Troll Jobs, Joe Kelly Noise, Fan Wars, LA Crybabies and Clayton Kershaw — Dodgers v. Astros is Still Electric If Not Competitive

 It is a loud, buzzing, contentious night of beautiful vitriol. Very rarely in buddy-buddy world of professionals sports today do you get two teams that genuinely loathe each other like the LA Dodgers and Houston Astros do. And everyone plays their part early.

Dodgers and Astros fans shout jabs back and forth before they even get into Minute Maid Park. The Astros’ introduction as the 2017 World Champions seems to carry an extra emphasis, a little extra poke, on this night — and Houston fans explode into loud cheers when it is uttered. Followed by boos from the LA Dodgers fans in Minute Maid Park, who are a tad slow to catch on.

The moment sets the stage for a night like few others in Houston’s jewel of a downtown ballpark. But unfortunately, not a very competitive one. Astros fans are quick to defend their team’s honor, but Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Co. cannot follow through.

That pregame intro is essentially the highlight of the Astros’ night. The Dodgers will roll to a 9-2 win behind their galaxy of stars. Astros relievers walk in three straight runs in the eighth inning. Altuve goes 0 for 4. Yordan Alvarez strikes out four times. Carlos Correa strikes out to end the game. Joe Kelly even gets to enjoy a loud moment.

No one loss is embarrassing in a 162-game baseball season. But it’s not a good look. Not with the attention of the baseball world focused on Minute Maid Park. Not in the Astros’ first game with no fan capacity restrictions and more than 34,000 in the stands.

“It was pretty bad all around,” Bregman says. “I think we’ve just got to play better. Offensively, defensively, pitching. Everything.”

The Astros will have to do it against their old foe and fierce critic Trevor Bauer on ESPN Wednesday night. Bauer has changed teams twice since he first started feuding with the Astros. Now, he’s arguably the best pitcher on baseball’s deepest pitching staff. Clayton Kershaw, the Highland Park High School product turned pitching icon, toys with Houston’s lineup at times in the series opener, throwing seven and two/thirds innings of one run baseball.

Still, the one out Joe Kelly gets to end the Astros’ eighth seems even louder. Largely because it literally is.

Joe Kelly engaged in some gutless head hunting the last time he was in Minute Maid Park — and his return to the mound brings the loudest and most intense boos of the night.

“I always enjoy watching Joe pitch,” Kershaw says in this postgame Zoom. “It’s very entertaining. Joe’s just a very entertaining person.”

With his black glasses and ever-ready snarl, Joe Kelly seems like a baseball villain straight out of central casting. Or the 1890s. But he gets Altuve to ground out to end the inning and strides off without even a pout.

Not that the Dodgers still are not whining over 2017.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever fully get over it,” LA catcher Austin Barnes says in the pregame. “Winning helps obviously. If we never won a World Series that would’ve been pretty hard to swallow. But we could have been — not trying to go too deep into it — but we could’ve won two World Series.”

Meanwhile, Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner takes a picture of himself and Mookie Betts in front of a Minute Maid Park trash receptacle with the Astros logo on it and posts it on his Instagram. Yes, the same Mookie Betts who is a two-time World Series champion because he won the 2018 title with a Red Sox team that also stole signs electronically throughout the season (though according to Major League Baseball, it found no evidence the scheme was used in the 2018 World Series itself).

The Dodgers are defending champs. They benefit from the highest payroll ($241 million) in all of baseball. They have more stars than the Brooklyn Nets and Golden State Warriors combined. As if Kershaw, Bauer, Betts, Turner and (Max) Muncy are not enough, the Dodgers even have a new star in 23-year-old wunderkind Gavin Lux.

And they still cannot get over the Astros winning it all four years ago. They’re still bitter about a title that brought such joy to a city ravaged by a hurricane.

Sign Stealing Truths Elude The Dodgers

When the Astros are introduced as the 2017 World Champions, it clearly rankles the Dodgers fans in the ballpark. (Which is no small delight.) But it’s also a fact. Any notion of taking that championship away when so many teams around the Astros have faced electronic sign stealing scandals of their own (Alex Cora’s Red Sox, the case-sealing Yankees, even the Rockies?) — quietly or not — is absurd.

Heck, the 1948 Cleveland Indians used a military grade telescope legendary pitcher Bob Feller brought back from the war to secretly steal signs on their way to a championship.

Plenty of teams have been beaten by teams that stole signs over the years. None have been as crybaby about it as the LA Dodgers. Yes, the Dodgers deserved a completely level playing field in 2017. But Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner and Co. did lose two of the four games played at Dodgers Stadium in that 2017 World Series, where the Astros could not steal signs, too.

Facts can be inconvenient when you’re determined to play the most wronged team in sports.

On this night, the endless debate dissolves into a blowout. Astros relievers Andre Scrubb and Kent Emanuel combine for the not-so-neat feat of walking in three straight runs in the eighth inning. This Dodgers lineup will just patiently inflict misery if you make it that easy for them.

“I mean, it’s tough,” Astros manager Dusty Baker says after a night in which the Dodgers use nine walks to help score nine runs. “It’s tough to watch. . . We couldn’t really find the plate. It’s tough to watch. And I’m sure it was tough on the guys throwing the balls.

“It’s tough on the fans. It’s tough on everybody. Including the guys who are pitching. We certainly have to be better than that. Especially on national TV.”

No one loss is embarrassing in a 162-game baseball season. But it’s not a good look. Not with the attention of the baseball world focused on Minute Maid Park.

What’s tough on the Astros is sweet for the Dodgers. That’s how this hate-hate thing goes. There are sections of Minute Maid Park largely full of Dodgers fans. It’s not close to the “takeover” of Minute Maid that some outlets claim. There are still significantly more Astros fans in the ballpark. There have been a higher percentage of opposing fans at Texans’ home games before than this. But those LA backers at Minute Maid get louder and louder as the game goes on.

It’s good to be winning — while always thinking you’ve been wronged.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts makes a point of lingering on the field to doff his hat in salute to one big section of LA fans in right field after the game.

“So cool,” Kershaw says of the Dodgers’ fan horde. “So cool. Down that right field line. They were really sprinkled in all over the place. Like I said great atmosphere tonight. It was really special to see so many Dodgers fans there.”

These nights are electric, special and full of the best kind of sports hate. Now, the Astros just need to make them competitive.