Giants @ Dodgers Sept. 24, 2017: Season finale vs. San Francisco

(Via)

The Dodgers will close out their season series (which they lead 10-8) with the Giants today looking to complete the series win. They’ll send Clayton Kershaw to the mound. He’ll be opposed by Chris Stratton, who has throw six or more innings in four of his last six starts.

Giants
Dodgers
1:10 p.m.
Los Angeles
CF
Hernandez
CF
Taylor
2B
Tomlinson
SS
Seager
1B
Posey
1B
Bellinger
RF
Pence
RF
Granderson
C
Hundley
3B
Forsythe
SS
Crawford
2B
Utley
3B
Sandoval C Grandal
LF
Williamson
LF
Pederson
P
Stratton (R)
P
Kershaw (L)

This will be Kershaw’s penultimate start of the season. In his last outing, he gave up the first grand slam of is career when he hung a slider to Aaron Altherr. Other than that, he looked pretty good. These last two starts will be a tune up for his Oct. 6 start in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

Kershaw still has a chance to claim the NL Cy Young Award, but after his last outing, things got increasingly tougher. Max Scherzer and Zack Greinke have also sputtered in recent outings, so Kershaw would probably have to throw two shutouts with 10-plus strikeouts in each for that to happen (and it still might not be enough). If it were any other pitcher, I’d give him no chance, but we all know how great Kershaw has been in his career.

Yasiel Puig did a dumb thing last night, and it resulted in an twisted ankle. Not exactly great timing as we’re 12 days out from the first game of the postseason. He said he’s OK, so that’s good. Still, it’s not surprising seeing him get the day off today. Oh, and Dave Roberts had something to say about that today.

Tough love, I guess. Hopefully this is a bit of a reset for Puig.

Justin Turner remains out after taking a pitch off his hand. The rest of the lineup looks just fine. Hopefully it can score against Stratton.

——

Seems like only yesterday.

Not surprising.

I’m pretty sure these athletes aren’t kneeling just to kneel. It’s important and I’m glad to see it happening more frequently and in more numbers. Roberts, as he said about the players, is entitled to his opinion on the matter. It isn’t about disrespecting the military, soldiers, or anything like that. It’s easy to see how it can be construed that way, but that isn’t the purpose of this silent, peaceful protest.

Brandon McCarthy debuted a new hesitation in his delivery last night, and his teammates had fun with it.

About Dustin Nosler

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Dustin Nosler began writing about the Dodgers in July 2009 at his blog, Feelin' Kinda Blue. He co-hosted a weekly podcast with Jared Massey called Dugout Blues. He was a contributor/editor at The Hardball Times and True Blue LA. He graduated from California State University, Sacramento, with his bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in digital media. While at CSUS, he worked for the student-run newspaper The State Hornet for three years, culminating with a 1-year term as editor-in-chief. He resides in Stockton, Calif.