The Dodgers were down 0-5 after four innings. They had the Twins exactly where they wanted them.
If this were any other season, Brock Stewart‘s horrible outing as a starting pitcher trying to fill in for the injured Clayton Kershaw would have probably been the story of the night. But this isn’t an ordinary season. This season is looking more magical every night, and tonight’s ninth inning walk off victory was the latest example.
Stewart was charged with five runs to start the game, but he wasn’t helped much by some atrocious and ill-timed errors behind him. All five runs were unearned, so there’s that in Brock’s defense. But enough of that. The real story is the boys coming back from the dead – yet again, to win in dramatic, walk off fashion.
The Dodgers were down 5-0 in the bottom of the fourth, when Joc Pederson started the climb up Comeback Mountain with a solo home run. Yasiel Puig did his part by adding a solo homer of his own in the fifth. Twitter and television went wild over Puig’s reaction when he returned to the dugout after his home run trot. He went over to hitting coach Turner Ward, hugged him, and then proceeded to playfully kiss Ward on the back of the head, and then on the cheek. It was joyous, fun, and showed everyone watching the very special relationship that has developed between Puig and his coach.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of baseball left, the Dodgers had cut the deficit to three runs, and everyone in the Dodgers Nation knew this game was in reach. First, the bullpen would have to stop the bleeding, and that’s exactly what Ross Stripling , Brandon Morrow and Pedro Baez did over the next four innings.
The Dodgers needed runs, and they got them with a seventh inning rally that culminated in a clutch Chase Utley double to score Logan Forsythe and Yasmani Grandal. It was 5-4, Twins, and the Minnesota boys were starting to look worried in their dugout.
Logan Forsythe hit a sacrifice fly to score Justin Turner and tie the game in the eighth.
The Dodgers used Kenley Jansen for the second half of the one-two combo, and the Twins were shut down in the ninth. The stage was set for the inevitable walk off.
Yasiel Puig came up and I was hoping for the dramatic game-winning home run, but that wasn’t meant to be. Puig grounded out on the second pitch. Austin Barnes PH for Kenley, and he rapped out a single. The winning run was on first base, and the Twins were doomed.
Chris Taylor singled, sending Barnes into scoring position. Corey Seager grounded out for the second out, but both runners advanced. No worries. Justin Turner came up and was quickly behind 0-2. Everything was falling into place. Turner drove the next pitch into left field for a single, and Barnes brought the winning run home. It was magnificent.
If you missed it, don’t fret, the Dodgers will be doing this all …year…long.
Dodgers Win 6-5! They sweep the Twins. NEXT!
Day off tomorrow. The Giants come to Chavez Ravine for the weekend.
Oscar Martinez
I was born in the shadow of Dodger Stadium and immediately drenched in Dodger Blue. Chavez Ravine is my baseball cathedral, Vin Scully was the golden voice of summer all my life, and Tommy Lasorda remains the greatest Dodgers manager ever. My favorite things are coffee, beer, and the Dodgers beating the Giants. I also blog about my baseball card hobby at All Trade Bait, All the Time.
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The Top 100 KATOH prospects rankings are out on Fangraphs.
Two things of note on Dodgers. Calhoun and Keibert Ruiz are rocketing up the charts. Calhoun is at 24(!!), ahead of Beuhler. I guess all those loudmouths badmouthing Calhoun need to take another look. SABR loves Calhoun even if unloved by hypocrites (i.e. I only use SABR to make myself feel intelligent and to fit my agenda).
YF
I don’t think you saw this, but on Dodger.com they have Buehler rated number one, in an article there.
There is good news with Buehler because after that first bad start he had in AAA, he pitched very well last night!
He only allowed one hit and struck out a bunch of hitters, in the five innings that he pitched last night, so that is very good news!
Maybe he will be brought up in September to help the pen.
If he’s not traded for Darvish.
I hope he won’t be.
The Dodgers would be insane to do that. I don’t even want Alvarez in a trade scenario, especially for a rental.
Panicking and giving through the nose for a deadline name brand is not Friedman’s MO. Even the Cotton, Montas, Don Sutton’s Hair 2.0 package was sensible. Montas was really the only guy I was reluctant to part with.
Bluto
I think Buehler is untouchable!
And I do think Kershaw will be back much sooner, then people think.
A grade one strain doesn’t even usually make a non athlete, go to see a doctor!
Everything I have read agrees with you about Buehler MJ. They are far more inclined to maybe trade Alvarez. Some of the stories also say that they are not considering trading Verdugo either, which probably keeps them from trading for Verlander because he is the main piece they want per all reports.
Not sure I would want Darvish for much more than a bag of balls after that meltdown last night. 22-10?????? wow.
Even Dee Gordon took him deep, yesterday!
I’ll give you credit for being honest about your agenda. I don’t know why some people are loudmouths and hypocrites because they correctly point out that Calhoun’s defense is not major league ready. That’s what every single scout has said.
I have read that too, What I have also read is that he is one of the hardest workers at OKC and works on that defense almost every day. So he could possibly improve enough to warrant a look at some point.
And THAT is the point. He is working hard and improving.
Loudmouths and hypocrites? Does it never end?
Nope, they sometimes call us morons….but I ignore the slings and arrows of their disparaging remarks and remain on my course of an old guys version of the facts as seen from someone who thinks saber geeks are looney tunes!
It’s pretty obvious just by using my own two eyes that the sun revolves around the Earth. It comes up in the East and goes down in the West. And what’s with this nonsense about the Earth being round? As far as my eyes can see….flat.
The earth is flat. It was proven by the Greek sailor Pysseas in 325 BC. He took a marble to somewhere inside the Arctic Circle, rolled it south, and the marble went about 2′ and stopped, proving the earth wasn’t round. Then he was eaten by a bear. To which his first officer said “damn, where did that thing come from?”. I may have made some of that up.
Patch, I suggest you see your optimist…..er optometrist .
Well the back of our line up that shined yersterday, helped the team score their early runs last night.
Both Puig and Joc hit one out to get the team back into the game, and then Utley who had two hits in the game before, came off the bench, and hit a double up against the wall, to bring in two more runs.
The back of our line up, were instrumental in helping the team win these last two games!
After Chase came up and hit that double, both Kike’ and Barnes came off the bench, and they both got an important hit, so our pinch hitters were perfect for the night!
Forsythe also hung in there, after being down on his count early, and he was able to hit the ball in the air to the outfield, and that was good enough to get Turner home, to tie the game.
And that was an important at bat from Forsythe!
And then of course, Turner came up to the plate and hit the winning run in, as he often does.
Our pen held the Twins, and Kenley pitched toughly, after allowing his first hitter to hit a double.
This was another great team win!
Our pitchers pitched well, and almost everyone who came up to the plate last night, helped the team win!
This win, and a lot of the wins, have been a team wide effort, most of the year!
And that makes it harder for other teams to try to stop any one player on the team, because it is mostly a team wide effort, and that is hard to stop!
MJ I did see those rankings and many many others. My point was to point out the differences. KATOH is a very SABR centric ranking. And I especially wanted to point out that a guy like Calhoun does extremely well under KATOH. Less than a year ago some national ranking didn’t even consider Calhoun in their top 100 because of a subjective bias that he can’t play defense. Meanwhile all the older fans said it’s surely too early to tell and defense can be learned but batting is much harder. It turns out that Calhoun not only can improve on defense he improved on his batting too.
YF
Sorry I didn’t read your comment more carefully!
I have been a big Calhoun supporter, and I saw the difference in those scouting reports, like you talked about.
The one place that didn’t rank Calhoun, had ranked Schwarber of the Cubs, even though Schwarber is no great defensive player, so I felt Calhoun’s non ranking was ridiculous.
And I thought that just may be some east coast bias.
If you look at Calhoun’s numbers, he is a complete hitter.
He has power, but he doesn’t strike out very often.
And I think the combination of hitting for an average, and hitting with power, along with the lack of not many strikeouts, is something you would see, in a pure hitter.
YF, can you expand on this – ‘Meanwhile all the older fans said it’s surely too early to tell and defense can be learned but batting is much harder. It turns out that Calhoun not only can improve on defense he improved on his batting too.’?
He means us old farts tend to have more patience than the saber guys. I remember a young 2nd baseman who put everyone behind 1st base in jeopardy every time he made a throw. He ended up being a pretty good defensive player. Name was Sax. Another really bad infielder got a position change because he also put fans in harms way when he threw from 3rd. I think his name was Garvey…..mind is a little slower now……They both had a manager that made them work very hard on their defense during spring and before games. Back in the day when everyone took infield practice before a game.
Just when I give Grandal a compliment, he makes a bone head play. Cost his pitcher about 20 pitches and a couple of runs. And Forsythe missed one my dead grandma could catch. Lucky for us, the offense bailed him out. Kenley’s performance was playoff worthy. Clutch pinch hits from the only 3 guys on the bench, there is something magical about this bunch, and that about sums them up. They refuse to give in no matter what and never ever believe they are out of a game. Yasiel is showing flashes of what made him so special and he is also now the Yasiel Puig comedy hour. Did you see him making Turner Ward blush when he kept kissing him on the cheek? Classic. A bunch of kids having fun, never giving up, and playing some good old playground hardball.
I think Minnesota went to sleep. Maybe they pipe in Xanax to the visitors water fountains.
Badger
There were some Dodger fans that went to sleep to early last night too, you would think they would have learned to not do that, by now!
Badger
Are we going to finally sweep the Giants, this weekend?
The magic 8 ball wants to know!
The Dodgers, being the Dodgers, will somehow manage to lose at least one game…. Hell, maybe all three! You know you can’t take the Dodgers for granted…
Here here, nix the negative waves there Buddy!
Jonah
I know that is what Vinny always said, but it would be nice, even if they are 30 some games behind!
I almost felt bad for the Twins closer. ALMOST.
Couple of notes. First did anyone read about Beltre being tossed from the debacle yesterday? He was standing behind the on-deck circle and the ump told him to move. So he dragged the on deck circle towards the ump and got tossed. Guess he wanted to get away from the slaughter going on in the game. The manager of the Rangers, Bannister , came out to argue and was also tossed. White Sox traded Jennings to the Rays, a lefty reliever. His replacement? A guy named Aaron BUMMER. LOL>
Michael
You forgot to mention that the Cubbies let Anderson go.
I wonder how much has he earned, since he last pitched, for an entire season?
I posted that the day it happened. He was DFA’d. They will probably just release him before the 10 days are up. They have not done that yet. Well he got 10 million his first year with the Dodgers and 15.6 the next for pitching 1 game. Not sure what the Cubbies gave him to sign with them but it was way below that. He basically pitched a full season in 2015. 31 games for the Dodgers. So with the 15.6 he got last year and I just looked up his Cub deal, 3.5 mil guaranteed he has made 19.1 million since he last pitched a full season.
Thanks Michael!
I must have missed it.
But he said just after spring training, that the Cubs were the best club house, he had ever been in.
He learned that baseball execs are stupid enough to pass out money to almost anyone.
I had a two fingered knuckle ball I could throw close to 80 mph when I pitched in MABL. It was unhittable when it didn’t roll – maybe 60% of the time. I sent my resume to Friedman, and spiced it up saying I am recovering from surgery, even though that ain’t true. Told him I would pitch for the minimum. I’m still waiting for a response.
Don’t hold your breath… When he read that you were 5’8″, he said, “Another damn Calhoun” and threw the paper away….
There are no teams on my “no trade” list. Hell, I’d even play in Minnesota. Trade me for Jaime Garcia.
5’9 7/8″ 165 pounds. My playing weight was 175 in college. Trunks I ain’t. I could run home to home in around 12 seconds. Of course, that was on a softball diamond. I was fast. Home to home on a baseball diamond now? Hard to say. Might take a while. I’d need to stop for O2 at second base.
The Dodgers are also looking at starters, of course, and Morosi hears they are (Twitter links) increasingly confident in landing a big name. Currently, Los Angeles is focused more on Rangers star Yu Darvish than either Sonny Gray of the Athletics or Justin Verlander of the Tigers, he notes. Of course, at this point it’s still unclear whether Darvish will be marketed at all, and it’s not really known how keen the Dodgers’ interest is in the other two starters.
https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/890660816843714560
Ken RosenthalVerified account @Ken_Rosenthal 18m18 minutes ago
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Source: #Dodgers promoting C Kyle Farmer. Accompanying move not known. Team currently carrying 14 pitchers, 11 hitters – a short bench.