Los Angeles: There are four cities that have two baseball teams. New York having the New York Mets and New York Yankees. Chicago with the Cubs and White Sox. San Francisco and the Oakland A’s are only 11 miles apart. Then there are the Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers who met tonight in the “Freeway Series,” for the first of two games at Dodger Stadium. They will meet again in July for two in Anaheim.
The Dodgers have lost their first place standing in the NL West after getting swept in San Francisco and are tied now with the Padres. The struggling Angels lost 14 games in a row and dropped from first to third place, 8.5 games back of the Astros. Something that got their manager Joe Maddon fired. Needless to say, both teams need a win and then some.
Former Mets starter Noah Syndergaard, 4-4, 3.69 ERA, showed the best mix of pitches he has thrown in a long time. He mixed it up with almost an even amount of fastballs, sinkers, sliders with good sharp breaking action, change-ups that had good fade and sink and a decent curve.
But the big difference from when he pitched in NY and now with the Angels is that his velocity is down on all his pitches. His fastball used to be 96-100 mph. Tonight he never got it over 96. He once had a nasty 90-91 slider that is now 81-87. Whether it is because of Tommy John surgery or it is just that he has learned to pitch instead of just throw is something he is not sharing.
Sindergaard was done after cruising for 3 innings. He gave up a weak infield hit and walked a total of 4 batters in inning 4 and left after 4.2 inn, with a line of 2 Hits, 1 Run, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, 82 pitches, 53 for strikes.
José Quijada, Caripito, Venezuela, relieved him and the Dodgers saw nothing but 96 heaters from the big lefty that they could not figure out. After 8 innings both teams had combined for only 4 hits.
Dodger starter Tony Gonsolin, 7-0, 1.58 ERA, turned in another amazing performance with a line of, 6.1 inn. 1 hit, 0 runs, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts, 86 pitches, 55 for strikes.
The Dodgers held on to that one run lead into the eighth inning when Mookie Betts deposited a homer to the left field pavilion to give closer Craig Kimbrel some breathing room. After striking out leadoff hitter Taylor Ward to start inning 9, Mike Trout hit a broken bat single to center field. His broken bat found a space in plate umpire Nate Tomlinson’s mask and he had to leave the game. After a 23 minute delay, he was replaced by crew chief Laz Diaz and the umpires worked as a 3 man crew.
Kimbrel then served up a meatball 84 mph knuckle curve on the first pitch to Shohei Ohtani who slammed it into the right center field gap for a double, sending Trout to 3rd. Kimbrel then loaded the bases with a walk on a 3-2 count. He finally closed the game out with two more strikeouts. Bringing the crowd to a frenzy.
This game absolutely lived up to all the hype that was generated by the media and fans. The 51,013 in attendance got their monies worth.
Next on the slate will be Tyler Anderson, 7-0, 3.07 ERA for the Dodgers and Reid Detmers, 2-2, 3.83 ERA for the struggling Angels.
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