July 16th, 2019 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka It’a hard to believe that it’s been 43 years since the movie The Bad News Bears was released; a lighthearted comedy about an aging, down-on-his-luck, beer-drinking ex-minor leaguer-turned-pool-man who gets roped into coaching a bunch of young misfits – including a then very young Tatum O’Neal – in an ultra-competitive California little league.
In the event that you never saw the movie but happened to tune in to Monday’s game between the National League West first place Dodgers (63-33) and the NL East third place Philadelphia Phillies (48-46), it was pretty much like that.
Ok, perhaps that’s a bit of a reach, but not by much.
After a bit of a shaky start, 31-year-old future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw settled in and put together a typical future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw performance. The Dallas, Texas native, who improved his record to 8-2 and lowered his ERA to an even 3.00, allowed only one run on four hits (including a third-inning solo home run by Phillies center fielder Scott Kingery), while walking two and striking out seven in his Kershaw-esque six innings of work in the eventual 16-2 shellacking of former Dodger Gabe Kapler‘s Phillies.
But it’s what happened in the top of the fourth inning that links Kapler’s 2019 Phillies team and the aforementioned 1976 Bad News Bears.
During that fateful inning, the Dodgers sent 10 men to the plate, of which six scored on six hits and a walk in a half-inning that took 23 minutes to complete. But here’s the kicker: When it finally did end (on an Alex Verdugo swinging strikeout), most of the Phillies players remained on the field.
It’s not that they wanted the beating to continue, it’s that they – a major league baseball team with one of the highest paid players in the game on their roster – forgot how many outs there were.
This is no joke, it actually happened.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)
“This team was totally unprepared,” former major league manager and longtime Dodgers broadcaster Kevin Kennedy told ThinkBlueLA after the game. “It was so bad they didn’t even know when they got the third out after the Dodgers scored six [runs] in the fourth inning.”
Dodgers legend and Kennedy’s longtime broadcast partner Rick Monday noticed as well, telling radio listeners that nobody was moving after the third out was recorded, being completely unaware of how many outs there were.
“I can’t believe that a major league baseball team would forget how many outs there are,” Monday told his radio audience.
On a lighter note, at least for Dodger fans, Dodgers All-Star slugger Cody Bellinger hit his 32nd and 33rd home runs of the season to catch – and pass – Brewers slugger Christian Yelich for the 2019 MLB home run lead.
On an even lighter note, albeit a somewhat scary one, Phillies right-hander Yacksel Ríos hit Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner with the very first pitch after Verdugo slugged a two-run home run off of him in the top of the eighth inning, prompting home plate umpire Doug Eddings to promptly eject Ríos. Turner immediately turned to Eddings and actually pleaded with him not to eject Ríos; and why wouldn’t he, the hard-throwing 26-year-old Caguas, Puerto Rico native was giving away hits – and runs – like candy. It didn’t work, as Ríos was sent to an early shower.
Play Ball!
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Posted in 
That was hilarious!! How I mean how! Does a major league baseball team not know how many outs???
The… https://t.co/gqJKdZi4PF
The Phillies defense has been horrible for several years, but last night was a perfect storm. Have the Phillies fans mellowed over the years? In days gone by the fans would have been ruthless with their jeers over such inept play, and the manager would have been tarred and feathered.
It was good to know the Dodgers took advantage of a Phillie team having a really bad night. Good for their offensive statistics.
Dodgers pretty much dismantled the Phillies completely in that 6-run 4th inning last night and did it all with SMALL BALL! That was the part of their game that they really struggled to implement the last two seasons and it’s a real blessing to see them finally putting it in action a lot more often this season. They won’t be able to take that WS title this year without that approach should they happen to get there again, too.
As for the Phillies, they need to start over again. No way they can be buyers at the deadline with an incompetent manager and a severely depleted farm system to boot. Maybe they should be taking lessons from their division rival Atlanta Braves in terms of how to truly put together a perennial playoff contending club, lol…
Draft update. Dodgers signed OU Sooner LH’er Braidyn Fink late — a little over $200K. This was a great pick; he should be 100% before next spring (TJ surgery).
So I’ve noticed, Jesse. Wise move on Fink’s part, Dodgers have a proven track record of handling draftees coming off TJ surgery very well. I also noticed they even managed to sign that promising JUCO OF Chet Allison away from his steadfast Arkansas commitment (didn’t see THAT one coming, to be honest) as well as a pair of rather interesting prep players in SS/RHP Brelyn Jones (another possible mound conversion ala Josiah Gray?) and LHP Francisco Martinez. That under-the-radar Jonny DeLuca signing could be another potential steal if they can finally get his hit tool to come around for once. He was hands-down the top athlete taken by the Dodgers in this year’s draft and is basically a switch-hitting version of Jeren Kendall at this point in his development. Yeah, quite a bit of work to be done with that kid in the meantime but you can’t overlook that fairly huge upside he has from a tools-based standpoint.
Overall, pretty solid draft the Dodgers had this year. Kinda bummed they weren’t able to lock down that Brennan Milone kid right after taking care of 2nd rounder Jimmy Lewis (even had a recent online chat with Brennan’s father who said the Dodgers’ last-minute offer was nice but not quite at the amount another team offered his son had he be taken in the 3rd round instead). Still, for the Dodgers to get that many late-round holdouts to sign with what was left over after signing all their Top 11 picks? Not too shabby, I must say…
🙂
You brought Allison up last week. He may become the steal of the 2019 draft. Dodgers do an outstanding job of finding talent, whether it be through the draft, or international signings
That I did, lol! Guess I just had to bring it up again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating when I read it with my own eyes that Allison had indeed signed just ahead of the July 12 deadline. I mean, there was NO indication that he was gonna forsake his Arkansas commitment to begin his pro-ball career in the Dodger system until that very moment. Yeah, that kid’s an absolute stud for an OF and if the coaching staff manages to get him to cut down on the Ks a wee bit he could end up turning into our own version of AJ Pollock (without the nagging injury bug, hopefully).
Yup, Dodgers have a top-notch scouting/player development staff and it really shows in relatively “thin” drafts like this one where the talent pool is not nearly as deep as it was back in 2016 so more effort is put into pin-pointing and locking down those proverbial “diamonds in the rough”, so to speak. Now I’m beginning to see why they specifically targeted Kody Hoese and Michael Busch for their two 1st round picks in this year’s draft. They clearly saw something in those two that most teams probably overlooked or even taken for granted from the start that maybe they shouldn’t have. Speaking of Hoese, don’t you think it’s high time they get him out of complex ball and challenge him outright on that Low-A Great Lakes squad already???
I had the same thought about Hoese. Stats are good, so it seems that he should at least be in Ogden. Something about his game (or possibly dealing with a minor injury) may be keeping him at Camelback where he can get more coaching, cage time, defense, or ???
Besides the Phillies big time melt down, I am very impressed with the run total for the Dodgers in the last 3 games, (2 with Boston). 34 runs !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kershaw pitched six innings in the game i was watching
Fixed. Thx.