One of the new rules in baseball, a result of the coronavirus-shortened season of a year ago, is putting a runner on second base to start extra innings.
It happened Friday night in the game between the Dodgers and the Padres. The score was tied 6-6 after nine innings. The game went into the 12th inning before the Dodgers broke the tie.
Corey Seager hit a lead-off two-run home run with Mookie Betts on second base. The Dodgers went on to score five runs in the inning and win the first game of the weekend series, 11-6.
The ghost runner rule on second base is meant to end games quicker when they go into extra innings. The game on Friday night dragged on for three more nerve wracking innings. The Padres loaded the bases in the 10th inning and didn’t score. The Padres had runners on second and third with one out in the 11th inning and didn’t score.
The Dodgers meanwhile harmlessly went down in order in the 10th and 11th innings.
Then in the top of the 12th, the Dodgers exploded. Seager hit his second home run of the season. Zach McKinstry added a two-run single. Luke Raley drove in a run with an infield single. David Price joined the fun with a sacrifice fly.
Price pitched the final two innings of the game to earn the win.
Of all the new rules, which included seven-inning doubleheaders and a universal designated hitter, that MLB tried in the coronavirus-shortened season, the ghost runner on second base in extra innings might be the worst. It was a painful exercise for the Padres, who had two golden opportunities to win the game Friday night and blew both of them. But it’s nothing new for the Dodgers to take advantage of another underachieving Padres team.
MLB scrapped the universal DH and kept the extra inning rule for the 2021 season. If MLB swapped those two rules, there probably wouldn’t be too many complaints.
There was a lot of talk and a lot of stories written about how the Dodgers and Padres are the new great rivalry in sports.
The Dodgers and Padres rivalry isn’t much of a thing. It never has been. Of all the rivals the Dodgers have, the Padres are not even in the top 10.
Here are the Dodgers rival power rankings:
San Francisco Giants
New York Yankees
St. Louis Cardinals
Los Angeles Angels
Atlanta Braves
Houston Astros
Montreal Expos
Philadelphia Phillies
Oakland A’s
Boston Red Sox
The Tampa Rays and Washington Nationals are probably in line for biggest rivals to the Dodgers before the Padres. The Expos, who don’t even exist anymore, stood in the way of the Dodgers in playoffs pasts more often than the Padres.
The weekend series against the Padres was touted as a rivalry for the ages. It was a series that lived up to the hype, but as far as rivalries go, it’s a silly notion. This is a rivalry in the same sense a stick has a rivalry with a pinata. Sure, both are at odds, but the pinata, in this case the Padres, doesn’t stand a chance against the stick, AKA the Dodgers, especially when Seager, Betts, Justin Turner and Max Muncy are swinging it. Even Price, who spent most of his baseball career pitching in the American League, made the Padres look bad when he picked up a stick. This rivalry is historically one-sided and will continue to be one-sided unless the pinata starts hitting back.
Clayton Kershaw won the second game of the series against the Padres and pitched six shutout innings to win this third game of the season. He struck out eight, walked two, gave up two hits and lowered his ERA to 2.19. The Dodgers won the game, 2-0.
Here are the Dodgers pitcher power rankings through Week 3 of the season:
Kershaw
Trevor Bauer
Walker Buehler
Dustin May
Julio Urias
The Dodgers are 13-3 after Sunday’s loss to the Padres. The Dodgers are on pace to win 131 games.
Next up for the Dodgers are the Seattle Mariners for two games before returning home to start a four-game weekend series with the Padres again.
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