Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Brett Anderson takes the hill on Tuesday night to face his former team for the third time this season. He is, somewhat surprisingly, getting to face four left-handed position players.
|
Rockies
|
Dodgers
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
7:10 p.m.
|
Los Angeles
|
|||
|
CF
|
Blackmon
|
LF
|
Ruggiano
|
|
|
SS
|
Reyes
|
2B
|
Utley
|
|
|
3B
|
Arenado
|
3B
|
Turner
|
|
|
RF
|
Gonzalez
|
1B
|
Gonzalez
|
|
|
1B
|
Morneau
|
C
|
Ellis
|
|
|
2B
|
LeMahieu
|
SS
|
Seager
|
|
|
LF
|
Dickerson
|
RF
|
Heisey
|
|
| C |
Garneau
|
CF
|
Pederson
|
|
|
P
|
Rusin (L)
|
P
|
Anderson (L)
|
He’s pretty even against lefties and righties this seasons, and seeing as the four hitters are Charlie Blackmon, Carlos Gonzalez, Justin Morneau and Corey Dickerson, it makes some sense.
On the Dodgers’ side, Scott Van Slyke isn’t starting against a left-handed pitcher. That’s a little newsworthy, but it’s because he has a sore hand. He hasn’t been nearly as valuable this season overall as he was last season, and he’s only hitting lefties at a .263/.406/.425 clip after going .315/.415/.630 last in 2014. He’s still a valuable contributor, but the real star against left-handers is Justin Ruggiano. He’s posting a Van Slykian .315/.383/.630 triple slash against lefties this season. He has a 0.6 WAR in eight games for the Dodgers, good for a 12.1-win rate over 162 games. He’s basically Mike Trout against lefties.
This is all significant because the Dodgers are the best team in the National League against left-handers this season, and they face four lefties in a row starting tonight. I’d rather see a guy like Scott Schebler or even Carl Crawford (when healthy) draw starts against lefties over Chris Heisey, so Heisey will go 4-for-4 with a couple home runs tonight just to spite me.
Corey Seager gets yet another start. With every start he gets, he’s making it harder and harder for Don Mattingly to bench him in favor of Jimmy Rollins when Rollins returns from his hand injury.
Howie Kendrick appears closer to returning than the likes of Yasiel Puig and Jose Peraza. Kendrick is playing in a simulated game tomorrow and will be examined afterward to see how his hamstring is doing. Puig is running in the outfield, but he still seems farther away. Jose Peraza isn’t going to be placed on the disabled list and he has actually started rehabbing. Still, it doesn’t seem he’s too likely to play again this season.
All of the following injury news was brought to you by Eric Stephen’s Twitter feed.
