After nearly five months without live baseball, both the Angels and Dodgers are back on the field beginning today, and as luck might have it, both teams face each other in their spring training opener. The Dodgers' split squad will travel to Tempe to take on the Angels today at 12:05 p.m. PST, while at the same time the Dodgers will battle the Giants in Scottsdale. Neither of these two Cactus League games will be televised.
Pitchers have been in camp for less than two weeks, so don't expect any of them to throw more than two innings or so in their first outing of the spring. As a result, the early spring games have several pitchers scheduled to pitch at some point in the game. In today's game in Tempe, the Dodgers will start with Hiroki Kuroda on the bump, and will follow him with last year's organizational minor league pitcher of the year Rubby De La Rosa, then Scott Elbert, Lance Cormier, Roman Colon, and Luis Vasquez. The Angels will counter with moundsmen Trevor Bell, Eric Junge, Michael Kohn, Matt Meyer, Anthony Ortega and Garrett Richards.
In the Dodgers' game in Scottsdale against the Giants, they are scheduled to have Tim Redding, Carlos Monasterios, Oscar Villarreal, Jon Huber, and Wilkin De La Rosa. Jonathan Sanchez will likely start for the Giants, who won their spring opener on Friday against Arizona.
These games don't count, of course, but it is just great to have baseball back on the field. For whatever it's worth, the Angels were 13-15 last spring and the Dodgers were 11-17-2. The Dodgers were a combined 26-40 in 2008-2009 spring training, under .500 both years, and they made it to the NLCS in both seasons, so take these spring records with a grain of salt.
For more information on today's games, be sure to read True Blue LA and Halos Heaven.