Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Day baseball! Such a glorious thing. It’s the final weekday home day game of the regular season, though the Dodgers do play during the day twice during the week of Sept. 15, once in Colorado and once in Chicago.
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Nationals
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Dodgers
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12:10 p.m.
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Los Angeles, Ca.
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CF
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Span
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2B
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Gordon
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3B
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Rendon
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RF
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Puig
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RF
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Werth
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1B
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Gonzalez
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SS
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Desmond
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SS
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Ramirez
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LF
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Harper
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LF
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Crawford
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1B
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Moore
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3B
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Turner
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2B
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Cabrera
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CF
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Pederson
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C
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Lobaton
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C
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Federowicz
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P
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Zimmermann (R)
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P
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Frias (R)
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Today, Carlos Frias makes his first major league start, making him the 11th starter for the Dodgers this year. (Like any of us remember the lone starts Stephen Fife and Red Patterson made. I might put money on neither of them ever making another.) Last year, they also had 11; in each of the previous two years, it was nine. Remember that when you’re considering how many starters a team needs to get through a season.
Frias has been okay in his short time in the bigs, flashing 95-96 mph on his fastball and sinker — remember, that’s in shorter relief stints — and mixing in, at various points, a cutter, curve, slider and change. He’s walked only two in 14.1 innings, which is outstanding, and he’s had relief outings of 3.1 and 4.0 innings, so it’s not like he’s a total bullpen guy. Of course, it might not matter if he is today, because between expanded rosters, Clayton Kershaw‘s eight innings last night, and the fact that the Dodgers are off tomorrow, Don Mattingly could easily throw nine pitchers for three innings apiece if he wanted to. That means that there’s really no need to ride Frias any longer than you need to; if he can get you four or five decent innings, I’ll be satisfied.
Unsurprisingly, the day game after a night game has led to some lineup changes. A.J. Ellis takes a seat, with Tim Federowicz getting his first big league start since June 12. Joc Pederson gets a second consecutive start in center, which has the interesting side effect of Yasiel Puig starting in right field for the first time since July 19, after 31 starts in center. Matt Kemp gets his first day off since July 19, believe it or not, which seems like a long time. The next day, he started his final game in left field, then moved to right, where he’s been in the lineup every single day other than August 6, when he was the designated hitter in Anaheim.
I’m not sure how this is going to play out for the rest of the month and (hopefully) into October, but it sure will be interesting. Not for Andre Ethier, though. I bet not a lot at all is interesting for him at the moment.
Also, the Dodgers have nine right-handed reserves on the bench today. September baseball is still dumb.
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