Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The last few days have been bad, and not good. Maybe now’s the time to make that slightly less excruciating.
|
Dodgers
|
Giants
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
12:45 p.m.
|
San Francisco
|
|||
|
CF
|
Pederson
|
LF
|
Aoki
|
|
|
SS
|
Hernandez
|
2B
|
Duffy
|
|
|
2B
|
Kendrick
|
CF
|
Pagan
|
|
|
1B
|
Gonzalez
|
C
|
Posey
|
|
|
3B
|
Turner
|
RF
|
Pence
|
|
|
RF
|
Van Slyke
|
SS
|
Arias
|
|
|
LF
|
Guerrero
|
1B
|
Belt
|
|
|
C
|
Ellis
|
3B
|
McGehee
|
|
|
P
|
Kershaw (L)
|
P
|
Bumgarner (L)
|
I mean, slow periods were always going to come. You should have known that. You had to have known that. In the same way that this team wasn’t going to be the best offense of all time, they aren’t going to never score a run again. (Though, with just one run in the last 27 innings and two runs in the last 39, it’s understandable how it feels that way.)
So in response, Don Mattingly has changed his tune a little. The previous 16 times (I mean, probably) that the Dodgers have faced Madison Bumgarner this year, he’s taken the opportunity to get Joc Pederson and Adrian Gonzalez a day off. It’s not like the lineup isn’t still loaded with righties — Scott Van Slyke and Justin Turner and Alex Guerrero and Howie Kendrick and Enrique Hernandez, plus A.J. Ellis, because you know Yasmani Grandal can’t play every day — but it’s a different approach.
Personally, I didn’t mind getting lefties a day off against a tough lefty. No one’s playing 162 games. Most seemed to disagree with me. Now we’ll see.
Clayton Kershaw gets another chance to prove that his troubles this season have just been about bad batted ball luck (they have)… against a team that seems to thrive on exactly that. Lovely.
[table id=5 /]