If the Dodgers still gave their season ticket holders hard tickets instead of forcing them print out their own paper tickets at home, their tickets from Sunday night’s game against the Hated Ones might have been worth something to memorabilia collectors. Granted, there wasn’t a no-hitter or four consecutive home runs or some other major milestone, but the game was, well… weird. It certainly featured enough things to make season ticket holders wish they still had hard tickets.

Perhaps most notable in Sunday night’s contest was the fact that former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke, who has only been with the Dodgers for a little over a year and has made only 30 total starts with the team, brought an abrupt end to a Dodgers losing streak for the seventh time since becoming a Dodger. To the best of my recollection (and please correct me if I am wrong) even Clayton Kershaw hasn’t done this in 30 consecutive starts over his seven seasons with the Dodgers.

Of Greinke’s eight strikeouts on Sunday evening, five were called strikeouts – including this one to Giants catcher Buster Posey in the first inning. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

There were a number of other highlights* in Sunday night’s game that left season ticket holders wishing that they had hard tickets to add to their collections:

• Five of Greinke’s eight strikeouts were called third strikes. This tied his career high set on September 17, 2009 against the Tigers and on May 20, 2011 against the Rockies.
• Greinke had 36 called strikeouts in 28 starts last year. He had 5 on Sunday night.
• Greinke collected his first hit of 2014, a ground rule double to the left field gap in the fifth inning. He is now 1 for 4 on the young season in defense of his 2013 Silver Slugger title. He narrowly missed another hit on an outstanding diving catch by Giants center fielder Angel Pagan.
• The Dodgers hit four doubles and three home runs on Sunday night, but no singles.
• It was just the 12th game since 1914 in which a team had at least seven extra-base hits with no singles.
• The Dodgers also had no walks (in addition to their seven extra-base hits and no singles), joining the 1923 St. Louis Browns as the only other team in the last 101 years to do so.
• The last time the Dodgers won a game without a single was August 18, 2012 in Atlanta. Hanley Ramirez homered twice in that game as well. (Okay, this is Twilight Zone-ish).
• Matt Cain allowed three home runs and three doubles on Sunday night. The last pitcher to allow six extra-base hits to the Dodgers without any singles was Gerry Staley of the Cincinnati Reds on July 17, 1955 – and we all know how that season ended for the Dodgers.
• Matt Kemp’s first home run on Sunday night was his first at Dodger Stadium since September 30, 2012.
• Prior to Sunday night’s game, Kemp’s last two-home run game was September 29, 2012 against the Rockies.
• Prior to Sunday night, Kemp had 157 plate appearances at Dodger Stadium between home runs and only one before his next one.

The last time the Dodgers hit seven extra-base hits without a single Hanley Ramirez also hit two home runs in the game. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

The point of this article is to highlight what can only be described as a remarkable and historic game between two of baseball’s greatest rivals; it is not to belabor the fact that I, like most Dodger fans, adamantly oppose the Dodgers doing away with hard tickets for their season ticket holders. Yet here we are only eight games into the new season and season ticket holders have nothing to remember this historic game except for impersonal and useless sheets of paper that will undoubtedly end up in landfills across Southern California.

*A hat tip to Eric Stephen from True Blue LA for these stats.