Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
On this episode of Dugout Blues, Jared and I are back after missing last week to talk Dodger baseball. Turns out, the Dodgers are going to be OK, huh?
The starting pitching has been pretty great so far this season, even with Rich Hill struggling (and now on the disabled list) and Clayton Kershaw not throwing as hard as in years past. Hyun-Jin Ryu has been masterful his last three outings after a poor first start of the season. He might be back, possibly. Also, Kenta Maeda and Alex Wood have been their share of good and not so good.
If that weren’t enough, the Dodgers are going to get Walker Buehler a couple starts this week — the first of which happens in about five hours. He should also start one of the doubleheader games in San Francisco this weekend. That should be fun!
The offense has picked it up of late, as Yasmani Grandal and Matt Kemp are leading the way — as we all expected. Corey Seager is also starting to hit better. Yasiel Puig hasn’t been getting the results, but he’s still hitting the ball hard. Some of those balls will start to fall in and/or go over the fence.
On the farm, Connor Wong might be a GUY. He has eight home runs in 12 California League games. He showed surprising pop in his pro debut last season, but even the most optimistic prospector could expect this kind of power. He’s striking out quite a bit (almost 40 percent), so that’ll even out eventually. Still, he’s just another in the catching riches the Dodgers have. DJ Peters is also performing well at Double-A Tulsa, which is awfully encouraging. Dennis Santana is showing why he’s one of the org’s top prospects. He’s missing bats and not walking hitters. He could be a sleeper for some late-season innings in LA. It isn’t all good, though, as Imani Abdullah has been very bad so far this season. He didn’t top 90 MPH with his fastball in the outing I witnessed and didn’t look the part of a big-time prospect. He has some work to do to overcome this early season struggle. I was disappointed in what I saw.
To close, we have a Q&A session. Thank you for the questions. Please keep them coming.
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