Ahhh the old exhibition nod. Spring wouldn’t be complete without one more tie. The Dodgers are finally home, and finished their exhibition portion of their schedule. The boys in blue wrapped up their freeway series against the Angels as they played to a 4-4 tie at Dodger Stadium on Saturday evening. The club will be off on Sunday before opening the 2017 regular season with a four game series against the Padres. Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to face Jhoulys Chacin at 1:10 PM on Monday.
It must have been wonderful for the players to return home, just as it was wonderful for all of us to be back at Chavez Ravine. We’ve all missed Dodger Stadium. I wasn’t around to watch the game, but it featured Brandon McCarthy versus former Dodger Jessie Chavez. McCarthy lasted three innings and allowed three earned runs on four hits while walking one and whiffing four.
The game marked the return of Corey Seager to the Dodger lineup. For those of you who were worried about Seager being rusty or not getting enough reps after missing most of spring training recovering from an oblique injury were probably mistaken. Seager went 2 for 3 and looked like he hasn’t skipped a beat.
This play actually prevented the Angels from winning.
The Dodgers got two home runs in the contest. Justin Turner hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the first, and Joc Pederson hit a monster two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Angels got a two-run blast of their own in the third inning from Albert Pujols. The Angels rallied for a run in the top of the ninth inning against Michael Johnson to tie the game at 4-4.
The Dodgers threatened in the bottom of the ninth inning, but Chris Taylor struck out, and Erick Mejia grounded out to end the game. Joc, Yasiel Puig, and Seager all had two hits. Turner collected three hits on the night as the Dodgers had 11 hits with three of them for extra bases. Everyone seems to be in midseason form. Check out the highlights above and we’ll see you on Monday.
Go Blue!
Seager is incredible – to have his wing looked that locked without the reps!
Turner’s swing is in a groove too. Could very well have another huge year. Pederson going to hit his share of potatoes.
Chris Taylor looks like a nice player to have stashed for depth.
Speaking of Pujols, ever go back and look at his Baseball Reference page? 10 years in a row he walkd more than he struck out, and while he was hitting 30-50 HRs every year, his K rate was that of a contact hitter, like say Ichiro Suzuki, or below 10%. Phenomenal.
Rye
It seems like the best hitters, that also have power, almost always, don’t strike out as much, as other power hitters.
Our prospect Wilie Calhoun, hit 27 HRs last year in AA, but he didn’t strike out a lot, compared
to hitters today.
Did you see his at bat, last night?
He eventually did strike out, but he wasn’t fooled by an off speed pitch at all, in that at bat.
And actually Orel commented on how well, Calhoun recognized that pitch.
That really stood out to me.
I don’t think Puig recognizes the spin on the ball, like Calhoun does.
And I wonder why Puig doesn’t recognize these pitches, that have a good spin on the ball.
I am not criticizing Puig.
I just don’t understand why he has so much trouble, recognizing the spin of the ball.
Vision. Babe Ruth had 20/10 vision in both eyes. I had 20/10 in my right eye, 20/20 in my left. I had no problem picking up spin right away. Many of my teammates told me they couldn’t pick up spin until the ball was half way there. That’s ok in lower levels of play, but not as you advance. What these guys have that most don’t is both exceptional vision and incredible hand eye coordination. I’m only guessing but from Ive seen Puig shows all the signs of a player who does not recognize rotation until it’s too late. The book on him was the same all of last year – up and in with heat, spin the ball down and away to get him to chase. As long as that works he will be lucky to hit .270.
Freudy with another excellent piece at Dodger Therapy. He sums up what I think better than anyone.
Badger
Thanks for the good info.
I couldn’t understand if it was not enough experience seeing these type of pitches, or some of the other things you said.
I thought it might be just a lot of experience seeing these type of pitches, because it seems like veteran major leaguers, are not fooled as often, even though there eye sight, isn’t probably as good as it was, when they were younger.
I think a lot of catchers can see the spin really well too, because they are constantly seeing pitches up close.
And I don’t think Puig played that much in the high levels of Cuban baseball, before he came to the states.
And because he did so well, once a arrived to the majors, he didn’t get seasoned that much, so I thought that, might be part of the reason, he isn’t as familiar, as some.
Did you see Calhoun spit on that curve ball, even after he had two strikes last night?
He looked really advanced, when he is up at the plate.
Thanks for the tip, I will go look at that site.
My personal opinion is that Joc Pederson has by far the best smile of any Dodger. What I took from last nights game is that A-Gone should not be hitting 4th. Turner would be my choice there. Toles has speed, but not enough patience to bat leadoff. So my lineup would be, Forsythe, Seager, Pederson, Turner, Gonzo, Grandal, Toles, Puig and then the pitcher. If Toles could be a leadoff hitter, then I slide Forsythe to the 2 hole, Seager at 3, and put Joc in Toles 7 hole. Pretty tough pitching to that lineup. Gonzo is a DP machine, and would kill a bunch of rally’s in the 4.
Michael
Amazingly I agree, with most everything you said.
Toles is just still learning how to hit major league pitching, so I do think he needs to hit back, in the order.
He would have to change his process, and have to take more pitches, to try to always get on base.
And Logan is already schooled on major league pitching, and he sees a lot of pitches, so he can convey to his team mates, what pitches are working for the other teams pitcher, when he comes back to the dugout.
I also like Roberts hitting Puig eighth, so he can concentrate on hitting the ball, up the middle, and to the right side.
That will be less stressful for Puig.