Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After starting the season with an 0-3 record against the Dodgers (11-5), the Cubs (10-7) delivered a righteous beatdown in Los Angeles, with a 16-0 victory, the worst home shutout loss in franchise history. Theoretically a 16-0 loss is the same as a 1-0 loss in the record book, and I doubt such an accomplished and experienced team like the Dodgers will lose much sleep over it. The possible downside is that the Chicago offense might get hot, although they likely won’t face a Ben Casparius that doesn’t have it, Luis García an eventual DFA candidate when another reliever is healthy, and Miguel Rojas. The good news is that Roki Sasaki continued his improvements from his start in Philadelphia going five innings for the first time in his career. It hasn’t all been pretty for Sasaki, yet somehow he’s at a 3.29 ERA. Tyler Glasnow will look to improve upon his frustrating outing against the Phillies with improved weather in Los Angeles. The veteran right-hander Colin Rea will get the nod for the Cubs with Justin Steele out with an elbow injury.
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| 4:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| LF | Happ (S) | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| RF | Tucker (L) | SS | Betts |
| DH | Turner | CF | Edman (S) |
| 1B | Busch (L) | RF | T. Hernández |
| SS | Swanson | LF | Conforto (L) |
| 2B | Hoerner | C | Smith |
| CF | Crow-Armstrong (L) | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| C | Kelly | 1B | K. Hernández |
| 3B | Shaw | 2B | Rojas |
| P | Brown (R) | P | Glasnow (R) |
Michael Busch had a .762 OPS and 124 wRC+ heading into the game last night, but after a home run, two doubles, and a single, now owns a .926 OPS and 164 wRC+. Not a bad day at the office. Carson Kelly had an outstanding 1.262 OPS through his first 30 plate appearances with his new team to start the year, and somehow improved upon that drastically last night, as he reached all five times, with two home runs, a single, and two walks. He comes into today with an OPS of 1.613, and a wRC+ of 311. With a minimum of 30 plate appearances, he has been far and away the best hitter in baseball this year which is quite funny.
Not much to say for the Dodgers offense. Shohei Ohtani had a single, as did Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy, while Teoscar Hernández had two. They failed to record an extra-base hit, or a walk. Gotta be better than that. If they had been competitive offensively, Casparius might not be the first man out of the pen, García certainly wouldn’t come in next, and Rojas was obviously the white flag. Freeman has the day off as Kiké Hernández is back in the lineup and playing first base. Kiké is slashing .100/.159/.400 this year, as he has four hits and all four are home runs. The 31.8% strikeout rate is a bit concerning after 19.6% last year, 17.8% in the second half, and 19.3% in the postseason.
Will Smith is back in the lineup after a day off yesterday, and his bat has been great so far, with a .939 OPS and 177 wRC+. Smith was excellent throwing out baserunners in 2024 leading baseball with 32 runners caught stealing, but was very poor in terms of blocking and framing metrics. He was in the third percentile in blocking, and the first percentile in framing last year, and I expected it to be a focus this offseason, but he’s once again in the third percentile in blocking and fifth percentile in framing. Could just be early season metric noise, but that’s really poor performance behind the plate.
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Here’s how Glasnow and Rea fared in 2024.
Glasnow was handed a two-run lead in the top of the first inning his last time out, and cruised through the first two innings, but things unraveled as the rain started to come down. The mound was wet, he was obviously struggling to grip the baseball, and was getting squeezed on borderline pitches. It looked quite clear that a weather delay should’ve been called, but instead Glasnow was pulled after just two innings and two earned runs, while leaving the bases loaded. Alex Vesia came in against Nick Castellanos, and proceeded to throw one of the slower fastballs in his career at 89.1 MPH in the upper quadrant of the zone, which Castellanos proceeded to park deep in left field. If Vesia throws that same pitch at 92-94 like he normally does, there’s a good chance it’s a whiff or pop-up, but alas. The final line for Glasnow was five runs on two hits and five walks with two strikeouts over two innings. Ugly day.
Rea was a starter for the Brewers the last two seasons, but was slated to be a long reliever this year. With the aforementioned Steele injured, as well as Javier Assad out with an oblique injury, Rea will be in the rotation for the foreseeable future until there’s some rotation heath or clarity. He throws six pitches, but with just five innings under his belt this year, it’s hard to tell if the Cubs plan on altering his pitch-mix. He sits in the low-90’s with his four-seamer and sinker, with a cutter and splitter in the upper-80’s. His primary breaking ball is a low-80’s sweeper, but he also mixes in an upper-70’s curveball. He’s pretty close to a league-average pitcher with pretty mild stuff compared to a lot of starters the Dodgers have seen thus far, and they’ll need to put some runs on the board against him.
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Good news that there’s nothing bothering Freeman and they’re just managing his workload.
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First pitch is at 4:10 PT on ESPN.
