DSL Game Sees Biggest Blowout Since 2022

If, like me, you believe one of the best aspects of going to a baseball game is seeing something you’ve never seen before, then the Dominican Summer League is a truly wonderful buffet of possibilities.

You might see a no-hitter. You might see 10 walks. You might even see a team throw a no-hitter where they lose because they gave up 10 walks.

And sometimes, you get a day like Thursday.

Speaking of no-hitters, the DSL Arizona Red’s Jairon Digon and Naimer Rosario combined to no-hit the DSL Nationals in a 3-0 win. But that wasn’t the most fascinating game of the day. The game to watch saw the DSL Padres defeat the DSL Dodgers Bautista 31-2.

The game was a run-of-the-mill 11-2 blowout after six innings. The DSL Padres scored three in the seventh, eight in the eight and nine runs in the ninth.

The DSL Padres got 22 hits, but it was the perfect example of how the DSL is a league where the youngest players in professional baseball try to figure things out. There were 20 walks. There were eight hit-by-pitches. There were 13 wild pitches. There was only one home run.

That 29-run win is a larger margin of victory than any that have ever occurred in Major League Baseball. The Rangers’ 30-3 win over the Orioles in 2007 ranks as the biggest blowout in MLB history from 1901 to present.

But in the minor leagues, this game just joins the ranks of the largest blowouts we know of. In 2007, the same year that the Rangers were flogging the Orioles, the Padres’ High-A Lake Elsinore affiliate beat the Red Sox’s Lancaster affiliate 30-0.

(Not coincidentally, the Red Sox ended up buying the Carolina League Salem affiliate soon thereafter to ensure they never got stuck playing in Lancaster again).

But other than that, Thursday’s game was the largest margin of victory in any affiliated MiLB game since the DSL Yankees defeated DSL Pittsburgh Black 32-3 thanks to 20 runs in their final two innings on June 27, 2022.

But it isn’t the largest margin of victory in the DSL. We have game-by-game records for the DSL going back to 2005 (as well as the rest of the affiliated minor leagues). The DSL Padres win is tied for the second largest margin of victory over that time. But it’s not close to the biggest blowout. The DSL New York Yankees Bombers beat the DSL Twins 38-2 on July 3, 2024.

So Thursday was a very rough day for DSL Dodgers Bautista, but it could have been worse.