Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers are currently in the middle of an impressive one-game winning streak. They took the finale against the Diamondbacks last night and now welcome the team with the lowest winning percentage in the National League to Dodger Stadium.
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Reds
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Dodgers
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7:10 PM
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Los Angeles
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RF
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Winker |
SS
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Taylor | |
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LF
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Duvall |
CF
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Pederson | |
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1B
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Votto |
C
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Grandal | |
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2B
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Gennett |
1B
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Bellinger | |
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3B
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Suarez |
LF
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Kemp | |
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C
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Barnhart |
2B
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Utley | |
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SS
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Blandino | RF | Puig | |
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P
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Mahle (R) |
3B
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Muncy | |
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CF
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Hamilton
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P
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Buehler (R)
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Walker Buehler gets the ball for the first time since his part in a combined no-hitter last Friday in Monterrey. Buehler allowed three walks and struck out eight in six innings against the Padres, but his 93 pitches made it an easy decision for Dave Roberts to pull him. Fortunately, Tony Cingrani, Yimi Garcia and Adam Liberatore kept the Padres hitless through the final three innings for the first combined no-hitter in franchise history. Buehler’s raw stats are impressive, but he’s yet to face a good offensive team yet. The Reds are the highest-scoring offense Buehler’s faced thus far, and they’re only 18th in runs scored. At 10-25, the Reds have the worst record in the National League and are coming off only their second series-win of the season against the Mets. The Reds are 4-12 on the road.
With a righty on the hill for the Reds, Joc Pederson starts in center over Enrique Hernandez, whose misplay last night gave Arizona an inside-the-park home run. Chase Utley starts at second.
Tyler Mahle gets his eighth start of the season for the Reds. He had back-to-back outings in April during which he allowed five runs, but has been halfway decent otherwise. He’s thrown three consecutive quality starts, although two of them were the bare minimum six innings and three earned runs. In his starts on April 24th and 29th, the Reds combined to give him 17 runs of support. In his other five starts, the Reds have scored a total of four runs.
The Reds are using one of my favorite random baseball things tonight, as Mahle bats eighth with Billy Hamilton hitting ninth. Hamilton has a .202/.310/.303 triple slash, but has stolen at least 56 bases in each of his four full major league seasons and plays an elite defensive center field.
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In Clayton Kershaw plays catch news:
Kershaw told Dave Roberts that he felt neither great nor bad after throwing yesterday. The exact adjective was either “fine” or “OK.” In any event, it wasn’t bad enough to keep him from throwing today. Looks like he’s extending a bit.
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) May 10, 2018
Kershaw played catch today for the second consecutive day. That seems like good news.
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In bad news, Andrew Toles is still a #TrueDodger.
Andrew Toles had a little setback, Roberts said. Toles has a hamstring and is not on the radar for return soon.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) May 10, 2018
Toles doesn’t necessarily have a spot on the Dodgers right now, as Matt Kemp has been one of their best hitters this season, Joc Pederson has performed well, and Yasiel Puig returned from the disabled list last night with a three-hit game. It’ll still be good for Toles to get healthy, but it’s less dire with the current performances and with Alex Verdugo putting together an impressive stint in the big leagues before going back down to Triple-A OKC yesterday.
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The Dodgers won’t be facing Brandon Finnegan tomorrow, as originally scheduled.
Harvey will start tomorrow night. Finnegan to AAA. #reds
— John Fay (@johnfayman) May 10, 2018
Matt Harvey has joined the Reds and will start tomorrow opposite Kenta Maeda. I’m not a gambling man, but I would bet a large chunk of my checking account that Harvey tosses like six no-hit innings tomorrow. Let me be the first to make a Dark Knight Rises joke.
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The Dodgers could get half of their infield back next week.
Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe expected to begin rehab assignments this weekend.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) May 10, 2018
Both Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe are scheduled to start rehab assignments this weekend. Allan wrote good words today about how nice it will be to get Turner back in the lineup.
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https://twitter.com/DieterRuehle/status/994729808717201411
Love you Dieter.
