Above – Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com interviews Jerry Sands.

Spring Training, Day 1

Highlights:

  • Matt Kemp hustled his way to a second-inning run, as documented by Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk.
  • Hiroki Kuroda faced the minimum in two shutout innings, and dual starter Tim Redding crawled out of his sickbed to throw two scoreless frames himself.

Lowlights:

  • In 18 innings spread over two games, the Dodgers drew two walks, though they did rack up 15 hits against the Giants.
  • Carlos Monasterios and Oscar Villarreal each gave up four runs in an inning.

Sidelights:

  • Facing mostly Angels starters, Rubby De La Rosa was one out away from completing his second shutout inning when he gave up a two-run homer to Mark Trumbo.
  • Calacaterra has a photo of the funny midgame path some Dodgers took after their work was done against the Angels.
  • A total of 50 Dodgers played today: 25 in each game.
  • Update: Karen Crouse of the New York Times has a lovely profile of Clayton and Ellen Kershaw, post Zambia.  (Thanks to Bob Timmermann for the link.)
  • Update 2: Both Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com and Ken Gurnick of MLB.com have pieces on Scott Elbert.
  • Update 3: The agony and the ecstasy.