Expectations have been running high in Los Angeles since before the Cactus League ever even got started this year. After winning two straight National League pennants, only to fall late in the World Series each year, this years’ Dodgers team has a lot to live up to. So far, they are doing just that.
In the opening four game home stand series against their arch rival Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers put up 42 runs and won 3 of the 4 games. Their only loss came by one run at the end of a long extra innings game.
On opening day, the Los Angeles Dodgers managed to hit 8 home runs during the very first game of the season. Impressive. More impressive still when we learned that they had just broken the all time Major League Baseball record for home runs hit on opening day. No MLB team had ever done that before in the whole long history of professional baseball.
Then, on Saturday, in their third meeting with the DBacks, the Dodgers scored 18 runs on 19 hits. It looks like their offense at least is ready to make another serious run at the World Series. Perhaps ‘the third time’s the charm’ will prevail this year for LA.
The Dodgers surely didn’t get off to such a blazing start last season. When mid May rolled around, LA found themselves in a 16 win, 26 loss hole with manager Dave Roberts wondering what it was going to take to get his guys in gear. What it took came from the most unexpected place.
Young Max Muncy was called up from AAA when third baseman Justin Turner went down to injury, and what Mr. Muncy did was nothing short of miraculous. Behind his ‘can do’ attitude and his positive prowess at bat, Max was the much needed catalyst to get the Dodgers rolling toward their second World Series appearance in as many years. Muncy ended appearing in the MLB Home Run Derby.
The year before that also saw the Dodgers off to a rather slow start before the emergence of rookies Cody Bellinger and Chris Taylor to kick start the team and propel them toward a 104 win season and another National League Pennant.
Enrique Hernandez, now four years with the Dodgers but in his first starting role at the everyday second baseman said, “A big thing for us is how we get out of the gates”. Previous springtime production from the Dodgers lineup has not always been stellar, but, somehow, they keep on winning. The team hopes that a strong start in 2019 will give them some of those elusive special powers that it takes to win a MLB World Series, finally.
