Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After losing the series in Pittsburgh to the 31-33 Pirates, the Dodgers (41-25, 5th in MLB) have made the road trip much less of a failure by handing the Yankees (45-21, 2nd in MLB) back-to-back losses on national television.
Those losses halted the Yankees’ 8-game win streak and a loss on Sunday Night Baseball would be New York’s second three-game losing streak of the season and their first time being swept by any opponent (home or road) in 2024. In fact, the Yankees haven’t been swept at home since last August when the Red Sox won three straight at Yankee Stadium and haven’t been swept at home by a National League team since… ever?
I looked through every Yankees season since 1997 and did not seem to find a National League team sweeping a 3-game or 4-game series in New York. Because I was concerned I might have missed it as I looked through endless green and red highlighted boxes on Wikipedia, I asked Eric Stephen to verify.
And…
(I deleted the first reply)
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) June 9, 2024
No NL team has swept the Yankees in NY in a 3-game series
(side note: to my knowledge, there has never been a 4-game interleague series in one place)
Mets in 2008 had 3 wins at Yankee Stadium, but was over two visitshttps://t.co/Ndiw6GfiLj
That will all be irrelevant if the Dodgers can’t figure out 26-year-old Luis Gil, who holds a 0.60 ERA across his past seven starts (44 2/3 IP). That’s a total of 3 earned runs since allowing 5 in 5 innings against the Twins on April 26. After undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2022, Gil didn’t appear in the majors last year and now holds the best ERA among qualified pitchers in the American League thanks in part to a league-best .178 BABIP.
Tyler Glasnow and his also pretty good 2.93 ERA in 80 innings (and sixth-best BABIP of .234) makes this probably one of the better pitching match-ups for 2024. More on the comparisons between the two is below.
 |
 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:10 P.M. | The Bronx | ||
| SS | Betts | SS | Volpe |
| DH | Ohtani (L) | LF | Verdugo (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | RF | Judge |
| C | Smith | DH | Stanton |
| LF | T. Hernandez | CF | Grisham (L) |
| RF | Heyward (L) | 2B | Torres |
| CF | Pages | 1B | LeMahieu |
| 2B | Lux (L) | 3B | Cabrera (S) |
| 3B | E. Hernandez | C | Trevino |
| P | Glasnow (R) | P | Gil (R) |
Not really much to say here as the Dodgers have Austin Barnes, Miguel Rojas, Chris Taylor and Miguel Vargas on the bench. The lineup has a total of five career at-bats against Gil, with all of them coming from the Hernandez(es). Teoscar Hernandez has struck out twice against Gil wile Enrique Hernandez is 1-for-3 with a single.
For the Yankees, Juan Soto could appear at some point?
Yankees mgr Aaron Boone says Juan Soto is supposed to hit in the cage today and test his sore forearm. Could be available as pinch-hitter today v #Dodgers, Boone says
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) June 9, 2024
——
So just how good are Gil and Glasnow among the entire league?
Well here’s a look with the MLB ranking for each stat…
| Stats | Glasnow | Gil |
|---|---|---|
| IP | 80 (11th) | 69 1.3 (T-50th) |
| ERA | 2.93 (T-17th) | 1.82 (2nd) |
| FIP | 2.70 (T-9th) | 2.95 (13th) |
| SIERA | 2.70 (5th) | 3.59 (28th) |
| K | 104 (1st) | 85 (T-10th) |
| K% | 33.5% (2nd) | 31.5% (5th) |
| BB% | 7.4% (T-42nd) | 12.6% (72nd) |
| K-BB% | 26.1% (4th) | 18.9% (21st) |
| BABIP | .234 (6th) | .178 (1st) |
| Stuff+ | 115 (T-7th) | 114 (9th) |
| Location+ | 102 (T-28th) | 96 (T-68th) |
| Pitching+ | 107 (T-5th) | 102 (T-30th) |
| WAR | 2.2 (T-7th) | 1.8 (16th) |
Gil has obviously struggled a bit with walks, with at least 2 in five of his past six starts. He walked as many as 7 back on April 15 against the Blue Jays and had 3 in his most recent outing against the Twins on June 4. Obviously it is nitpicking his numbers, but it’s the one clear weakness in an otherwise really strong 2024 season.
All three of Gil’s pitches have struggled a bit on Location+ as his fastball (97), slider (90) and change (98) are all around that overall total of 96. The Stuff+ rating for the pitches is a slightly different story as the fastball (127) is tied for third-best among qualified pitchers, followed by slider (110, T-39th) and change (91, T-28th). Gil throws the four-seamer 55.6% of the time and ranks in a tie for 6th in the league with an 11 Run Value with the pitch.
That actually ranks behind Glasnow’s 13 that is tied for 2nd in the league, but Gil is matching up with a team that just had a story written about how it struggles against fastballs thrown 97 mph and higher. Well, Gil averages 96.5 mph on his four-seamer so I guess we will see how much improvement has been made in the past few days. Gil’s change is also tied for 9th among qualified pitchers on Baseball Savant with a 5 Run Value for his change and tied for 24th with a 4 Run Value on his slider.
So which Dodgers have hit fastballs well this season?
Much to everyone’s surprise, Shohei Ohtani has an 11 Run Value against the pitch himself to sit in a tie for 3rd, with Mookie Betts‘ 6 Run Value tied for 18th, and both Max Muncy and Will Smith‘s 4 Run Value tied for 43rd. Freddie Freeman‘s Run Value is down at 0 despite his xwOBA of .414 against fastballs, but he’s also whiffing on the pitch 16.7% of the time. Muncy’s xwOBA is only .368 and has a Whiff% of 31.6%, but he’s also slugging .778 against fastballs.
Muncy of course is on the injured list, but otherwise the rest of that group is predictably in the lineup tonight.
——
As of writing this about three hours before first pitch, there was very little in terms of news.
Shohei may have extended his throwing distance.
Make your own estimate. But it looks like #Dodgers Shohei Ohtani has increased the distance in his every-other-day throwing program pic.twitter.com/59Vf7zWlg5
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) June 9, 2024
——
And the Dodgers’ current pitching rotation may shape up like this as they return home to face the Rangers.
For now, the Rangers starting pitchers for Dodger Stadium are TBA (with Jon Gray likely Wednesday, per below)
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) June 9, 2024
But the Dodgers game notes today have LA staying in order with Paxton, Buehler, and Yamamoto. Would imagine this will be discussed during today's pregame scrum in NY https://t.co/nwNIGf4sB5
——
First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN.
