Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After an outstanding 14-run outburst from the offense Friday night showcasing the highs of the sport, yesterday showed the lows. The Dodgers (26-14) were shutout for just the third time this season, mainly by Corbin Burnes, despite a great outing by Dustin May. The Dodgers put runners in scoring position a few times against Burnes, but it never amounted to anything. May went 6.2 innings allowing just two earned runs against one of the better offenses in the league, setting the bats up as well as he could.
The stretch of ten games in ten days, from Atlanta to Miami and then to Arizona ends today. They’re currently 5-4 on the trip, and ending it 6-4 while splitting the series with the Diamondbacks (21-19) should be considered a positive road trip. They get one day off before nine more consecutive games, but this time all in Los Angeles. Tony Gonsolin will be making his third start of the season looking to continue his strong start to the year, while Zac Gallen takes the ball for Arizona.
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| 1:10 P.M. | Phoenix | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | RF | Carroll (L) |
| SS | Betts | SS | Perdomo (S) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | 1B | Smith (L) |
| C | Smith | DH | Naylor (L) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | 3B | Suárez |
| RF | Pages | LF | Gurriel Jr. |
| LF | Conforto (L) | CF | Thomas (L) |
| 2B | Kim (L) | 2B | Tawa |
| CF | Outman (L) | C | Herrera (S) |
| P | Gonsolin (R) | P | Gallen (R) |
Today’s lineup features Hyeseong Kim at second base and James Outman in center field, the positioning that I felt should’ve been the case yesterday. Kim started over Outman in center last night, and it was clearly to get Kiké Hernández‘s bat in the lineup at second base, but Kim is inexperienced in center field and Chase Field is a tough ask. Kim obviously has the speed and will likely be good out there, but starting there for his second career start in CF feels like a bit much. Maybe it’s a hindsight thing, but Outman against a right-handed pitcher feels like a fine matchup? Unlikely it changes all that much, but he likely catches a Corbin Carroll triple that eventually scored. Once again, without Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernández out, this is about the best they can do.
Arizona makes some changes to their lineup for the final game of the series. Ketel Marte has been fantastic for them this weekend but will have the day off today, as will Gabriel Moreno. Tim Tawa slides over to second base for Marte, while Jose Herrera starts behind the plate. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. gets the start in left field with Tawa covering for Marte, and Luis Perdomo jumps all the way up to second in the order. Josh Naylor and Pavin Smith swap first base and DH for the finale.
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Tony Gonsolin had five days of rest between his first and second starts, but will get moved up to regular rest for the his start today. With the day off tomorrow, if he didn’t pitch today he would’ve had a week between starts if he were to start on Monday. It’s less taxing on the bullpen and provides a more competitive matchup against a tough opposing squad. So long as Gonsolin can handle it fine, it’s great.
He’s been excellent in his two outings to start his season, albeit both have come against the Marlins, so today is the real test. Through eleven innings, he has a 4.09 ERA, with a 2.94 FIP, 1.09 WHIP, and a 38.6% strikeout rate, with 17 strikeouts to just two walks. He has whiff rates above 60% on both his slider and splitter thus far, with both pitching grading out well. He’s averaging 93.4 MPH on his four-seamer so far, but it seems to be at least somewhat intentional as he came out sitting 92-93 in the first two innings of his previous start, before dialing it up to 94-96+ over the remainder of the game, even touching 97. He’s given up some runs but they’re not reflective of how good and comfortable he’s looked on the mound.
Gallen has had an up and down start to his season, with three bad starts and five good ones, lacking a bit of consistency overall. His 4.37 ERA, 4.13 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP are a bit inflated for his norms, but he’s been great over his last two outings. They’ve both come against the Mets, earning the win in both games, giving up just two earned runs over 13 innings, allowing just four hits with 16 strikeouts. He also walked six batters over that stretch, something that’s plagued him this year despite normally being no issue for him. Generally he sits in the 6-8% range for walk rate, essentially league average, but he’s walking 11% of the batters he faces this year, a drastic increase for him. He’s coming off a solid 2024 season, but hasn’t recaptured the form he had in 2022 and 2023, where he had top-five Cy Young finishes in consecutive years. He’ll be a free agent after the season and will be looking to get paid, so this season is crucial for him.
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Having a starter and a high leverage reliever rejoining the team soon will help tremendously.
I guess we just await updates on both Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell.
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First pitch is at 1:10 PT on SNLA.
