Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers ended their weekend series with the Tigers on a bit of a sketchy note. They entered the eighth inning up 6-0, but ended up needing Craig Kimbrel to close out the ninth inning with the tying run on deck. They finished off the 6-3 win and took two of three against the Tigers, avoiding a second-straight series loss to a team that likely won’t be competitive this season.
Today, the Dodgers start a two-game set with their rivals to the north. The Giants are annoying again, as they entered the season with a seemingly-downgraded lineup and currently are tied for the third-most runs scored in baseball. They’re 14-8 on the season, but have lost three of four (including two of three this weekend against the Nationals). They’ve hit a rough patch with a bit of a Covid outbreak that began late last week,
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| 7:10 PM | Los Angeles | ||
| RF | Slater | RF | Betts |
| CF | Dubon | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 1B | Ruf | SS | T. Turner |
| DH | Flores | C | Smith |
| SS | Crawford (L) | DH | Muncy (L) |
| 2B | Estrada | 3B | J. Turner |
| 3B | Padlo | CF | Bellinger (L) |
| LF | Williams | LF | Taylor |
| C | Bart | 2B | Alberto |
| P | Rodon (L) | P | Urias (L) |
Julio Urias gets his fifth start of the season tonight. After a rough debut in Colorado, Urias has been pretty good in his last three outings. Two of those starts came against some less-than-powerful offenses (Cincinnati and Arizona), but in 16 innings over his last three starts Urias has only surrendered four hits and two runs. He’s been benefitted by a .078 BABIP against him over those three starts, but he’s been quite effective of late. Urias suffered from some velocity decreases during Spring Training and in his first start, but that’s been improving slightly. He averaged 91.4 MPH on his fastball in his start in Colorado, but in his last two starts averaged 92.7 and 92.6 MPH on it. It’s down from the 94.1 MPH he averaged in 2021, so that’s something to keep in mind.
The Dodgers get their first look at Carlos Rodon as a Giant today. Rodon was a popular offseason-dream-target of many Dodger writers (including Dustin) and has been excellent in his four starts as a Giant so far. Rodon currently has a 1.17 ERA/.95 FIP, with only Kevin Gausman besting him in the FIP department. His 38 strikeouts are the sixth-most in baseball, but each of the five pitchers ahead of him have made five starts this season. He’s struck out at least eight batters in each of his four starts and has yet to give up more than one earned run or three hits in a game. He’s walked two batters in each start and is coming off a season-high 104 pitches, so clearly he’s due for a blow up game right.
Rodon does this all while being primarily a two-pitch pitcher. So far this season, he’s thrown a four-seamer 65.6 percent of the time and a slider 27.2 percent of the time. He’s also mixed in a curveball 7.1 percent of the time. Last season, he threw a changeup 12.4 percent of the time and exclusively to righties. However, Baseball Savant doesn’t have him throwing a changeup so far in 2022.
Gavin Lux gets the day off for the Dodgers as Hanser Alberto starts at second against a lefty.
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Yesterday was the deadline for teams to trim their rosters to 26.
Zach McKinstry was optioned and Carson Fulmer was the 40-man roster casualty, as he was DFA’d. Fulmer was added to the active roster on Saturday, but didn’t appear in a big-league game before being DFA’d.
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Urias was originally lined up to start tomorrow, but the Dodgers used their off day yesterday to bump him up.
No starter has been announced for tomorrow, while old friend Alex Wood will start for the Giants. The Dodgers have another off day on Thursday as well.
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MLB held an All-Star press conference at Dodger Stadium today.
Here’s the schedule of events for that week. Yoga seems extremely on-brand for this event.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PDT and will be shown on Sportsnet LA and TBS.
