What a first weekend in the major leagues for 25 year old Bellflower native Justin Sellers who was just promoted from Triple-A Albuquerque on Friday when rookie shortstop Dee Gordon went on the disabled list. Sellers spent many innings during frequent visits to Dodger Stadium with his parents when he was a kid and to see his dream come true at his favorite ballpark is what playing sports is all about.
Sellers was coming off of last night’s cloud 9 game when he collected his first big league hit and today he topped that by sending Houston starter Jordan Lyles to the showers with his first major league homer…a 3-run 6th inning bomb over the left field fence to complete the scoring in a 7-0 blowout of the lowly Astros. And winning pitcher Hiroki Kuroda must still be in shock receiving more runs than he usually sees in 3 of his starts, as he lowered his ERA to 2.88 which ain’t bad for a guy with the undeserved record of 8-14.
Back to Mr. Sellers who’s probably still tasting the shaving cream pie in the face that his teammate Dioner Navarro slapped on him during his on-the-field postgame interview. And during this very trying season of many negatives, it was fun to watch these guys being little kids again when it came to enjoying the success of Sellers who spoke to us soon after in the locker room still wearing some of that cream…
Justin Sellers with Ted Sobel et al:
And the following is a compilation of his new manager and teammate’s reaction to Seller’s very special day…
Don Mattingly, Matt Kemp, and Dioner Navarro with Ted Sobel: