I couldn’t tell how the strike zone was being called (I’m not a chair umpire) so I don’t know if anything was being called wrong or bad. However, I did see an after action report where an announcer was talking about the home plate umpire favoring the outside strike zone more, but who actually knows. Some umpires favor certain spots of the zone and others don’t. I don’t necessarily agree with that but there’s nothing that I can do about it so play ball.
Before heading to Dodger Stadium yesterday, my dad and I stopped at the popular restaurant amongst Dodger fans, Phillipe’s. The lines were full of fans and the chants of “Let’s go Dodgers” rang out every so often. While standing in line for my french dip, I overheard a fan behind me talking about Ty Blach being a terrible pitcher so there was no way the Dodgers could. I had to turn around and burst her bubble. After telling her that Ty Blach has been great against the Dodgers, she looked at me like I was a fool. Oh well, I tried to tell her and look what happened.
Looking past the first loss of the season, the Dodgers send Alex Wood to the mound tonight to face Johnny Cueto of the San Francisco Giants. In a rotation that is already suffering from injuries, lets see if Johnny Cueto will be able to keep them afloat, or will he post another eye covering season? On the other hand, lets hope that Alex Wood puts up nothing but zeroes and that the lineup puts up nothing but runs. Game time is at 7:10 PM for those of you that were wondering, unless you don’t have Spectrum or you’re not going to the game. In that case, you’re like me and you watch it via MLB At-Bat. Make sure to get there early so you can get your Kirk Gibson 30th anniversary Home Run bobblehead.
This whole season, the Dodgers will be promoting the last time they won a World Series which was in 1988. The first pitch at Opening Day was thrown out by Kirk Gibson and was caught by Orel Hershiser with Tommy Lasorda standing by. If you are attending a game soon at Dodger Stadium, make sure to check out the Kirk Gibson display that has his 1988 NL MVP award, the bat he used to hit the famous home run with and his World Series ring from 1988. It’s very cool memorabilia to see if you’re a Dodger fan or a fan of baseball in general.
Leadoff Dodgers 