Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
It’s the first of three consecutive Sunday Night Baseball games for the New York Yankees, with the first coming from Dodger Stadium as the Dodgers and Yankees close out their series with a deciding third game.
After the Dodgers jumped out to a big lead against Luis Severino on Friday, the Yankees put up four runs against Michael Grove and held on for the victory yesterday. With no lead changes in those two games, it’ll be up to Bobby Miller and Domingo German to keep the opposition off the board early tonight.
Having first met during the regular season back in 2004, the Dodgers and Yankees are an even 9-9 against each other through their interleague meetings in 2004, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2023. Each team took two of the four three-game series while splitting their two two-game series back in 2013, so it’s been a pretty even run between the teams since the rivalry renewed following the 1981 World Series.
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| 4:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| 2B | Torres | RF | Betts |
| 1B | Rizzo (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| DH | Stanton | C | Smith |
| LF | Calhoun (L) | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| 3B | LeMahieu | DH | Martinez |
| RF | Bauers (L) | LF | Peralta (L) |
| CF | Kiner-Falefa | 2B | Vargas |
| C | Higashioka | SS | Taylor |
| SS | Volpe | CF | Outman (L) |
| P | German (R) | P | Miller (R) |
The Dodgers saw German back in that 2019 series, scoring just one run on five hits and two walks on, of course, Sunday Night Baseball. That lone run was a leadoff shot by Joc Pederson, with Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes and Clayton Kershaw the only current Dodgers in the order that night. Neither of Mookie Betts or J.D. Martinez had a ton of success against German when they were in Boston.
Meanwhile, the Yankees do not have Aaron Judge or Josh Donaldson in the lineup tonight as the former is off after crashing though the bullpen door last night.
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After facing the Braves and Nationals in his first two starts, Miller gets a Yankees lineup that ranks 10th in the league with 4.72 runs per game and tied for 12th with a 102 wRC+. Of course, that’s with Giancarlo Stanton playing 14 of 60 games, Donaldson 7 of 60 and even Judge in 49 of 60.
Striking out nine to just two walks in his 11 innings, Miller has allowed only two runs on eight hits. After going with 30.5% four-seamers, 26.3% sliders and 24.2% change-ups, Miller went to 49.4% sinkers and 20.7% change-ups according to Baseball Savant. It’s probably worth taking a much closer look at the details of those pitches before taking those numbers to heart, as the velocity and spin rate have been pretty similar. It’s fair to say some of the pitches in the first outing, when Miller is listed with just 7.4% sinkers, may be a bit off.
That logic holds up even better when you look at what he threw to batters on each side of the plate between the two starts, as Miller allegedly went from 28.6% four-seamers to right-handed batters down to 0% in his second outing. For left-handed batters, it would be a drop from 32.6% to 3.6% to left-handed batters with a jump from 8.7% sinkers to 48.2%.
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The main roster news for the day has already been covered, as Josh wrote about Jonny DeLuca‘s promotion in plenty of detail.
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There’s also less cheery outfield prospect news.
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First pitch from Dodger Stadium is set for 4:10 p.m. PT on ESPN.
