Gavin Lux’s grasp of Dodgers lore as fuzzy as Dennis Eckersley’s mustache

Oakland Athletics pitcher Dennis Eckersley delivers during a game in 1992. His place in Dodgers history is only sort of lost on Gavin Lux.

By Times staff

Oct. 4, 2019 7:29 PM PT

While the Dodgers are an organization that clearly excels at math and science, they may need to brush up on history.

The following pregame question was posed to 21-year-old rookie Gavin Lux: “You weren’t even born the last time the Dodgers won a World Series championship. Do you know anything, did they ever tell you about that, do you know anything about the year or the hero or anything like that?”

Lux smiled and shook his head.

“Honestly, not too much, no,” he said.

Ever heard of Kirk Gibson?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lux said, doing an abbreviated fist pump with a laugh. “Who did he hit it off of? Tell me.”

“Dennis Eckersley,’’ he was told.

“Yeah, mustache, yeah, yeah,” he said.

“Orel Hershiser?” he was asked.

“Yeah, Hershiser, of course,” he said. “And there’s been a lot of really good Dodgers teams, a lot of good players.”

Lux did know about the fist pump and the mustache and Hershiser, and, really, isn’t that all you need to know about 1988?

More fun with Lux

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That axiom came true for Lux, who belted the first postseason pitch he ever saw for a solo homer to right-center field in the eighth inning of Thursday night’s 6-0 win.

According to MLB.com, the ball was retrieved by a Dodgers fan named Agustin Nuno and delivered to Lux outside the Dodgers clubhouse after the game. Nuno received several autographed baseballs in exchange for Lux’s souvenir ball.

“The guy who got the ball for me was like, ‘Yeah, you know the ball bounced in a trash can, right?’ ” Lux said. “And I was like, ‘You went dumpster-diving for it? I guess I appreciate you doing that.’

“It kind of makes it a better story for the ball, I guess. Twenty years from now I can tell my kids that this ball was in a trash can.”

Russell Martin to catch Ryu

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said catcher Russell Martin will start in Sunday’s Game 3, partnering the veteran with left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu.

Ryu was at his best with the 36-year-old veteran behind the plate during the regular season. The National League Cy Young award candidate posted a 1.52 earned-run average in 20 starts.

Martin caught Ryu when he was at his peak before rookie Will Smith emerged to work with Ryu during his late-summer slide. Ryu had a 5.40 ERA in six starts with Smith.

Cheap tickets on the secondary market

The get-in price for Game 2 of the NLDS on Friday was $40, the second-lowest price for any game this postseason. It wasn’t able to beat the get-in price for Game 1 of the series Thursday, which was only $37.

Sure, Thursday’s game started at 5:37 p.m. PDT, but the Dodgers did their best to entice fans by offering the first 40,000 in attendance the first-ever postseason bobblehead. After the game, the Cody Bellinger bobblehead was selling for almost three times the price of the cheapest ticket to the game.

According to TicketIQ, the Dodgers, despite having the best odds in the National League to reach the World Series, have the second-cheapest tickets in the division series behind the Atlanta Braves. Their secondary market average list price for NLDS tickets this year ($138) is the cheapest they have seen during their current run of seven consecutive postseason trips.

To put that number into context, the secondary market average list price, according to TicketIQ, for the New York Yankees’ division series games this postseason is $411. It’s $235 for the St. Louis Cardinals and $213 for the Houston Astros.

Times staff writers Bill Plaschke, Mike DiGiovanna, Jorge Castillo and Arash Markazi contributed to this report.