Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
As Chad said in his recap last night, yesterday’s loss was a perfect microcosm of the 2018 so far. Hyun-Jin Ryu was good once again. Ryu gave the Dodgers a lead with his arm (5 2/3 innings, two earned runs, four hits, seven strikeouts, no walks) and with his bat, as his two-run double broke a 2-2 tie in the fourth. However in the seventh, Tony Cingrani got rocked and his arm died. Pedro Baez relieved him and literally fell off the pitchers mound to balk in the go-ahead run, and then allowed a sixth run to score on a sac fly to put the game out of reach for the Dodgers. Luckily (horribly), the Dodgers get (have) to play twice (oh God why) today.
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Dodgers
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Giants
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1:05 PM
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San Francisco
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CF
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Taylor |
CF
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Blanco | |
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2B
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Utley |
SS
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Crawford | |
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SS
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Seager |
RF
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McCutchen | |
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1B
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Bellinger |
1B
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Belt | |
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LF
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Pederson |
3B
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Sandoval | |
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C
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Barnes |
LF
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Slater | |
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RF
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Puig | C | Hundley | |
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3B
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Muncy |
2B
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Tomlinson | |
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P
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Buehler (R)
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P
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Stratton (R)
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The Dodgers are going bold in the first game, calling up a pitcher all the way from Single-A Rancho Cucamonga to start tonight’s game. Top prospect Walker Buehler gets his second Major League start of the week. Buehler was recalled today thanks to MLB’s rule about double-headers, which allows a team to add a 26th player to their roster and allows a team to recall a recently-demoted player without having to wait 10 days.
Buehler made his first career start on Monday and pitched well, scattering four hits and three walks across five innings. He worked out of the stretch often as he only tossed one 1-2-3 inning, but he got some help from Enrique Hernandez and Yasmani Grandal on defense. He struck out five and made 89 pitches, which is the most he’s thrown as a professional. He was optioned to Rancho rather than Triple-A OKC after the start, presumably to make it easier to recall him for today’s game.
Matt Kemp was taken out of last night’s game in the fourth inning after suffering a left quad injury. He’s listed on the lineup card on the bench, but it’s unknown if he’ll be available at all today. Corey Seager is back in the lineup after sitting last night, and Austin Barnes catches game one. Barnes also started Buehler’s debut on Monday behind the plate.
For the Giants, Chris Stratton makes his sixth start of the season. He’s been surprisingly effective, with a 2.32 ERA/2.69 FIP and a 20 percent K% and only an 8 percent BB%. He’s one of three qualified starters that has not yet surrendered a home run this season (teammate Johnny Cueto and not-Giant Rick Porcello are the other two). The Dodgers have already seen Stratton twice this season and they’ve score five of the eight earned runs he’s surrendered this season. Stratton was just called back off the Paternity List as his wife just gave birth to their second child.
The Giants are running a bit of a split-squad lineup out there as Buster Posey, Evan Longoria, Hunter Pence and Austin Jackson are all out of the starting lineup in game one. Before the game, Joe Panik was placed on the DL with a thumb sprain and Mac Williamson was placed on the 7-day concussion DL.
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In not surprising news:
Tony Cingrani is not available for the day game, Dave Roberts said.
— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) April 28, 2018
This is not a healthy pitcher pic.twitter.com/HQUWi6naTs
— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) April 28, 2018
Tony Cingrani got one out and allowed four baserunners last night, with two earned runs scoring while he was in the game (and two more coming off Pedro Baez). It remains to be seen whether Cingrani will be available for the nightcap, but the Dodgers very well might have only 24 healthy players available for this double-header with Kemp’s status also unknown.
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Game one will only be broadcast on SNLA, while game two tonight will be shown on SNLA and KCAL.
