Dodgers @ Phillies August 17, 2016: Kazmir vs. Thompson

	Dodgers			Phillies
	4:05 p.m. PT			Philadelphia
2B	Utley		2B	Hernandez
SS	Seager		CF	Herrera
3B	Turner		LF	Altherr
RF	Reddick		1B	Joseph
1B	González		3B	Franco
C	Grandal		C	Ruiz
CF	Pederson		SS	Galvis
LF	Kendrick		RF	Bourjos
P	Kazmir (L)		P	Thompson (R)

The good news about Scott Kazmir is that he has pitched into at least the sixth inning in his past three starts. The bad news is that the Dodgers lost all three games.

In his most recent start (also against the Phillies), Kazmir was excellent through six scoreless innings before allowing two baserunners in the top of the seventh that eventually came in to score on a home run allowed by Grant Dayton. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Kazmir this season, it’s that a strong start isn’t necessarily a sign that we’re going to see any kind of prolonged stretch of solidness from the southpaw. But it was still encouraging to see Kazmir as effective as he was in that game.

Rookie right hander Jake Thompson gets the ball for the Phillies, making just his third MLB start. In nine and a third big league innings pitched, Thompson has allowed nine runs on nine hits and five walks while striking out seven. Baseball America had this to say about Thompson when he was called up:

Thompson owns two fastballs—a four-seamer in the 93-94 mph range and a two-seamer a tick lower than that—as well as a slider, curveball and a changeup. He likes to mix his fastballs at what he labels a roughly 50-50 clip, especially to keep lefthanded hitters from diving out on the plate to get to his four-seamer. His changeup is developing and the Phillies would like him to incorporate it more.

With another righty on the mound for Philadelphia, the Dodgers roll out the same lineup as they did yesterday. It’s hard to imagine that anything could top Chase Utley‘s epic homecoming last night, but I’d certainly like to see the Dodgers try.

At time of posting, the Pirates were three outs away from completing a sweep of the Giants, though the Giants had the bases loaded. Should Pittsburgh hold on — and that’s admittedly a fairly big “should” — then no matter what, the Dodgers will remain with sole possession of first place, and a win would put them one and a half games up on San Francisco. Otherwise, the Dodgers will need to win to stay atop the NL West.

In other Dodger news — stop me if you’ve heard (something very similar to) this before:

Rich Hill could make his Dodgers debut against San Francisco next week, Dave Roberts said. He'll throw a sim game in Arizona tomorrow.

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) August 17, 2016

We’ll also be seeing Adam Liberatore again very soon:

#Dodgers Dave Roberts said LHP Adam Liberatore will be activated from DL on Friday unless bullpen need arises before then

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) August 17, 2016

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