A refreshingly cute and humorous interview with Tyler Glasnow before last night’s game.
What a great game last night! There was drama, there was suspense, there were home runs, there were double plays! Even with two infield errors, we triumphed with two runs in the bottom of the 7th inning to break a 3-3 tie, and then an insurance 2-run homer from the returning Jason Heyward, just back from the Injured List.
Not only that, but the one-man wrecking crew from the night before — Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz — was shut down cold.
Our starting pitcher, James Paxton, was great over six innings (with help from two textbook 4-6-3 double plays). Then our relievers — winner Michael Grove, a remarkably efficient Blake Treinen and closer Daniel Hudson — shut down the Reds’ offense altogether.
It was just the type of game you want to see on a chilly Friday night.
The bobbleheads were the only things to get excited about at the Ravine last night.
So my Dodgers rep calls me yesterday to warn me that if I didn’t get to the stadium for Early Entry (4:10 p.m.) I might not get the Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead giveaway. She said people were showing up the day before to wait for the gates to open. We decided to risk getting to the game 2 hours early (a big concession for my husband, who hates waiting around for first pitch).
Long story short, it was fine. We got our bobbleheads, the hubby sketched his next series of paintings, and I finished the NY Times’ Spelling Bee. When the game finally started, it was getting cold, and not just in the stands.
There is something about the combination of my husband in the Top Deck and Tyler Glasnow on the mound that doesn’t work. Both games Glasnow has pitched with Stephen in the crowd have been disasters. His only losses all season, in fact.
But pitching was only part of our problem against Elly De La Cruz (4-for-4 with 3 runs & 4 stolen bases) and the rest of the Cincinnati Reds. Our bats were dead as doornails. You know it’s bad when Chris Taylor is the only guy in our lineup with a hit.
We finally came alive in the bottom of the 9th, but by then we were in a 7-0 hole, and there was no digging ourselves all the way out.
Side note 1: Apparently, there were a small percentage of Ohtani bobbleheads with gray away uniforms. We got the white home uniforms, and I thought it might have been an urban myth that there were special limited editions. But today, looking at eBay, it’s true. However, they probably only gave them to Field Level ticketholders. They’re snobby that way.
Side note 2: Some youngish guy walked past me in the middle of an inning. He said, “Nice to meet someone else who does this!” And he waved a baseball scorebook at me. He was being nice, but all I could think was, “If you’re keeping score, where the fuck are you going in the middle of an inning?”
Fireworks have mostly been replaced by drone shows, so the crowd was ecstatic to see and hear the old-fashioned, ecologically insensitive aerial explosions, especially after an 11th-inning walkoff!
I love extra innings, but I ABSOLUTELY HATE the “designated runner” rule. It’s so stupid, probably the worst thing that has happened to baseball in the past 100 years! It ruins the experience of wondering when a game could possibly end, and getting an extra “7th-inning stretch.”
I was at that 18-inning World Series game when Max Muncy broke a 2-2 tie with a walkoff homer. That night was something I will never forget. I walked home down a packed Sunset Boulevard with exuberant Dodger fans and sullen Red Sox fans. I made it to a bar just before last call and got home about 2 a.m. It was glorious! (This after getting to the stadium as soon as the gates opened at 4:10.)
A game like that can never ever happen again, unless Major League Baseball comes to its senses and rescinds that stupid-ass rule.
So, last night, we got a couple extra innings, and it was great fun! A good start for Gavin Stone. A perfect inning from reliever Joe Kelly. And a walkoff single by newcomer Andy Pages that scored gimme runner Will Smith. Pages also accounted for four of the Dodgers’ nine hits!
But it wasn’t magical … it wasn’t a night to remember forever!
Piewalla's Dodger Blues 