Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
With David Peralta and Chris Taylor both leaving last night’s loss with injuries and six pitchers being needed out of the bullpen after Emmet Sheehan‘s 6 no-hit innings, there’s been some more movement on the Dodgers roster.
Bryan Hudson, signed as a minor league free agent this winter after eight years in the Cubs organization, joins the bullpen. Yonny Hernandez also returned to Los Angeles after spending a week with the Dodgers back in April, but is not activated yet and is sitting on the taxi squad for now.
Before we get to all the details on all of the injuries from Friday, here’s another look on where the bullpen stands entering the weekend with Bobby Miller, Tony Gonsolin and Clayton Kershaw scheduled to start the next three games over the next four days.
| June 8 | June 9 | June 10 | June 11 | June 12 | June 13 | June 14 | June 15 | June 16 | |
| Almonte | 1 IP, 16 | Off | 1 IP, 15 | 1 IP, 12 | |||||
| Ferguson | 2/3 IP, 10 | 1 IP, 22 | Off | 1 IP, 12 | 1 IP, 8 | 1 IP, 10 | |||
| Gonzalez | 2/3 IP, 14 | 1 IP, 18 | Off | 1/3 IP, 9 | 1/3 IP, 19 | ||||
| Graterol | 1 IP, 7 | Off | 2/3 IP, 4 | 2/3 IP, 7 | 1 IP, 20 | ||||
| Miller | 2 IP, 28 | Bereavement | Bereavement | Bereavement | Bereavement | 2 IP, 25 | |||
| Phillips | Off | 1 IP, 17 | 2 IP, 27 | ||||||
| Robertson | 1 IP, 34 | Off | 1 IP, 17 | ||||||
| Vesia | 1 1/3 IP, 16 | 1 IP, 20 | Off | 1/3 IP, 17 | 1 IP, 31 | ||||
| Scott | 2 IP, 28 | 2/3 IP, 12 | Off | 1/3 IP, 11 | 2/3 IP, 14 | 2/3 IP, 15 | |||
| Kolarek | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | 1 1/3 IP, 19 | Off | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | |
| Jackson | Triple-A | Triple-A | 3 IP, 39 | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A |
| B. Hudson | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A | Triple-A |
Everyone could have probably seen Tayler Scott‘s DFA coming as he allowed six runs across those 2 1/3 innings this past week while also being used five times since May 8 to match Caleb Ferguson for the most appearances out of the bullpen since he was recalled on that Thursday in Cincinnati.
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| 6:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| 1B | Wade (L) | RF | Betts |
| DH | Pederson (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 2B | Estrada | DH | Smith |
| LF | Conforto (L) | LF | Martinez |
| RF | Yastrzemski (L) | CF | DeLuca |
| CF | Matos | 2B | Vargas |
| C | Bailey (S) | SS | Rojas |
| SS | Crawford (L) | 3B | Busch (L) |
| 3B | Schmitt | C | Barnes |
| P | Wood (L) | P | Miller (R) |
It sure is an interesting look in support of Bobby Miller tonight.
J.D. Martinez has 3 innings in left field between two games in 2023, though I don’t believe a ball has gotten to him yet. That’ll change tonight as he’s starting in the outfield for the first time since Oct. 3, 2021 when he was in right field for Boston while the last start in left field came on Sept. 21, 2021. Will Smith is back at DH for the first time since May 10 and Michael Busch gets career start No. 4 at third base.
Counting Miller on the mound, that’s four rookies starting for the Dodgers and James Outman isn’t even one of them. While that group has never seen Alex Wood, Mookie Betts was 9-for-14 with three home runs against Wood entering the season but went 0-for-2 with a walk and strikeout back on April 11. The Dodgers managed just one hit in that game, a single by Miguel Rojas, while taking three walks and two hit by pitches as a team.
For the Giants, Casey Schmitt starts at third after entering the game for Wilmer Flores after the latter fouled a ball off his foot last night.
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Already through four career starts, Miller looks like a slacker compared to Sheehan as he has allowed two runs and 12 hits in his first 23 innings. While not as good as 6 no-hit innings, Miller’s first month in the majors has gone about as well as you can reasonably hope even if the new standard is set.
Striking out 23 to seven walks, Miller upped the strikeout total to seven apiece against the Yankees and Phillies after opening with nine combined against the Braves and Nationals. That’s included a jump in Whiff% for his slider, which opened at 27.3% and 20.0% in the first two starts before increasing to 57.9% and 41.7% in the next two. The sinker has held steady between 13% to 20%, with the change (50%) and the curve (66.7%) hitting highs his last time out.
The limited success batters have had against Miller has come from the left side of the plate. Five of his seven walks and four of his five extra-base hits have come against left-handed batters, with the four-seamer accounting for two hits in five at-bats and the sinker at three hits in 17 at-bats. Both his off the slider went four doubles, with batters 2-for-9 with four strikeouts against the pitch.
Right-handed batters have just one extra-base hit, a double by Austin Riley in the first inning of his major league career. All five hits by right-handed batters have come against Miller’s fastball or sinker, with the slider at 0-for-13 with six strikeouts, the curve 0-for-2 with one strikeout and the change 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.
Wood has been on the injured list since June 4 with a back strain after allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Pirates on May 31. That was easily Wood’s worst start of 2023, with the eight hits and six runs ahead of his previous high of six hits and four runs allowed. Of course, Wood’s best start of 2023 came against the Dodgers on April 11 as he allowed one hit, tied for a season low, and no runs, his only scoreless outing of the year. The Giants pulled him after just 75 pitches as he had runners on second and third with two down in the 5th with Smith coming to the plate.
Wood’s K% of 21.4% is 130th among 226 pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched in 2023, but his ground ball rate of 50.6% is 33rd among 226 pitchers. While it hadn’t been the case in his career, Wood’s splits still drastically in favor of right-handed batters (.315/.411/.511/.922) compared to lefties (.115/.258/.192/.450) in 2023 as they did a year ago. Given that Wood only throws a sinker, slider and change at this point in his career, there’s not a drastic difference in approach to batters on each side of the plate. Right-handers see 53.6% sinkers, 30.4% sliders and 15.9% changes while lefties get a nearly identical split between the three pitches as they are all between 34.1% and 32.6%.
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Getting back to the news of the day, here’s a million tweets to explain how everyone is doing.
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Getting back to the newest addition to the bullpen, Hudson arrives after I’ve kept a close eye on him over the past few months. Back when he was added as a non-roster invite, I mentioned his profile seemed interesting given that he’s a 6-foot-8 lefty who has struck out 28.4% of batters at Triple-A and 34.6% in Double-A during the 2022 season. Still just 26, Hudson was drafted by the Cubs in the 3rd round back in 2015 and moved to the bullpen full-time after the pandemic canceled the 2020 minor league seasons.
Hudson has used a four-seamer and slider for Oklahoma City this season, with the former averaging about 92 mph and the latter 81.4 mph. Striking out 46.3% of left-handed batters and 37.3% of righties, Hudson shifted from generating a fair amount of ground balls over the years to now being 27.3% grounders to 38.2% fly balls. That’s even more drastic for left-handed batters which are 6.3% to 62.5% this year.
To put those into context, here’s a look at Hudson’s minor league batted ball profile.
While Hudson’s 41.1 K% does come with a 11.3 BB%, he’s second in the Pacific Coast League in K% and third in K-BB%, with both numbers ranking among the Top 30 in all of the minors for pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched. A career-best .193 batting average allowed has balanced out the walks a bit, and he’s stranded 81.8% of runners.
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First pitch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. PT on SportsNet LA.
