Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
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Mets
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Dodgers
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7:10 p.m. PT
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Los Angeles
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RF
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Granderson
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LF
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Hernandez
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SS
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Cabrera
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2B
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Kendrick
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3B
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Wright
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1B
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Gonzalez
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LF
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Cespedes
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3B
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Turner
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1B
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Duda
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RF
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Puig
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CF
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Lagares
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CF
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Thompson
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2B
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Flores
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C
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Ellis
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C
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Plawecki
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SS
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Culberson
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P
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Matz (L)
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P
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Kazmir (L)
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As the Dodgers return home and face their NLDS foe for the first time since last year’s playoffs, they will face off against Steven Matz. Matz started game four of the NLDS for the Mets last year and lost to Clayton Kershaw, but the young southpaw has been firing on all cylinders so far in 2016. In his first start of the season he was chased by the Marlins after allowing seven runs in 1-2/3 innings. Since then he has been absolutely brilliant, posting a 0.67 ERA in 27 innings, striking out 29 while walking five. Two of those starts were against the Braves, so the strength of schedule hasn’t been great, but it has still been quite a run. These days Matz is featuring a 95mph fastball about 60% of the time, along with a Warthen Slider in the upper 80s, a changeup in the mid 80s, and his excellent curveball at around 78mph.
Facing Matz is a very right-handed Dodger lineup. The only left-handed bat starting the game is Adrian Gonzalez. Chase Utley gets the day off, putting off any impending dramatic nonsense to another day. Joc Pederson gets the day off again in favor of Trayce Thompson. A.J. Ellis also gets the start at catcher over Yasmani Grandal. Finally, Corey Seager is also sitting in favor of Charlie Culberson. Those last three substitutions are pretty annoying, but as Eric Stephen points out, the Dodgers won’t be facing another lefty for at least a week.
In roster news, the Dodgers have optioned the newly acquired Casey Fien to Oklahoma City, after previously saying that they would not. Julio Urias started a game today, so any call-up is going to have to wait for awhile (and one has to begin wondering if Dave Roberts was just speaking out of turn last weekend). Jose De Leon is sore and will miss his next start. More happily, Brandon McCarthy threw three innings today and is scheduled to throw to batters for the first time since his surgery next week. It’s concerning that his velocity is only back to 89 at this point, but there’s still a lot of time before he’ll be fully ready. Hyun-jin Ryu also threw a bullpen today, but the organization still hasn’t said anything about his velocity. If they’re willing to say that McCarthy is only throwing 89 and haven’t said anything about Ryu, that might be a bad sign.
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