DENVER (AP) — Play ball! And watch out for snowballs.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies were greeted by that blanketed Coors Field as their four-game series Friday.
Dodgers pitcher Emmett Sheehan took advantage of the frosty mid-April day when he came out on the field in shorts to make a snowman about four hours before the game’s scheduled first pitch.
The snow stopped about three hours before the game began and Colorado’s grounds crew, which placed a tarp over the infield to shield it from the snowfall, used a plow to clear snow from the outfield. By the first pitch, it was 35 degrees and sunny — with the only remnants of snow on the pine trees behind the wall in center field.
It was the coldest first pitch in Dodgers history.
“It was a dry cold,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said with a laugh after the game.
The bats were back out and the white stuff gave way to green grass after the shovels slugged at the snow, which came one day after the high temperature in Denver was 75 degrees.
In front of a crowd of 28,783, the Dodgers won 7-1 behind a pair of home runs from Max Muncy and a strong outing from starter Tyler Glasnow, who gave up two hits and one run in seven innings.
The start of the game didn’t mark the end of the teams’ weather-related woes. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning for the Denver area that will be in effect from 8 p.m. locally Friday until 8 a.m. Saturday, with sub-freezing temperatures dropping down into the 18-to-24 degree range overnight.
“There was still ice on the field and it was only getting colder, but you can’t complain about it,” Muncy said. “You’ve got to go out there and they have to play through it also.”
The projected high is 57 on Saturday, according to the weather service, and 74 on Sunday before reaching 79 on Monday for the series finale.
The Dodgers come in from wrapping up a six-game homestand on Wednesday in Los Angeles, where the high was 73 on Friday.
“We were told right from the start the game was going to start on time,” Muncy said. “When you know you have to go out there and play, obviously the weather sucks, but if there’s no question of you may not play or may get delayed or you may play a doubleheader, when there’s no question of that, it’s easier to just kind of block out the noise, go out there and get ready. Today was thankfully one of those days.”
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