Tuesday BP: BEAT LA!

Good morning, baseball fans!

Hopefully you enjoyed the off-day, got some rest, took your vitamins and rested your voice, because today, well, today it’s time to beat L.A.. That’s right, the San Francisco Giants face the Los Angeles Dodgers for the first time this season, kicking off a three-game series tonight in Los Angeles.

When last we saw these two rivals, an amazing season ended with Wilmer Flores getting called out on a checked swing. Check with me in about five years and I might not be bitter about that anymore, but I digress. These two had one of the most exciting division races in recent memory, with the Giants winning 107-games and still having to play to the very last game of the season to edge out the Dodgers for the division.

It honestly felt like a shame to have the two meet so early in the playoffs, as they were the two best teams in baseball last year, despite the Dodgers having to play in the Wildcard game to get in. Having that be the first match-up just kind of felt like a loss for the sport. With so much of MLB media focused on the East Coast, having a higher stakes match-up for, say, the NLCS could have been a real showcase series for West Coast baseball.

Unfortunately, these two teams playing today will probably not be that. Through sheer bad luck. The Giants are down a lot of guys right now, just had their butts handed to them by the Nationals, and are just kind of trying to tread water until they start to get people back from the injured list. So it’s not exactly the most opportune time to be facing the Dodgers, but the schedule cares not for who is missing from your team. It marches on and so must we.

Still, it should be a fun pitching match-up for today at least, with Carlos Rodón and Julio Urías taking the mound.

And finally, I’ll leave you with this piece of cool news from MLB.com. Kelsie Whitmore became the first woman to start a game in the Atlantic League this weekend with the Staten Island FerryHawks. If her name sounds familiar, that would be because Whitmore played for the Sonoma Stompers back in 2016-2017.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

What time do the Giants play today?

First pitch for the Giants vs. Dodgers game tonight is at 7:10 pm PT.