Dodgers @ White Sox June 24, 2024: Dodgers travel to the South Side to open series against the worst record in baseball

The Dodgers pounced early and often on Saturday as they bounced back to take the second game of their mini-homestand. Tyler Glasnow was good once again, as he scattered two runs over seven innings and struck out 10 to extend his major league lead in strikeouts. They had a weird Sunday off day and gained a half game on the rest of the NL West as every other team lost.

Today, they begin a six-game road trip in Chicago to take on the White Sox. The White Sox are 21-58 with a -164 run differential, which is the worst in baseball. They were 15-35 on May 22, which is bad but not like egregious. They were 15-48 on June 6, which *checks math* is not good. Future Dodger Luis Robert Jr. missed two months with a hip issue and Yoan Moncada has been out since early April with an adductor issue, which obviously has impacted their offense. They’ve scored 243 runs in 79 games, which is 30 fewer than the second lowest run total (Miami, 273). They actually do have a couple good pitchers, one of whom the Dodgers will face tonight.

	5:10 P.M.		Chicago
DH	Ohtani (L)	RF	Pham
C	Smith	1B	Vaughn
1B	Freeman (L)	CF	Robert Jr.
CF	Pages	DH	Jimenez
SS	Rojas	SS	DeJong
LF	Vargas	C	Lee
3B	K. Hernández	LF	Julks
2B	Taylor	3B	Sosa
RF	Heyward (L)	2B	Mendick
P	Paxton (L)	P	Crochet (L)

James Paxton gets the ball tonight and looks to ride the momentum from his last start. Paxton made his first career start in Colorado last week and was excellent. Paxton allowed one run on a solo homer and two hits and one walk (and allowed one to reach on an error) over seven innings and struck out eight, surpassing his previous season-high of five. It was his second consecutive two hit/one run start as he also did that against the Rangers on June 11, but he only struck out two and walked two in that start over six innings. Paxton’s 7-1 and the Dodgers are 10-3 in his starts, which is sort of funny. They’re averaging 4.79 runs per game when Tyler Glasnow starts, and they’ve scored fewer than five runs only three times when Paxton starts. They’re averaging 7.17 runs per game for Paxton.

The offensive production in Paxton starts will be tested today against Garrett Crochet. The 25-year-old lefty has been great in his first season as a starter. He has a 3.25 ERA/2.59 FIP and a 0.947 WHIP over 88 2/3 innings, which has already more than doubled his career inning output from his previous threeish years as a reliever. One of those was a six-outing cup of coffee and the other was 13 outings after returning from a 2022 Tommy John last season, but Crochet was a good reliever and now is a very good starter. Crochet had a really rough stretch in April where he allowed 17 runs over 11 2/3 innings in a three start stretch. That appears to be more of a blip than anything, as he’s only allowed 18 runs in his other 13 starts. He had allowed two or fewer runs in each of those other starts until his most recent, when the Astros scored three over six innings and had a season-high nine hits off Crochet. Crochet’s gone at least six innings in 11 of his 16 starts (all his other starts came in a stretch from April 7-April 29) and has struck out double digit batters five times this season.

Crochet had the highest strikeout rate among qualified pitchers in baseball until Glasnow’s 10-strikeout performance yesterday, now they’re tied at 35.2 percent. Glasnow now has 11 more strikeouts on the season than Crochet in the same number of starts but also in 11 1/3 more innings. Crochet’s always been a fastball-first pitcher and has used his four seamer 54.5 percent of the time. His average velocity is actually up from where it was in his only full-time season as a reliever (96.8 MPH). He added a cutter this season and has thrown it 26.1 percent of the time with a 37.6 percent whiff rate, the highest among his four offerings. He’s thrown a slider 13 percent of the time and has used a 90 MPH changeup 6.4 percent of the time, exclusively to righties.

Teoscar Hernandez is out of the lineup for the first time this season, made even more surprising by the fact that it’s against a lefty. He’s in the Dominican Republic for personal reasons and is expected to be in Chicago for tomorrow’s game. Jason Heyward gets the start in right and Andy Pages bats cleanup.

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Clayton Kershaw‘s rehab has been paused.

#Dodgers have shut down Clayton Kershaw due to “lingering soreness” in his shoulder. MRI showed no new issues. Will not throw for week or so then start progression again.

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) June 24, 2024

He was originally slated to make his second rehab start tomorrow, but reported some soreness following his first rehab start. They’ve decided to shut him down and he won’t throw for a week before starting to build up again. Nothing new was found on his MRI which is good.

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You’re all lucky I don’t know shit about knitting and couldn’t make a Crochet-related title pun. Maybe something about needling him with hits? Idk, it’s hot.

First pitch is scheduled for 5:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.