Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
You can now purchase tickets for individual Dodger Spring Training games taking place at Camelback Ranch in 2016. And from now until December 6, you can save $3 per seat by entering the code “TEAM” when you click here and purchase.
For more information, visit dodgers.com/spring.
Previously: Dodgers unveil 2016 Spring Training schedule.
— Jon Weisman
Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
The Dodgers will open their 30-game Cactus League schedule with a home game against their fellow Camelback Ranchers, the Chicago White Sox, on March 3.
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For images from Friday, visit LA Photog Blog.
By Jon Weisman
While Thursday’s game for the Dodgers, a 3-2 loss to the Angels, was meant to be about the bullpen, the outfielder kept drawing our eyes away.
First, there was Joc Pederson’s tumbling, volleyballing catch in center, where he bumped and set the ball in the air before nearly spiking it, instead hanging on for the out.
Then, there was the collision between Howie Kendrick and Yasiel Puig in short right field, which threatened to be the worst jolt to a Dodger throat since a shard of Bill Russell’s broken bat impaled Steve Yeager in the on-deck circle nearly 40 years ago.
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Puig remained horizontal on his frontside for a couple minutes before returning to his feet and walking off the field on his own power. He was examined (his chin apparently taking part of the blow) and found to be fine, his removal from the game simply to take advantage of the few remaining ticks of exhibition season to let him begin decompressing early. He’s expected back as soon as tonight, though again, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Dodgers allowed him 24 more hours convalescence.
The collision, weirdly enough, came in Kendrick’s first game in Anaheim as a visiting player.
“There hasn’t been any trouble out there all spring,” Don Mattingly said after the game, as Clay Fowler of the Daily News reported. “It was just one of those things. I don’t know if Yasiel didn’t think he could call it early enough. I mean you can’t call for it until you know you’ve got it, so everybody keeps coming until the end. And obviously with him calling it late, Howie’s going to keep going and he’s going to have trouble stopping. … That’s when it gets dangerous.”
As for the pitching, the Dodgers were good to their word, using eight pitchers for exactly one inning each (though minor-leaguer Josh Ravin faced one batter in the fifth inning – Mike Trout, who hit the ball to Puig and Kendrick that ended up being ruled an infield triple. Sergio Santos went first for the Dodgers, allowing a one-out homer to that man Trout, who can apparently play a little ball.
Adam Liberatore (pictured) and Paco Rodriguez each added a shutout inning to their ERAly perfect springs, continuing to make it difficult for the Dodgers to option them even in the short term, while J.P. Howell and Chris Hatcher continued their comebacks from uneven Marches with shutout innings of their own. Righties Pedro Baez and Joel Peralta also pitched shutout innings.
Hatcher, who might see some ninth-inning action in the absence of Kenley Jansen, has been in nine games this spring, pitching shutout ball in seven of them and allowing three runs in each of the other two.
Among the position players, Darwin Barney extended his effort to stave off demotion by doubling off the bench. In his past five games, the stalwart defender is 6 for 9 with three doubles and a triple. Pederson had the Dodgers’ only extra-base hit against Angels starter Matt Shoemaker, an RBI double, as part of a 1-for-3 night.
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By Jon Weisman
Back on Valentine’s Day, Cary Osborne made the case that the Dodgers should have at least as much power in 2015 than they had in 2014. While the regular season will tell the tale, so far Spring Training has done little to undermine the theory.
With four homers today in their 9-5 victory over San Diego, the Dodgers extended their MLB lead in exhibition tater trots with 37, seven more than the Kris Bryant-led Chicago Cubs.
Yasiel Puig started things with a monster blast that bounced off the wall in front of the Dodger clubhouse building in the first inning (following, it should be noted, a prime piece of small ball by Jimmy Rollins, who bunted for a base hit).
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Joc Pederson, Justin Turner and Scott Van Slyke followed with round-trippers.
Prediction: @yungjoc650 starts in seven different spots in the batting order during the 2015 regular season.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) March 25, 2015
Andre Ethier and Alex Guerrero, sharing the No. 7 slot in the order and left field, combined to go 3 for 4, including two doubles for Ethier.
Also from today …
“That’s how you start to (confuse) yourself,” Jansen said. “If you’re going to start thinking about eighth or ninth or whatever, you’re going to mess yourself up.
“Let me tell you something – guys come in the sixth, seventh inning with guys on base, game on the line. That’s harder than what I have to do, going out there with a clean (ninth) inning. Sometimes they (deserve) the save because I get a clean inning.”
“The idea,” continued Conte, “is that you set these marks and if a player is having an issue with a lack of motion or lack of strength—and we know that because we can measure it two or three times per week—the program will alert you that this guy is declining in this area, and maybe you should take a look at him. We always talk about players who don’t tell you when they’re hurt, or they don’t know the difference between pain and an injury. Well, if we have the right system biometrics can tell us there is a slight decline before he gets injured.”
OPEN HOUSE: This Friday from 9am-6pm. Get a @MagicJohnson Bobblehead with Mini Plan purchase:http://t.co/bhqd58yycB pic.twitter.com/aiA0zoZVub
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 25, 2015
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By Jon Weisman
So, turns out the Alamodome is no ordinary ballpark. Not with that roof and that sub-300-foot distance to right field.
Hit a fly ball, and you don’t know if it’s going to be a home run or a infield out, as Joc Pederson learned during the Dodgers’ 11-6 victory over Texas on Friday.
Pederson singled to start and homered to cap the Dodgers’ eight-run, three-homer first inning. Then, in the third inning, his third at-bat of the game was a high-flying single that hit the rafters, bounced near second base and turned into a 4-6 out.
Dodger starting pitcher Erik Bedard was also the victim of a roof-induced single in the first inning, what turned out to be his only inning of the game. Joe Wieland turned in the most effective pitching performance, going three innings with four strikeouts against four baserunners, allowing one run.
Yasiel Puig, Matt Carson, Kike Hernandez and Justin Turner joined Pederson in homering by the fifth inning for the Dodgers, who emerged triumphant before 20,591 fans at the Alamodome.
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By Jon Weisman
With the Dodgers about to play four games in the next two days in two different states, the team emptied its bench and then some today, with a number of minor-leaguers receiving their first (or nearly first) action ever playing for the big-league Dodgers.
Lars Anderson, Ali Solis and Dillon Moyer were among the position players coming off the bench, while Jharel Cotton and Michael Johnson pitched the final two innings. Solis had a seventh-inning sacrifice fly for the Dodgers’ final run of the day and a 7-5 lead.
The 23-year-old Cotton, who had 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings and a 1.16 WHIP for Single-A Rancho Cucamonga last year, pitched a shutout eighth but got in trouble in the ninth, and Johnson couldn’t bail him out.
The result: Two ninth-inning runs by the Angels, a 7-7 final score, and the Dodgers’ improbable, record-setting sixth tie of Spring Training. Los Angeles is 8-3-6.
It was an odd game that saw starting pitcher Brett Anderson allow seven hits to the 12 batters he faced over 1 2/3 innings, only for the Dodgers to quickly rally for five runs in the bottom of the second. Alex Guerrero continued his efforts to make his contract status a moot point, starting a double play from shortstop in the first inning and hitting a three-run homer in the second.
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Andre Ethier, meanwhile, had a single and a double. Joc Pederson and Matt Carson had the Dodgers’ other extra-base hits.
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By Jon Weisman
There was plenty of action in today’s 7-5 Dodger loss to the Cubs, but the marquee attraction in the “Have You Seen This Before?” Department was … no, not Sergio Santos’ four-strikeout inning, but the fact that he had a 1-3 strikeout on a pitch that caromed back to him before he threw the batter/runner out at first.
Alex Guerrero makes a play at third base on March 10. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
By Jon Weisman
Today brought the Dodgers’ ugliest game of 2015, with four errors — including a pair in a three-run third inning by Texas — and a pickoff play that saw the fleet Scott Van Slyke run all the way from first base to second to tag out Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus.
J.P. Howell, Pedro Baez, David Aardsma and Daniel Coulombe combined to allow eight runs in relief, and Ramon Troncoso — back from obscurity (and minor-league camp) for his first appearance as a Dodger since 2011 – gave up a two-run single before preserving the 11-11 tie, the Dodgers’ record-tying fifth of Spring Training.
This was a half-full, half-empty cup — a humongous half-full, half-empty cup.
With 15 hits (including Howie Kendrick’s monster three-run homer in the fifth inning) and five walks, the upside of the Dodger offense spoke for itself. But quietly, there was another interesting sidelight.
When I was out at Spring Training before Cactus League in February, it appeared to me that Alex Guerrero was comfortable taking grounders at third, and nothing I’ve seen this month has sharply dissuaded me of that point.
Today, Guerrero got his first game action for the Dodgers at shortstop, the position that he played throughout his Cuban career but that he has been steered away from since coming to Los Angeles. And whether it was backhanding a line drive, charging a slow grounder or starting the game-on-the-line forceout with the winning run in scoring position, Guerrero looked very easy and relaxed.
And by the way, he’s 9 for 20 with a walk and only two strikeouts in Spring Training, after OPSing .978 in Triple-A last year — despite his ear calamity — so he’s not exactly hopeless at the plate.
I don’t pretend to assume that Guerrero is Ozzie Smith on defense — I’m not even sure if he’s Ozzie Smith on offense. Far savvier people than me have critiqued his fielding. But if Guerrero is merely adequate at multiple positions (second, short, third and left), that changes the tone of the conversation about him considerably. There’s been a lot of concern that Guerrero will be stealing a roster spot from someone more deserving. I look at him, and I don’t at all see a black hole.
Don Mattingly on Alex Guerrero at SS: "He seems a lot more comfortable … he's pushing us to give him a little more of a utility look."
— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) March 17, 2015
Players such as Darwin Barney and Kike Hernandez are absolutely deserving of being on the Opening Day roster. But if they start 2015 in the minors to allow the Dodgers a longer look at Guerrero, there are far worse things for a contending club.
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By Jon Weisman
Throughout my childhood, I would hear tales of Lew Alcindor leading the 1965-66 UCLA freshman men’s basketball team to victory over the UCLA varsity, which had merely won the NCAA title the season before.
The situation isn’t really the same, but if nothing else, the 2015 Dodger junior varsity gives a hint of what it must have been like to experience such excitement from the future.
Dodger prospects and reserves have been shining all spring long, but the eighth inning of today’s 10-5 victory over Oakland turned the brightness up to 10.
First, they tended the top of the eighth in dazzling fashion, with Erisbel Arruebarrena — playing out of position at second base — ranging far to his left to flag a ground ball, before doing a 180-degree turn to whip the ball to super-prospect Corey Seager, who stepped on second and fired to Kyle Jensen at first for an inning-ending double play.
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Then in the home half of the inning at Camelback Ranch, Darnell Sweeney followed singles by Austin Barnes and Jensen and a walk to Seager with a grand slam — to the opposite field, no less.
Next, after Alex Guerrero singled and O’Koyea Dickson calmly took first base after being hit by a pitch, Scott Schebler hit a towering homer of his own to center field.
Before Schebler had finished getting high fives in the dugout, Chris Heisey homered to left, capping the eight-run eighth inning for the Dodgers, who are now 8-2-4 (.714) in Spring Training, in no small part because when the reserves come in, they have been fairly dominant.
Lest it be forgotten, the Dodgers were led in the early going by Darwin Barney, who went 3 for 3, and Joc Pederson, who walked once and made this catch in center field.
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Yeah, yeah — it’s March. But it’s been fun.
For more photos from Saturday, visit LA Photog Blog.
By Jon Weisman
Spring Training statistics are a ride off Niagara Falls– momentarily exhilarating before the thundering, brain-soaking crash of reality. However, Baseball-Reference.com has taken a step to, I don’t know, pad your barrel. (It’s Sunday morning — sue me.)
It’s basically a novelty, but Baseball Reference provides a simple but welcome opposition quality measurement, based on the level of play last year for every batter or pitcher: 10 for Major Leaguers, 8 for Triple A, 7 for AA, 5 for High A, 4 for Low A and 3 or below for short season.
Here are the Dodgers’ 2015 Spring Training stats on Baseball Reference. A few things immediately noticeable:
What dreams may come … http://t.co/DbLPIv7Z3q pic.twitter.com/2CJiTCR2Zv
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) March 6, 2015
By Jon Weisman
Look, it’s not like I haven’t been burned. Here’s an all-what might-have-been lineup of Dodger prospects from the past 10 years:
Jason Repko, CF
Delwyn Young, RF
Andy LaRoche, 3B
Jerry Sands, 1B
Joel Guzman, SS
Blake DeWitt, 2B
Xavier Paul, LF
Tim Federowicz, C
Jon Meloan, P
I’m not criticizing them — each fulfilled a dream (I really mean that), even if they didn’t fulfill all dreams.
Then Clayton Kershaw finishes his first exhibition inning of 2015 today by dropping a straight echo of his teenage Public Enemy No. 1 on Jose Abreu, and I’m reminded, it’s OK to believe.
By Jon Weisman
We’re just a day away from actual, “this time it doesn’t count” baseball. Here’s the starting lineup the Dodgers will put out against the White Sox at Camelback Ranch at 12:05 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday:
Jimmy Rollins, SS
Carl Crawford, LF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Howie Kendrick, 2B
Yasmani Grandal, C
Andre Ethier, CF
Juan Uribe, 3B
Joc Pederson, DH
Chris Heisey, RF
(Erik Bedard, P)
Don Mattingly has said that he doesn’t intend to start any regulars three days in a row, and there is a pair of split-squad games Friday. So expect a number of these guys to rest in Thursday’s rematch with the White Sox. (The Dodgers will be the home team Wednesday and the road team Thursday.)
Mattingly indicated to reporters today that Rollins would be the Dodgers’ principal leadoff hitter, in part because of his switch-hitting and speed, in part because they don’t have a perfect fit for the top of the order. Mattingly reiterated that he welcomed the thoughts of Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi on lineup construction.
By Jon Weisman
GLENDALE, Ariz. — This is the year that Spring Training seduced me.
I had enjoyed my two previous trips, in 1993 and 2014, enjoyed the juxtaposition of Major League ballplayers with minor-league atmosphere. How could you not appreciate the uniqueness of the scene, how could you not see the romance?
And yet, I don’t know that I ever found it as simply lovely as I did this week at Camelback.
Keep in mind, I’m not like the pros in this organization. My trip was all of five days, not six weeks. I’m here and gone, with only a snapshot of the grind that preseason life becomes. I also managed to avoid the scorching heat that can break the spirit of any man. The Fahrenheits never passed 80, and the weather brought monotony-defying combinations of sun, wind, clouds and harmless rain.
For my short visit, the peace and beauty of the scene, the feeling of serenity threading through the earnest labor on the ballfields surrounding me, left me wanting more.
Odd, isn’t it, that I can sympathize with the ongoing concerns about MLB’s pace of play … then look down at my phone out on a distant field, see that three hours have passed and wonder where they went.
Or maybe it’s that this year, I’ve felt a new desire to slow down time. In recent years, I’ve strained to get from Point A to Point B on the calendar, trying to get tasks behind me so that I don’t have to fret them. Then, during the past few months, I became newly aware of how my kids seem to be racing away from their youth.
It was something shy of a New Year’s resolution, but I began the year by making a conscious effort not to be so focused on the future at the expense of the present. Two months in, it has paid off.
I know we’re all eager to get to the regular season, when the games count. But to take a walk in the park, through ballfields stripped to baseball’s essence, to feel the rays and the breeze and the dust of Arizona, to go out 0-0 and come back 0-0, neither a winner nor a loser, just a part of a timeless scene, is painlessly cathartic.
My dad turns 80 in May. I think I need to spend a day or two like this with him.
From the camera of Juan Ocampo, here are some vivid images of the day at Camelback Ranch. Click any to enlarge …
— Jon Weisman
By Jon Weisman
A host of new enhancements are being unveiled at the Dodgers’ Spring Training home at Camelback Ranch-Glendale.
Dodger senior vice president of planning and development Janet Marie Smith and her team (including Younts Design) paved the way for the new amenities and attractions, which will be on view at the Dodgers’ Major League practice fields at Camelback. Here’s an overview:
What happens when three old friends in crisis fall into an unexpected love triangle? In The Catch, Maya, Henry and Daniel embark upon an emotional journey that forces them to confront unresolved pain, present-day traumas and powerful desires, leading them to question the very meaning of love and fulfillment. The Catch tells a tale of ordinary people seeking the extraordinary – or, if that’s asking too much, some damn peace of mind.
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