Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The title. Allan made me do it.
The Dodger bullpen imploded last night, as they had an 8-4 lead when Tony Gonsolin exited the game and five relievers combined to allow five runs, including a three-run ninth off Caleb Ferguson to drop their third straight game in horrendous fashion. It was a rough start to the road trip after dropping the final two games of the homestand this weekend, and now the Dodgers find themselves a game behind Arizona in the NL West. It also moved the Dodgers back under .500 away from LA, and now they turn to their like ninth best starter to try to avoid their longest losing streak of the season.
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| 4:10 PM | Cincinnati | ||
| RF | Betts | RF | Fraley (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | DH | McLain |
| C | Smith | 2B | India |
| DH | Martinez | SS | De La Cruz (S) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | 1B | Steer |
| LF | Taylor | C | Stephenson |
| 2B | Vargas | LF | Benson (L) |
| CF | DeLuca | 3B | Newman |
| SS | Rojas | CF | Fairchild |
| P | Syndergaard (R) | P | Williamson (L) |
Noah Syndergaard starts tonight coming off of arguably his most disappointing start of the season. It wasn’t quite his worst start, but considering this start came against the Nationals, it was not great. He allowed five runs and seven hits in five innings and got taken deep three times. This was coming off a start where he allowed six runs in six innings against Tampa, which is much more understandable.
Following last Wednesday’s game, Dave Roberts expressed for the first time the possibility of Syndergaard losing his rotation spot. Bobby Miller has been incredible and Michael Grove came off the IL throwing 98, so it’s hard to see a world where Syndergaard isn’t the odd man out of this rotation when people start coming back healthy. It’s easy to feel for him, as he delivered this quote after the game.
It’s easy to feel for him, but if Julio Urias remains on track to return on Sunday, Syndergaard’s time in blue (or at least in the rotation) could be coming to an end soon. Syndergaard did make back-to-back starts against the Reds last year and had some success. He completed seven innings in both games and allowed only four combined runs.
Brandon Williamson gets the ball for the Reds tonight. He’s the Reds’ number 10 prospect on MLB Pipeline, one of three top 10 Red prospects in the lineup today. The lefty has made four starts this season and had an impressive debut, as he threw 5 2/3 two-hit one-run innings at Coors. He followed that up with a pair of 4 1/3 inning starts, allowing three in the first and four in the second game. Last time out, he allowed two runs and struck out six in 5 2/3 innings against the Brewers. In 21 innings, Williamson’s struck out 18 batters but issued 11 walks.
Baseball Savant has tracked five different pitch types from Williamson this season. He’s thrown a cutter 29.1 percent of the time, four-seamer 26.9 percent of the time, slider 19.3 percent of the time, changeup 15.9 percent of the time and curve 8.9 percent. 15 of his 18 strikeouts have come off the offspeed stuff, and his changeup is currently running a 72.7 percent whiff rate. Obviously the sample size is very small, but that seems to be his best pitch early on.
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Jonny DeLuca makes his MLB debut tonight, as he’ll hit eighth and start in center. Max Muncy left last night’s game but is starting tonight. For the Reds, Elly De La Cruz makes his first start at short after debuting at third last night.
For more on DeLuca, read Josh’s post from Sunday.
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First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
