Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (60-30) dropped the second game of this series, 3-2 to the Padres (43-45) last night, ending a couple streaks the team had going. Behind one of Clayton Kershaw‘s best outings of the season, the Dodgers loss ends a streak of nine consecutive wins at home AND a streak of winning Kershaw’s previous 11 starts at home, dating back to last August.
At 60-30, the Dodgers hold the best record in baseball by 1.5 games over the New York Yankees (57-30). In 2018, the team sat at 49-41 through 90 games, trailing the Arizona Diamondbacks by half a game in the NL West. It’s fun to compare that to their current lead in the division of 14.5 games over the Colorado Rockies. As the Dodgers look for another win, they send Kenta Maeda to the mound against Padres rookie, Chris Paddack.
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Padres
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Dodgers
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7:10 P.M.
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Los Angeles
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SS
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Tatis Jr. |
1B
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Pederson | |
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1B
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Hosmer |
CF
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Verdugo | |
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3B
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Machado |
3B
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Turner | |
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LF
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Renfroe |
RF
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Bellinger | |
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C
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Mejia |
2B
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Muncy | |
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RF
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Naylor |
LF
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Beaty | |
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2B
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Garcia | SS | Taylor | |
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P
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Paddack (R) |
C
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Martin | |
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CF
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Margot |
P
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Maeda (R) |
Max Muncy is starting at second base tonight over the right-handed Enrique Hernandez, while Russell Martin starts at catcher despite taking a 93 MPH fastball off the helmet last night.
Of 107 starting pitchers with 70+ innings, here’s where Maeda and Paddack sit.
In total, Maeda has been an above-average starter, even though his season has been slightly worse than usual for him. He’s been extremely good at limiting baserunners as shown by his 1.10 WHIP and .206 batting average allowed. He’s coming off a decent start at Coors Field, where he allowed two runs on three hits over 4.1 innings. That’s not fantastic, but compared to all the other starts that weekend, it was a miracle. Over his last three starts, he’s performed more so how you’d expect, allowing six earned runs over 16.1 innings for a 3.31 ERA and 3.27 FIP. He’ll have a chance here tonight to continue a recent run of solid form.
Here’s how Paddack looks for comparison.
Paddack has had a great rookie season so far, inside the top 15 in ERA, and top five in WHIP and batting average allowed. He had an outrageous start to his season, but came down to earth in June and was sent down to the minors for a week to either regain confidence, limit innings, or manipulate service time or maybe all of the above. More importantly, he’s coming off a great start against the Cardinals, in which he allowed one run on two hits over six innings, while striking out eight. On 5/14, the Dodgers roughed up Paddack for six runs (three earned) over just 4.2 innings. We’ll see if Paddack can get the better of the Dodgers’ offense tonight, or if they’ll jump on him early like last time.
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Rich Hill is making progress and gets to actually pick up a baseball soon which is encouraging. It’ll take quite some time for him to return, but hopefully he progresses nicely and is ready to return to the rotation later in the season.
Corey Seager is on track to be activated 7/12 for the first game back from the All-Star break against the defending World Series Champs. Hopefully he can continue his outstanding hitting he had going over the three weeks prior to his injury.
It also looks like David Freese will be returning from his left hamstring strain that happened mid June.
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Dino Ebel will throw to Joc Pederson in the Home Run Derby on Monday in Cleveland, an area in which Ebel and Pederson both have experience. Pederson ultimately lost 15-14 in the 2015 Home Run Derby final round to Todd Frazier.
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The US Women’s National Team plays tomorrow morning at 8 AM PT in the World Cup Final against the Netherlands. They’re going for their fourth World Cup win out of the eight that have been played, and their second consecutive win, defending their title.
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First pitch is at 7:10 P.T. on SNLA.
