Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (20-10) are coming off of a 15-2 drubbing of the Miami Marlins (12-17) last night and will look for the sweep today before heading out on a ten-game road trip. They’ll rematch with the Marlins next week in Miami, but that series is sandwiched between three in Atlanta and four in Arizona. Those are likely to be difficult series, especially with the state of the pitching staff, so stack the easy wins when you can. Tony Gonsolin will make his long awaited return to the rotation, and with the aforementioned injury riddled rotation, his return couldn’t come soon enough. The Marlins will send out Cal Quantrill who is looking to get his season back on track and prevent the Dodgers from keeping their winning streak alive. The Dodgers have won four in a row after being shutout by Paul Skenes last Friday, and are looking to take five out of six this home stand.
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| 12:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| SS | Edwards (S) | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| CF | Sánchez (L) | SS | Betts |
| DH | Ramírez | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| LF | Wagaman | RF | T. Hernández |
| RF | Stowers (L) | CF | Pages |
| 3B | Norby | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| 1B | Mervis (L) | 2B | K. Hernández |
| 2B | Lopez | LF | Conforto (L) |
| C | Hicks (L) | C | Barnes |
| P | Quantrill (R) | P | Gonsolin (R) |
This is essentially a getaway day lineup, with the upcoming road trip featuring ten consecutive games in three separate states. Michael Conforto and Max Muncy both had a walk last night, but were the only starters unable to record a hit. Muncy is hitting .180 with a .531 OPS, while Conforto is hitting .164, with a .574 OPS. It would do wonders for the lethality of the lineup if they could just raise those numbers north of the Mendoza line, with an OPS in the low 700’s. Regardless, the team is swinging it decently right now, and should be allowed to play the Marlins every week. Tommy Edman looked slightly uncomfortable after scoring a run last night and will have the day off, as will Will Smith.
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Tony Gonsolin makes his return today, after last pitching August 18, 2023 against the Miami Marlins. He had a 4.98 ERA and 5.43 FIP over 20 games and 103.0 innings in 2023, but was running out there with a destroyed elbow for over half of his season due to the status of the rotation at the time. During that stretch of the season, Dustin May was out for the year, Noah Syndergaard was fighting blisters (and just bad), Clayton Kershaw was out with a shoulder injury, and a former Dodgers’ lefty was out with a hamstring issue. Gonsolin made 11 starts after receiving the news that he’d need to have Tommy John surgery. He had a 7.51 ERA over those final 11 starts, but provided valuable innings that the team needed at the time. Prior to the news, he had a 1.93 ERA and 0.94 WHIP, although his 4.24 FIP and .172 BABIP indicated he was already struggling with that injury.
His 2022 season was excellent, posting a 2.14 ERA, 3.28 FIP, and a 0.87 WHIP over 130.1 innings, being named a National League All-Star for the first time in his career. He’s never been dominant in one thing, besides the most important, run prevention. Despite not being a strikeout pitcher, a command artist, or a groundball generator, he’s always kept runs off the board. He had a career .223 BABIP and 81.3% strand-rate prior to his 2023 season, both well below the league-average marks near .290 and 72%. While never feeling like a dominant starter, he had a 2.51 ERA, 3.45 FIP, and 0.99 WHIP over 272.2 innings prior to his 2023 season.
He posted a 3.21 ERA over 14 innings in Triple-A rehab starts, throwing 79 pitches his last time out, indicating he’s mostly built up to cover a full starters workload.
Quantrill had a decent outing his last time out, allowing four runs on five hits over 5.2 innings against the Mariners, resulting in his second win of the season. It was much better than his previous outing, where he allowed seven runs on eight hits and three walks over 3.1 innings against the Phillies. He’s looking to get out of the shadow of Coors Field, but it’s been ugly to start his season in Miami. He throws six pitches, although none of them grade out all that well, mainly relying on his arsenal and command to get by.
The issue for Quantrill is he hasn’t been able to command the ball well enough this year or last year, to survive when his stuff is eventually hit. He averages 93.2 MPH on the four-seam fastball, but the shape isn’t great and it got demolished last year with the Rockies. He allowed a .458 wOBA and .602 slugging percentage on it last year, and the early returns aren’t good this year, with a .491 wOBA and .800 slugging percentage allowed. By Run Value at Statcast, last year his four-seamer accrued the third worst results (-18 Run Value) of any single pitch in baseball, following just Ty Blach (-21, free agent), and Patrick Corbin (-20). He’s throwing it just 25% of the time currently, but even that might be too much. He mixes in a sinker and a cutter as his other forms of fastballs, and uses a slider and curve as his breaking balls. His most thrown pitch this year is actually his splitter, being thrown 28% of the time and in the mid-80’s. It’s gotten pretty solid results early in the year, so upping the usage there has proved beneficial.
He made four starts against the Dodgers last year, with an 8.31 ERA, 6.45 FIP, and a 2.31 WHIP over 17.1 innings. He allowed a .372/.456/.590 slash line, with an 0-3 record in those four outings. It’s a very favorable matchup for the Dodgers, who just teed off on Sandy Alcantara and the Marlins last night.
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Matt Sauer picked up his first career win last night, going five important innings for the Dodgers. In terms of important relief arms, the Dodgers only had to use Jack Dreyer yesterday, which is extremely important with ten games in ten days upcoming.
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First pitch is at 12:10 PT on SNLA.
