Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers are back in the states after a successful series in Japan. They took both games against the Cubs despite their short-handed lineups and have led baseball with a 1.000 winning percentage for the last week. They returned home for the Freeway Series and took two of three from the Angels in their final tuneups for the domestic season opener.
The Dodgers don’t get to ease into the domestic schedule, as they start the season facing off with a Tiger team that was a huge surprise last season. The Tigers sold at the deadline and were 14 games back in the AL Central at 55-63 on August 10. From that point on, they went 35-13 to finish at 86-76, a game ahead of the Mariners for the final Wild Card spot in the AL. They went on to sweep the Astros in the Wild Card round before losing in 5 to the Guardians in the ALDS. They made a couple moves in the offseason, adding Alex Cobb and Gleyber Torres and also reuniting with Jack Flaherty on a two-year deal. The Dodgers went to Detroit right before the All-Star Break last season and lost two of three, winning the opener but losing the final two games in walk-off fashion with Yohan Ramirez allowing both game-losing hits. Remember Yohan Ramirez? That’s why the Dodgers signed all the pitchers.
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| 4:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| 3B | Ibañez | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| 2B | Torres | SS | Betts |
| LF | Greene (L) | RF | T. Hernández |
| DH | Torkelson | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| RF | Margot | CF | Edman (S) |
| 1B | Keith (L) | C | Smith |
| SS | Báez | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| C | Rogers | 2B | Rojas |
| CF | Kreidler | LF | Pages |
| P | Skubal (L) | P | Snell (L) |
Blake Snell gets the Opening Day nod for his Dodger debut. Snell was one of the first major signings of the offseason, signing a five-year, $182 million contract (with deferrals) in late November. Snell spent his first four seasons in Tampa Bay, where his final Ray moment was being pulled in the sixth inning of Game 6 of the 2020 World Series against the Dodgers, who took the lead in the decisive game two batters after Snell was pulled. Snell was traded to the Padres and spent three seasons there before hitting free agency. His market didn’t heat up last season and he signed in Mid-March with the Giants. He opted out of there in November and signed with the Dodgers, a team he’s seemingly wanted to be with for a while.
Snell is a notoriously slow starter, with a 3.98 career ERA in the first half of the season and 2.32 ERA in the second half. Last year was especially slow as he got a late start to the season due to signing during Spring Training. He only made eight starts in the first half for the Giants and allowed 25 runs and a .715 OPS over 35 2/3 innings. In the second half, Snell threw nearly twice as many innings (68 1/3) and only allowed 11 runs and a .412 OPS. His 104 innings pitched was the fewest he’s thrown in a non-Covid season since his rookie year, but he’s also only thrown more than 130 innings twice in eight years.
Snell has always been one of the premier strikeout starters in the game. His 34.7 percent strikeout rate was the second-highest among pitchers with over 100 innings last season, and his 32.1 percent strikeout rate since 2021 is the third-highest (sandwiched between Tyler Glasnow‘s 33.7 percent and Shohei Ohtani‘s 31.4 percent, lol). On the other hand, he’s constantly one of the most walk-prone pitchers. He walked 10.5 percent of batters last season (fourth-highest) and since 2021, his 11.7 percent walk rate is second-highest (only behind Michael Kopech, who is now a reliever). Snell avoids the strike zone as much as any pitcher in baseball (43.8 percent in-zone rate last season, second-lowest) and generally just doesn’t allow much contact. His 44.3 percent out of the zone contact rate is the third-lowest in baseball, and his overall contact rate is 64.1 percent, by far the best in baseball (5.2 percent lower than the second-lowest contact rate). All of this combines to a very talented and top-of-the-rotation arm that can be extremely frustrating to watch and generally doesn’t go very deep into games.
The Tigers counter with their own ace, Tarik Skubal. Skubal was the unanimous AL Cy Young winner last season with a 2.39 ERA/2.49 FIP in 192 innings and a league-leading 228 strikeouts. Skubal only allowed more than two runs in seven of his 31 starts and only had one start shorter than five innings. Despite the number of innings thrown, Skubal only topped 100 pitches in a start four times. One of those times came in his first career start against the Dodgers on July 12. Skubal struck out eight and allowed two runs in six innings against LA, with both runs coming in the fourth. Freddie Freeman hit a one-out homer and Teoscar Hernandez walked, got to second on a grounder and scored on an Andy Pages single. Skubal left the game with a 3-2 lead, but the Dodgers got to the Tiger bullpen for their lone win in the series.
No one really had success against Skubal last season, but he was especially tough on lefties. Skubal allowed a .572 OPS to righties and a .486 to lefties. Skubal allowed 15 total homers last year, and Freeman’s homer was the only one hit by a lefty. Skubal primarily throws a fastball (33.2 percent), changeup (27.1 percent, almost exclusively to righties), sinker (20.6 percent) and slider (14.9 percent). The change and slider are the swing-and-miss pitches with a 46.2 and 34.4 percent whiff rate, respectively. He’s also mixed in a knuckle curve in the past, throwing it 4.2 percent of the time last season and never more than 8 percent in a season.
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An almost-predictable lineup for the Dodgers, but Enrique Hernandez is not starting against a lefty. He is reportedly ill (potentially with a stomach bug) and won’t be available. He was supposed to be mic’d up for ESPN, so who knows if they’ll continue everyones favorite segment doing an interview with a player trying to play the field and taking up half the screen.
It’s hopefully a lot less severe than what Mookie Betts‘ last two weeks have been. Betts is in the lineup and at short after playing in the final game of the Freeway Series on Tuesday.
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The Dodgers announced their 26-man roster. They dropped Matt Sauer and James Outman, who were both on the expanded roster in Tokyo, down to AAA.
No big surprises here.
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Also not surprising, the Dodgers made a roster move. They added Noah Davis from the Red Sox and moved Emmet Sheehan to the 60-day IL.
Davis has a very beachy baseball reference page. He was born in Newport, went to high school in Huntington and played college ball at UCSB. He’s struggled in parts of three Major League seasons for the Rockies, with a 7.71 ERA in 51 1/3 innings. He tossed 9 1/3 innings for the Red Sox in Spring Training and allowed five runs, but struck out nine with only one walk issued. He’ll take up a 40-man spot and start his season at OKC. Sheehan was always expected to be out until around mid-season, so this doesn’t really mean there was a setback.
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First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 PM PT and will be shown exclusively on ESPN.
