Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After another loss to the Dodgers on Sunday afternoon/night, the Padres odds of winning the National League West slipped 0.6% to 1.9%, while their odds of making the playoffs dropped a full percent from 47.3% to 46.3%.
With all of that said, and the Dodgers currently at 84.2% to earn a bye thanks to an 88.3% chance of winning the NL West, it seems likely Monday afternoon will wrap up the Dodgers’ time in San Diego for 2023. Thanks to the new scheduling which leaves just 13 meetings between the teams this year, the three-game series back in May and this four-game series will be it unless the Padres rally back and advanced in the Wild Card Round to somehow match up with the Dodgers in the playoffs again.
Regardless of what happens today, the Dodgers have won the season series with the Padres in San Diego thanks to a 4-2 advantage so far and have already finished off the season series thanks to the three-game sweep in Los Angeles back in May as well. The final three games at Dodger Stadium are set for Sept. 11 to 13. With the Padres currently 10 games back of the Dodgers, and just 15 games remaining for San Diego once that series concludes, that may be just about when they are officially eliminated from the division race.
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| 4:00 P.M. | San Diego | ||
| 2B | Betts | 3B | Kim |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | RF | Tatis |
| C | Smith | LF | Soto (L) |
| DH | Muncy (L) | DH | Machado |
| LF | Peralta (L) | SS | Bogarts |
| RF | Heyward (L) | 2B | Conenworth (L) |
| 3B | Hernandez | 1B | Choi (L) |
| CF | Outman (L) | C | Campusano |
| SS | Rojas | CF | Grisham (L) |
| P | Gonsolin (R) | P | Lugo (R) |
For the Dodgers, Max Muncy returns after being hit on the wrist in the series finale against Oakland on Thursday. He does so at designated hitter with J.D. Martinez on the bench, which was the plan.
Plan was to play him two days then give him day game off https://t.co/EshDqZMvJ3
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) August 7, 2023
With Chris Taylor out of the lineup against the right-handed Seth Lugo, that leaves third base to Kiké Hernandez. Hernandez will be the fifth Dodger to play third base this season, with Muncy covering the spot for 362 plate appearances so far (about 76%) followed by Taylor’s 64, Michael Busch‘s 37 and Yonny Hernandez‘s 3. Amazingly, Hernandez hasn’t played third base since 2019, and that was one game for 6 innings. Before that, it was just 9 games and 34 innings in 2018 and a career-high 14 games and 77 1/3 innings in 2017. In total, it’s 33 games and 154 2/3 innings for his career at third.
Otherwise, all the left-handed batters are back in the lineup along with Will Smith as Martinez, Austin Barnes, Amed Rosario and Taylor are on the bench today.
The Padres continue to send out just about the exact same lineup for the whole series with Luis Campusano back at catcher for Gary Sanchez.
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| Gonsolin | Lugo | |
| IP | 87 2/3 | 89 |
| ERA | 4.11 | 3.54 |
| xERA | 4.88 | 4.17 |
| FIP | 4.86 | 3.75 |
| xFIP | 5.15 | 3.52 |
| DRA | 5.70 | 4.16 |
| K% | 19.4% | 24.0% |
| BB% | 9.6% | 5.2% |
Lugo had started a total of 38 games in his career between 2016 and 2022 while with the Mets, Signing a contract for $7.5 in 2023 with a player option for 2024 at the same rate. The move to the rotation did not change much for Lugo in terms of approach, with the fastball and change going up a little while the sinker and slider went down.
It’s nearly an even four-pitch split to right-handed batters with the fastball thrown 27.1% of the time followed by the sinker (26.7%), curve (24.0%) and slider (21.4%). Left-handed batters see the curve 41.7% of the time followed by the fastball 38.9% with both the sinker and change at around 9%.
While lefties strike out a bit more at 26.1% to right-handed batters at 21.9%, they also hit Lugo harder with a .768 OPS compared to .651 for righties. Of the 12 homers Lugo has allowed in 2023, 10 have been hit by left-handed batters in just 10 more PAs than right-handed batters. Those have primarily come against the fastball, with six total.
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The newest Clayton Kershaw update is here.
Dodgers probables in Arizona:
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) August 7, 2023
Tuesday: Julio Urías
Wednesday: Bobby Miller
Would line up for Clayton Kershaw to return Thursday at home against the Rockies.
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First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 P.M. PT on SportsNet LA.
