Dodgers @ Nationals July 1, 2021: Spineless franchise carries on as normal

I’ll be honest, I really don’t care about baseball or tonight’s game very much right now. The Dodgers are taking the field with some incredibly serious accusations made against Trevor Bauer, who remains on the active roster as of writing this and will be sitting in the dugout with the rest of the team.

In fact, the Dodgers have simply gone with the “it’s out of our hands” argument when it comes to Bauer’s impending start on Sunday.

When asked why Trevor Bauer was still starting on Sunday, #Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said it was “out of their hands.” pic.twitter.com/SM3Nw60QYF

— Juan Toribio (@juanctoribio) July 1, 2021

That may be the case in terms of suspending him themselves, and surely Bauer won’t remove himself from the situation willingly even on a temporary basis. That’s where MLB also electing to drag its feet is the problem, despite a judge’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order against Bauer.

The mechanism is sitting there. Use it. Sitting silently while inflicting emotional pain on a large part of your game’s fanbase is gross. https://t.co/iWu7axHsIT

— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) July 1, 2021

People’s opinions are going to continue to vary. While most will align with Dustin’s post from this morning, others will say he’s been convicted of nothing and should not lose his job or even be prevented from showing up to his job (though I promise you, people can be kept home from work for much, much less in other professions). My opinion on it doesn’t really matter in relation to this Game Thread, even if it is likely obvious to just about anyone.

But it is incredibly uncomfortable to be looking at tonight’s game with any serious concern about winning or losing while a franchise that I used to hold in high esteem continues to look spineless in fear of a grievance being filed against it by the MLBPA. Maybe it is easy for me to say, but I’d love to see the Players’ Union do just that for a team simply deciding not to start a player on a certain day as MLB avoids enacting a policy seemingly created for just this occasion.

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More importantly, there are likely many fans who have been or could be impacted by hearing these accounts, and Amanda Smith really covered my feelings on this with her tweet below.

My thoughts are with any survivors of sexual violence, but particularly those who are baseball fans. As ridiculous and inconsequential as sports can be, it’s a distraction and release for so many of us. I’m sorry that this safe harbor was yet again taken from us.

— Amanda Smith (@AmandaSmithSays) June 30, 2021

Personally, I suggest taking a look through Amanda’s timeline as she’s shared some truly personal and thoughtful tweets about her own past, and retweeted a few others who have gone through similar situations. That’s much more important to me than sitting through a game tonight.

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I’d written a short breakdown of the starting pitching matchup, but honestly it’s pointless to share with how horrible this all is.

Here’s the lineup for tonight’s game (with the Nationals coming late to cause the delay in posting this) that is dealing with some storms that are in no way symbolic of the past few days.

	4:05 PM		Washington D.C.
RF	Betts	LF	Schwarber (L)
SS	Taylor	3B	Harrison
3B	Turner	RF	Soto (L)
2B	Muncy (L)	1B	Bell (S)
1B	Pujols	C	Gomes
CF	Bellinger (L)	SS	Castro
C	Smith	2B	Avila (L)
LF	Pollock	CF	Robles
P	Gonzalez (L)	P	Corbin (L)

The Dodgers also made a late switch.

Less than 90 minutes after indicating the decision on their Sunday starter was "out of our hands," the Dodgers announced a lineup change for tonight's game.

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) July 1, 2021

Just had to throw that in. Shocking that it is in fact within the Dodgers’ hands when deciding which starting pitcher to put on the mound each day.

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First pitch is set for 4:05 p.m. PT.