A cute start

By Jon Weisman

The 2015 Dodgers are the 14th team in franchise history to start the season with a 9-3 record. Oddly, none of those teams have won a World Series.

• Won National League: 1947, 1952, 1974, 1977
• Won NL West: 1983, 2004, 2009
• Second in NL: 1942
• Third in NL: 1943, 1957
• Second in NL West: 1972, 2012
• Fourth in NL West: 1969

On the other hand, the 2015 Giants are the eighth team in franchise history to start the season with a 4-10 record. None of those teams won a World Series, either. (The 1951 Giants, who started 2-12, reached the World Series — the details escape me — but lost.)

A few pregame notes:

• Today, as the Dodgers’ public relations department noted in the press notes, is the 125th anniversary of the Dodgers’ first NL victory, 7-6 over the Boston Braves.
• Dodger minor-league teams lead all of baseball with a collective .705 winning percentage (31-13) entering today’s action.
• Adrian Gonzalez hasn’t struck out in his past 36 plate appearances, the longest current streak without a strikeout in the Majors, according to MLB Network. Gonzalez still has more homers (five) than strikeouts (three) this season.
• San Francisco starting pitcher Tim Lincecum pitched seven shutout innings at San Diego in his 2015 debut April 10, then allowed three runs in five innings at home against Colorado on April 15.
• Chris Heisey joined the Dodgers in San Francisco today, but was not activated for tonight’s game. Yasiel Puig has been declared healthy enough to start in the Giants series. It’s possible, as Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. speculated, that Heisey could be activated to face Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner on Wednesday.
• One flaw for the Dodgers in the young season has been the stolen base. Los Angeles has been thrown out on seven of 13 attempts.