Téoscar Hernàndez hits one of two homers in Game 2 of the Cards-Dodgers series.
I have to admit, I’m getting older. And after my long Opening Day at the Ravine, I was none too excited about going up there last night when it looked like it would rain at any minute. I had already printed out my scorecards, so I stayed home and kept score while watching the game with Stephen on Apple TV+. And it was another triumph for Dodger hitting AND pitching, as we beat the Cardinals, 6-3.
We hit 4 home runs (2 by Téoscar Hernàndez alone), and we got a great quality start from Bobby Miller. He went 6 innings, gave up only 2 hits and struck out a career-high 11. Fantastic!
Tonight is Freddie Freeman Bobble Head Night, so I will be going this evening, come rain or just freezing cold. Go Dodgers!
The Opening Day font reminds me of either Disneyland or a graveyard. Weird.
I swear, the new graphics for this season of Dodger baseball make me think management believes the more fonts you use, the more money you’ll make! Holy cow! Not only does every single announcement have, like, 6 different fonts, but the announcement cards for the players use nonstop changing fonts for their numbers. Some of the fonts look like bubblegum, others like they belong on a tombstone. It’s a real mishmosh.
What was not convoluted on this glorious Opening Day was the team’s resolve to kick some Cardinal ass! After Mookie Betts walked, Shohei Ohtani did what he’s getting the big bucks for: he doubled to right field and got the (almost) full house rocking! Unfortunately, our overly cautious third-base coach, Dino Ebel, held Mookie at 3rd (he could easily have scored), and Shohei got doubled up on that base, so he was out. But then Freddie Freeman knocked in Mookie with a beautiful seeing-eye single up the middle, and there was no looking back! The Dodgers took their home opener, 7-1.
What most impressed me, however, was the great pitching we got from starter Tyler Glasnow (an alum of my alma mater, Hart High School) and reliever Ryan Yarbrough, who got a 3-inning save after he and Glasnow kept all the Cardinals except Paul (“I Hate L.A.”) Goldschmidt from getting any hits at all.
It was just a great team effort all the way around, and if it doesn’t start raining soon, we’ll be back at it tonight. A great start to the season!
J.D. Martinez singled and doubled as one of three starters for the National League in the All-Star Game in Seattle on July 11. The Dodgers also sent starters Freddie Freeman & Mookie Betts, and as substitutes, catcher Will Smith and pitcher Clayton Kershaw.
Not only did the Dodgers have three of the starting nine players for the National League in the All-Star Game on Tuesday, we also swept the Angels in spectacular fashion a few days earlier, winning the Freeway Series 11-4 on Friday (July 7) and 10-5 on Saturday (July 8)! It was so sweet to see those smug American Leaguers in our house having the pants beaten off them! And we tied Arizona for first to boot! Way to finish the first half!
Then — wonder of wonders! — I went to Vegas to place a bet on my perennially disappointing NL All-Star team, and miraculously, with a very scary finish, we WON! It was the first time since 2012!
What a fucking nail-biter, though! I could only barely watch. Actually, in the bottom of the 9th, after swapping 1-run leads with the AL all night, when they announced Craig Kimbrel as the closer in a 3-2 game, my PTSD set in. I felt like I would faint, or throw up, or both. So I left the room.
Phillies closer Craig Kimbrel used to be a Dodger, and fans of the Boys in Blue have PTSD over the experience.
My brother thought I was nuts. He yells to me in then other room, “Pammy, he got the first guy out!”
“Give him time,” I say, remembering all those 9th innings last year when the Dodgers had the game sewn up only to see that Chicken Man cluck it all to hell.
“Pammy! He’s got two outs, and two strikes on the third batter!”
“Been there! Done that!”
Back in those dark days, watching his stupid wing-spread windup, I couldn’t help thinking “the first two outs are the easy ones, it’s the third that counts!”
“Oh no!” I hear from my brother.
Kimbrel has gone from an 0-2 count to walking the batter. Not once, mind you, but twice! (I wonder what catcher Will Smith was thinking. He was behind the plate on many of Kimbrel’s meltdowns for us, and now here he was on baseball’s biggest stage reliving horrors from his past.)
Two men on, two outs, two strikes. I felt like my heart would likely explode when I heard the inevitable CRACK! of the home run, and the roar of that American League stadium.
But no! After the epic disappointments we Dodger fans have suffered at the hands of Craig Kimbrel, he finally made good, striking out the Guardians’ Jose Ramirez and actually saving the game for the National League.
And not only that, but he was also one of the pitchers in 2012 when the NL won the last time. Pretty sure that’s just a coincidence. I still think he sucks. He just got lucky this time.
Piewalla's Dodger Blues 