Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (50-31) secured the series win against the Chicago White Sox (21-60) last night with a well earned 4-3 victory. Bobby Miller wasn’t sharp, but Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman homered while the bullpen held it down. Michael Peterson made his second appearance for the Dodgers and notched his second win, bridging the gap between Miller, Yohan Ramirez, and the rest of the pen. All the relievers looked sharp, as three of the four guys who pitched after Ramirez have ERA’s under 2, while the other is Blake Treinen at 2.16. That won’t continue forever, but it’s great to have while it lasts. The Sox will run out their second best starting pitcher, Erick Fedde, up against Gavin Stone.
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| 5:10 P.M. | Chicago | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | CF | Pham |
| LF | T. Hernández | LF | Benintendi (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | DH | Robert Jr. |
| RF | Heyward (L) | RF | Sheets (L) |
| CF | Pages | 1B | Vaughn (L) |
| 2B | Lux (L) | SS | DeJong |
| SS | Rojas | C | Lee |
| 3B | K. Hernández | 2B | Lopez (L) |
| C | Barnes | 3B | Sosa |
| P | Stone (R) | P | Fedde (R) |
The White Sox will send out the same lineup as they did yesterday. Andrew Benintendi has a .562 OPS on the year, so the team should try to avoid walking him twice and allowing him to homer like he did yesterday. They should also try to not repeat walking Tommy Pham three times. All of Anthony Banda, Treinen, Daniel Hudson, and Evan Phillips pitched yesterday, so getting length out of Stone would be nice. It’s a great matchup for him.
Miguel Vargas reached twice yesterday, logging a single and a walk in his rare start against a right-handed pitcher. Teoscar Hernández is back in the lineup today, so we’ll see Vargas sometime within the next week or two. He’s now at a .968 OPS, with four walks and just five strikeouts on the year. Anyways, Jason Heyward moves to the cleanup spot, with Andy Pages dropping one spot in the order. Kiké Hernández will get the start at third base and Austin Barnes will be behind the plate. The team travels to San Francisco after the game for a weekend series that starts Friday, so they’ll hope to keep Will Smith fresh. Ohtani has gone nine consecutive games with a run batted in, which is quite impressive out of the leadoff spot. One more would give him the single season franchise record, surpassing Roy Campanella‘s streak in 1955.
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Here’s how Fedde and Stone compare among 70 starters with at least 80 innings pitched.
Chicago signed Fedde this offseason coming off a fantastic year in the KBO for the NC Dinos, in which he won the KBO’s equivalent of both the Cy Young and MVP awards. He posted a 2.00 ERA, 2.38 FIP, and a 0.95 WHIP with 209 strikeouts in 180.1 innings on his way to a 20 win season. In his 2022 season, he featured mainly a three-pitch mix, with a low 90’s sinker being his most frequently used pitch. He would then go to a high-70’s curve nearly a third of the time, an upper-80’s cutter just behind that, and a changeup just 4% of the time. Fast forward to 2024, and he’s scrapped the curveball entirely and replaced it with a mid-80’s sweeper. He increased his changeup usage from 4% up to 20.3%. He still relies on the sinker and cutter, but his arsenal seems to be sharper and much more well rounded now. The results have obviously been excellent, as he’s been a top-30 pitcher in the game. He will most definitely get traded as he’s on a two-year deal at a 7.5M AAV, and that’s a very valuable and reliable player in today’s game. He may not be the frontline starter that appears early in a playoff series, but he’ll help get you there undoubtedly.
Stone continued his excellent season his last time out, going 5.1 innings allowing two runs on four hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in Colorado. It’s always tough to pitch there and he managed another good outing. He had a shutout going through five frames, but ended up loading the bases in the sixth before getting pulled. Two of those runners scored, but he still did enough to secure his eighth win of the season, the most on the team. He’ll look to keep things going against a weak Chicago offense.
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Dustin wrote about Randy Arozarena and Bo Bichette as possible trade targets for the Dodgers. These were mentioned as possibilities by Jeff Passan, but I don’t see Arozarena as a guy the team would target at this juncture. They already can’t find plate appearances for Vargas, how would they slot in another poor defensive left fielder? On the other hand, the fit for Bichette is obvious, as the Jays are playing their way out of the postseason hunt and Mookie Betts might be best suited at second base regardless.
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Not a ton else going on — get out of Chicago healthy and ready up for the Giants who have been scuffling as of late.
First pitch is at 5:10 p.m. PDT on SNLA.
