You guys, something interesting happened this morning – an actual regular season baseball game happened in Australia!
Game of the Morning: Dodgers 3, Diamondbacks 1. The season is officially under way! Well, sort of. I wouldn’t exactly get too excited about a two game series in Australia taking place at inconvenient times for nearly all of America, but that’s just me. Anyway, the Dodgers and Diamondbacks tussled down under, and Los Angeles prevailed 3-1. The Dodgers picked up an early 1-0 lead after Andre Ethier plated Adrian Gonzalez on a ground out in the second, and they made it a 3-0 game in the fourth after a two-run homer from Scott Van Slyke. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks couldn’t do much of anything early on against Clayton Kershaw, collecting just one run on five hits in 6 2/3 innings against the reigning NL Cy Young winner, striking out seven times and walking just once. Once Kershaw left the game in the seventh, Los Angeles’ bullpen took over, with Chris Perez, Brian Wilson, and Kenley Jansen throwing 2 1/3 no-hit innings to finish the game off. Van Slyke went 2/3 with a double, a homer, two RBI, and a walk, while Paul Goldschmidt went 2/4 with a double and a run scored for the Diamondbacks.
Yesterday was Red Sox Day on TOC, and here’s what you missed.
–Season preview
–Two biggest weaknesses
–Three key questions
–Four horsemen
Also yesterday, news broke that Tigers reliever Bruce Rondon would need Tommy John surgery.
Here’s your schedule of televised Spring Training games for today and the probable pitching matchups.
-Red Sox vs Braves (1:05 PM, Lackey vs Wood)
-Tigers vs Blue Jays (1:05 PM, TBA vs Redmond)
-Yankees vs Twins (1:05 PM, Tanaka vs Correia)
-Cardinals vs Astros (1:05 PM, Wacha vs Oberholtzer)
-Reds vs Cubs (4:05 PM, Cingrani vs Jackson)
-Angels vs Brewers (4:05 PM, Blanton vs Lohse)
-Giants vs White Sox (4:05 PM, Hudson vs Paulino)
-Rangers vs Royals (4:05 PM, Hanson vs Vargas)
-Mariners vs Rockies (4:05 PM, Elias vs Anderson)
And in your “meaningful baseball on another continent” game of the day…
-Dodgers vs Diamondbacks (10:05 PM, Ryu vs Cahill)
Enjoy your Spring Training, everyone.
