Dodgers @ Marlins June 27, 2015: Good News Is Bad News

It’s indisputably good for the Dodgers that Giancarlo Stanton injured his hand last night and won’t be in the lineup tonight, tomorrow, or for many weeks to come.

	Dodgers			Marlins
	1:10 p.m.			Miami, Fla.
CF	Pederson		2B	Gordon
2B	Kendrick		LF	Yelich
3B	Turner		SS	Hechavarria
1B	Gonzalez		CF	Ozuna
RF	Ethier		1B	Baker
C	Grandal		C	Realmuto
LF	Hernandez		RF	Suzuki
SS	Rollins		3B	Rojas
P	Kershaw (L)		P	Koehler (R)

But that’s about it, really, because less Stanton is just a disaster both for the Miami franchise and for baseball as a whole. He’s one of baseball’s young stars, one of the very few players where every plate appearance is a “drop everything, must-watch” event. He was on pace to hit 58 homers; he was the indisputable king of our new Statcast exit velocity tracking, where he had hit more balls over 115 mph (18) than every other team in baseball. Just like when Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez and Stephen Strasburg and Marcus Stroman suffered serious injuries, this goes beyond team allegiances. It’s just bad news for the sport.

You wonder if this will motivate the Marlins (now 15 games under) to be sellers in July, and if Mat Latos (better than his awful 5.42 ERA shows) or old friend Dan Haren (not as good as his 3.38 ERA indicates) would be on the radar as the Dodgers search for rotation depth. Either way, the whole situation is such a bummer.

* * *

Still a game to be played today, though, and less Stanton means more Ichiro Suzuki, which might help him in his quest for 3,000 hits. It also means old friend Miguel Rojas, called up from Triple-A and starting at third base today.

Notable is that Yasiel Puig is still out despite testing out his injured hand last night, but perhaps more notable is that Yasmani Grandal, not A.J. Ellis, is catching Clayton Kershaw. Ellis had caught both Carlos Frias and Brett Anderson the last two days, so there was no way he was going three days in a row, but perhaps what’s more telling here is that it’s less about who is pitching for the Dodgers, and more about who is pitching for the opposition. Ellis, a righty, started against lefties Jon Lester and Justin Nicolino. Grandal, a switch-hitter who is stronger as a lefty, is facing righty Tom Koehler. Right or wrong, seems there’s at least a little more to it than “personal catchers.”

As we’ve said a million times, Grandal can’t play every day, so if you want to use platoon splits to choose when Ellis goes, fine, that’s as good as anything else. I don’t love it to justify switch-hitter Enrique Hernandez starting in left today over righties Scott Van Slyke and Alex Guerrero, however.

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