True Blue LA podcast episode 2131: Prepping for the home stretch

This week on the podcast we look back at the Dodgers winning nine straight games and making up at least some ground in the National League West.

With the pending returns this week of Mookie Betts and Julio Urías, we take a quick glimpse at what’s left over the final six weeks of the season. We reflect on Walker Buehler’s great season, which was detailed quite nicely by Carmen Ciardiello at FanGraphs on Tuesday.

Also, a brief recap of last week’s Trevor Bauer legal proceedings and where that leaves MLB.

Jacob takes a stab at trying to name all 37 Dodgers pitchers this season, a franchise record. Plus, with the Dodgers playing the Padres in San Diego this week, plenty of Petco Park-related trivia.

Thanks as always to Brian Salvatore, our excellent producer who didn’t sabotage this episode as payback for the Dodgers beating the Mets in six of seven games over the last week and a half.

Dodgers rewind

The tumultuous 1998 season saw an ownership change for the Dodgers, and saw franchise icon Mike Piazza traded. With plenty of turnover off and on the field that year, the Dodgers used 25 pitchers, which stood as the franchise record until 2013.

One of those pitchers was right-hander Frank Lankford, a Rule 5 Draft pick from the Yankees at the 1997 winter meetings. At age 27 in 1998, he was mostly on mop-up duty in the bullpen, used almost exclusively in extremely-low-leverage situations. There were a few extra inning games when Lankford was called upon, including allowing a walk-off home run in St. Louis to Mark McGwire, No. 2 of 70 home runs that season for the slugger.

Lankford also had a three-inning save at Wrigley Field with the Dodgers, but his time on the team was brief. He was sent back to the Yankees on May 15, one day after the Piazza trade, and never pitched in the majors again.

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