Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers dropped the opener of the series with San Diego in truly impressive fashion, as a late rally was thwarted by a triple play to prevent Shohei Ohtani from batting as (what should have been at worst) the potential tying run. Instead, the Padres punched their ticket to October and now find themselves two games back of the Dodgers in the West, with two games remaining between the two teams. The Padres have the tiebreaker as well, so it would just be nice for the Dodgers to not get swept and have to rely on a Coors Field series+Diamondbacks help to clinch the West. The Dodgers throw their best (only) healthy starter tonight, but arguably so do the Padres.
 |
 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| DH | Arraez (L) | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| RF | Tatis Jr. | RF | Betts |
| LF | Profar (S) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 3B | Machado | LF | T. Hernández |
| CF | Merrill (L) | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| SS | Bogaerts | C | Smith |
| 2B | Cronenworth (L) | CF | Edman (S) |
| 1B | Solano | 2B | Lux (L) |
| C | Díaz | SS | Rojas |
| P | Cease (R) | P | Flaherty (R) |
Jack Flaherty gets the ball for the Dodgers and looks put a stop to a bit of a rough patch. He had his worst start of the season two turns ago in Atlanta, and followed that up with a solid-but-not-spectacular three run outing over six innings in Miami. The dinger bug caught Flaherty again in Miami, as he allowed two homers in a game for the fourth time in nine Dodger starts after doing so twice in 18 starts in Detroit. Tonight is Flaherty’s first look at the Padres this season, but he did face them as an Oriole last August in one of his worst starts of last season. Flaherty allowed seven runs on four hits in only three innings and struggled with control, walking three in a row on the first inning (the last one to bring in a run) and then serving up a grand slam to Gary Sanchez. He allowed a double and another walk in the second, and both scored on a Manny Machado double. He’d allowed five runs in 22 1/3 innings in his career against the Padres prior to that start, so he’ll look to prove that was an outlier bad outing.
Dylan Cease makes his 33rd start of the season for San Diego and has bounced back nicely after a couple rough patches this season. His time in San Diego started not exactly as expected, with a 3.99 ERA heading into the All-Star break. He’s been a huge catalyst of the Padres’ success since the break, with a 2.47 ERA/2.80 FIP in 12 games since. Opponents are only OPSing .521 off him in those 12 starts and he’s only allowed three homers after allowing 15 before the break. He’s put up those numbers despite having a six-start stretch in there that got a bit ugly. He had a start rained out in Pittsburgh, and he posted a 5.01 ERA/4.15 FIP over the six starts after that. Five of his 12 starts since the break have been scoreless (including the one-inning start that got rained out) and the only other came against the Dodgers, where he allowed a run and three hits over 5 2/3.
Cease has struggled at times with the walks. He walked three or more batters in five of his 12 post-break starts and has done so 10 times this season overall. The Dodgers did walk three times against him back in July, the only time they’ve seen him as a Padre. Cease has faced the Dodgers three times in his career and has walked three in each game, but has only allowed three runs total over 15 2/3 innings.
The Dodgers roll out the exact same lineup as last night. Only one change for the Padres, as former Rockie Elias Diaz gets the start behind the plate.
——
Anthony Banda won’t be activated tonight, but could return tomorrow.
Anthony Banda won't be activated by the Dodgers tonight
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) September 25, 2024
"He's chomping at the bit," Dave Roberts said. "Depending on how tonight goes, we'll circle up to see if tomorrow is in play. But he's raring to go."
This sort of leads into the next update, which regards the pitching plan for Colorado.
Dave Roberts said #Dodgers will not change their pitching plan in Colorado if they leave LA tomorrow still not having clinched the division. Friday will be a bullpen game. Saturday will be Yamamoto regardless of standings. He won’t be moved up to Friday (4 days rest)
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 26, 2024
Regardless of what happens against the Padres, they won’t push Yoshinobu Yamamoto up to pitch on four days rest on Friday. He’ll pitch Saturday, with a bullpen game planned for Friday. Sunday’s starter likely depends on how much of a must-win that game is. As Brim pointed out on the hellscape formerly known as Twitter, this would mean that Yamamoto would be unavailable for the Wild Card round unless they start him on less rest.
Worth noting that if the Dodgers stick to their rest plan for Yamamoto, it means he would not be able to start at all in the wild card series.
— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) September 26, 2024
Better win the division then! https://t.co/BFsK4OiZci
——
First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
