Dodgers @ Braves July 22, 2015: Early, Early Day Baseball

Man, I’m in New York City and I’m barely awake. I don’t know what all of you out in California are making of 9 a.m. baseball on a Wednesday.

	Dodgers			Braves
	9:10 a.m. PT			Atlanta, Ga.
CF	Pederson		2B	Peterson
2B	Kendrick		CF	Maybin
1B	Gonzalez		RF	Markakis
RF	Ethier		1B	K. Johnson
C	Grandal		3B	C. Johnson
LF	Crawford		C	Pierzynski
3B	Callaspo		LF	Perez
SS	Rollins		SS	Simmons
P	Bolsinger (R)		P	Teheran (R)

While we wait to hear about Brett Anderson‘s heel MRI — he’s reportedly feeling good — we still don’t know who is starting on Saturday & Sunday in New York. (Best guess: Zach Lee and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, though it could still be Anderson.) I’m guessing we won’t actually know until the team makes it out of Georgia and heads north, but today’s game is affected by all of this. That’s because Mike Bolsinger is starting, and while he’s been shockingly good (2.81 FIP/3.04 ERA!), it’s also pretty well-known that he doesn’t go deep into games. (He’s not made it past five innings in five of his last seven starts.)

While I generally don’t mind that from a back-end starter — be happy he can get through the lineup successfully twice, not upset he can’t do it three times — last night’s short start from Anderson put added pressure on the bullpen. Joel Peralta threw 46 pitches over the last two days and has appeared three times in four days. So has J.P. Howell. Pedro Baez threw 24 pitches last night; Chin-hui Tsao 31.

In order to add some help, the Dodgers brought up Ian Thomas, but interestingly, it was Adam Liberatore — who did not pitch last night — who was optioned out to make room, so, that doesn’t really help with ‘pen freshness. If and when Bolsinger is relieved, expect a lot of Thomas and Juan Nicasio.

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