The Dodgers got about as good of a pitching game as they could have hoped for in the series opener against the Minnesota Twins. Eric Lauer followed an opener on Monday, in part to avoid having him face Byron Buxton three times. Buxton proved why by hitting his 25th home run of the season in the first inning against said opener, Will Klein.
Lauer entered a 1-1 game in the second inning and got all the way through the seventh with no runs and no hits on his ledger, and a 2-1 lead.
The only other time
a Los Angeles Dodgers reliever pitched at least six innings without allowing a hit was Dave Stewart on August 9, 1982, pitching the final six frames of a 13-inning win over the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium.
That Stewart performance was part of a chaotic pennant race for the Dodgers, who trailed the Atlanta Braves by 10 games as late as July 28. The Stewart game was the seventh straight win that brought them to within a half-game of Atlanta. The Dodgers would claim first place the next day, only 13 days after that 10-game deficit.
Six other Brooklyn Dodgers pitchers logged at least six hitless innings in relief:
- Ed Reulbach, August 13, 1913 vs. Pirates
- Elmer Brown, September 26, 1913 vs. Giants
- Doug McWeeny, May 6, 1926 at Cardinals
- Jack Banta, June 24, 1949 at Pirates (6 2/3 innings)
- Carl Erskine, September 5, 1949 vs. Braves (7 innings)
- Bob Milliken, September 9, 1953 at Reds (8 1/3 innings)
The longest of these hitless relief outings was by Bob Milliken in 1953. He took over for rookie Johnny Podres with two outs in the first innings — looked like an injury of some sort, as Podres didn’t pitch again for 13 days — then finished out the game by recording the final 25 outs.
Tuesday game info
- Teams: Dodgers at Twins
- Ballpark: Target Field, Minneapolis
- Time: 4:40 p.m. PT
- TV: SportsNet LA, TBS (out of market)
- Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)
