Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers won a fifth consecutive game last night, as Walker Buehler made a successful return and the offense continued to roll. Buehler wasn’t overly sharp and allowed three runs over four innings, but hit 97.6 MPH and averaged 95.9 on his fastball, which was faster than he was throwing on rehab. His offspeed stuff wasn’t great, but it was a solid outing for a guy that hasn’t thrown a pitch in the Majors in nearly two years and he seems to have come out of it healthy. The Dodgers have now won 12 of their last 14 and look for a six game winning streak against a team that has yet to win 12 games this season.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| CF | Chisholm Jr. (L) | SS | Betts |
| DH | De La Cruz | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| 3B | Burger | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 1B | Bell (S) | C | Smith |
| RF | Sanchez (L) | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| SS | Anderson | LF | T. Hernández |
| LF | Gordon (L) | RF | Pages |
| 2B | Brujan (S) | 2B | Lux (L) |
| C | Bethancourt | CF | Outman (L) |
| P | Cabrera (R) | P | Yamamoto (R) |
Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets his eighth start of the season tonight. He’s working on a 15-inning scoreless streak following back to back six-inning scoreless outings. He allowed five hits and two walks in six innings last time out in Arizona and lowered his ERA to 2.91. He’s only allowed six earned runs (and one unearned) and has 40 strikeouts and seven walks in his six starts since his Korea start and has allowed a .586 OPS in that time. Yamamoto has had reverse splits this season, as he’s allowed an .803 OPS against righties and only .532 against lefties.
Edward Cabrera looks to get back on track in his fifth start for Miami tonight. He started the season strong, as he allowed four runs over 11 innings in his first two starts and struck out 17 batters. His last two starts have been rough against some pretty bad competition. On April 27, he allowed five earned runs (and an unearned) over 4 1/3 innings and struck out only four against the Nationals. He allowed one run through the first four innings, but things fell apart in the fifth. He allowed a single, walk, double steal and fielders’ choice to allow the first run of the inning, and then loaded the bases with a walk before Jesse Winker unloaded them with a grand slam. His last time out, he allowed four runs in four innings against the Rockies in Miami. He gave up a three run homer in the second and started the fifth inning, but loaded the bases before recording an out. One of those baserunners then scored on a double play to close the book on Cabrera. His 6.05 ERA isn’t pretty, but his underlying numbers paint a different story. He’s only averaging an 84.8 MPH average exit velocity against him, which is the 21st best of all pitchers with over 20 batted balls against. Among starters with over 10 innings thrown this season, Cabrera’s 35.3 percent strikeout rate is only behind Shane Bieber and Bobby Miller.
Cabrera has an interesting repertoire. He throws a changeup more than any other pitch (39.9 percent this season, 31.4 percent last season) and averages 92.4 MPH on it this year. He throws it pretty evenly to lefties and righties and has a 30.8 percent whiff rate on it. He’s thrown a curve 23.9 percent of the time, four-seamer 20.2 percent and slider 14.3 percent, exclusively to righties. His curve and slider both have whiff rates over 40 percent.
The Dodgers roll out the same lineup as last night with James Outman hitting ninth and Gavin Lux eighth. The Marlins have nearly the same lineup, but with Christian Bethancourt behind the plate
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Some injury updates regarding Clayton Kershaw, Miller and Jason Heyward.
Clayton Kershaw threw his second bullpen session today
— Jack Harris (@ByJackHarris) May 8, 2024
Dave Roberts said it was 20 pitches, all FB/2-seam, and that Kershaw's shoulder continues to feel good. Next steps are ramping up in 'pens & mixing in breaking stuff
Roberts said it's all been "really encouraging" so far
Roberts said Bobby Miller will make a rehab appearance before returning. He threw a bullpen yesterday.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) May 7, 2024
Jason Heyward will go to San Diego with the club on the next roadtrip and take some live BP.
Kershaw threw a fastball-only bullpen today and seems to be feeling good. Still a long road back for him, but so far it’s all been positive updates. Miller will throw another bullpen session and could have his first rehab start after that. Heyward will be in San Diego with the club over the weekend and is getting closer to a rehab assignment.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
