Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Gavin’s led the Dodgers to a win in the opener against Seattle. Gavin Stone took advantage of the Mariners’ lineup struggles, setting a new career-high with 10 strikeouts in seven shutout innings. Gavin Lux provided all the offense the Dodger staff would need with a seventh-inning homer off Bryan Woo. Max Muncy added a two-run shot in his return from the IL and Joe Kelly and Evan Phillips shut the door to complete the shutout and give the Dodgers a league-leading 74th win of the season. Tonight, they look for win number 75 with Walker Buehler returning to the mound in LA for the first time since June.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| CF | Robles | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| DH | Rodriguez | RF | Betts |
| C | Raleigh (S) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 1B | Raley (L) | LF | T. Hernández |
| LF | Arozarena | 2B | Lux (L) |
| 2B | Polanco (S) | C | Smith |
| RF | Haniger | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| 3B | Rojas (L) | SS | Edman (S) |
| SS | Rivas (S) | CF | Kiermaier (L) |
| P | Miller (R) | P | Buehler (R) |
Buehler made his return from the IL in Milwaukee and it unfortunately felt familiar. Buehler walked a pair of batters in the first but was able to strand them. Things fell apart quickly in the second, which started with a Jake Bauers homer. Buehler got a strikeout, but then allowed a single, a groundout that moved the runner over, a triple and another single for a three-run inning. He bounced back with a 1-2-3 third, but allowed a leadoff walk in the fourth that stole second and scored on an Enrique Hernandez error at third. That fourth unearned run chased Buehler from the game at 87 pitches with one out in the fourth. The Mariners could be just what Buehler needs. He’s only struck out more than four batters in two of his nine starts this season, but we already saw Stone set a new career-high with 10 strikeouts against Seattle.
The offense will have their work cut out for them again as Bryce Miller makes his 25th start of the season for Seattle. Miller actually has the worst ERA of the Mariners’ starters for this series at 3.29 (Woo lowered his to 2.12 and tomorrow’s starter Logan Gilbert has a 2.96). Miller had a couple blow up starts in June, but four of his last six outings have been scoreless. That includes his two most recent starts, where he’s allowed five hits and one walk over 13 scoreless innings against the Mets and Tigers. Like most Mariner pitchers, Miller finds more success in Seattle than on the road. He has a 2.09 ERA in 77 1/3 innings in Seattle and opponents have a .530 OPS off him. On the road, Miller has a 4.79 ERA in 62 1/3 innings and is allowing a .691 OPS. He’s allowed almost twice as many runs on the road (33) than at home (18) in nearly 15 fewer innings. Miller faced the Dodgers in Seattle last season and scattered four hits and a walk across 5 1/3 shutout innings. Neither team scored through nine innings, but the Dodgers broke away with a five-run 11th inning for a 6-2 win.
Miller has a seven-pitch mix, but relies on a four-seamer 43.1 percent of the time. He’s also thrown a sinker 18.4 percent, splitter 17.2 percent, sweeper 9.1 percent, slider 7.4 percent, knuckle curve 3.3 percent and a cutter 1.5 percent of the time. Unlike Woo, Miller finds success while getting hit decently hard. Among pitchers with at least 250 batted balls against, Miller has the 15th-worse barrels/plate appearance rate (6.9 percent) and his 90.6 MPH average exit velocity against is tied for the eighth-worst.
Tommy Edman makes his first start at short today with Miguel Rojas getting the day off. Kevin Kiermaier gets the start in center. For Seattle, Justin Turner is out of the lineup after making his return to LA last night.
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Blake Treinen was scheduled to be activated today, but that’s being pushed back a day.
The Dodgers are delaying activating Blake Treinen for a day, Dave Roberts said. Still need length in their bullpen.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) August 20, 2024
My guess is they want to keep Ben Casparius on the active roster today in case Buehler has another short outing. Or that Treinen needed an extra day after seeing Lil Jon at the DNC. Treinen made one rehab assignment and struck out all three batters he faced on Saturday for Tulsa.
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Yoshinobu Yamamoto will throw two simulated innings tomorrow.
Dave Roberts said Yoshinobu Yamamoto will throw two simulated innings tomorrow. Will do three innings the time after that, and then go on a rehab assignment.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) August 20, 2024
He’ll extend to three innings the next time he throws, and then he’ll begin a rehab assignment. Time is starting to run out to stretch him back out for a full starter workload, so it’ll be interesting to see his role down the stretch and in October.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
