Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers survived their longest road trip of the season, a 10-game trip that ended with four in Arizona and a 6-4 record. They split the four games in Arizona with their most comfortable win of that series on Sunday, an 8-1 win behind five strong innings from Tony Gonsolin and a four hit game from Freddie Freeman. It got the Dodgers back up to the best record in baseball at 27-14, and a miraculous ninth inning rally from the Angels off Robert Suarez helped the Dodgers jump out 1.5 games ahead in the West.
Today, they welcome the non-Oakland Sacramentoish A’s, who have had a weird season in many ways. Besides playing in a Minor League park, the A’s are above .500 and only 1.5 games behind Seattle for first in the AL West despite having the seventh-worst run differential in baseball (-38, worse than the White Sox). Some of that blame can be put on the Yankees, who took two of three from the A’s over the weekend and outscored them by 18 in the two wins. They have the sixth-worst team ERA in baseball (4.82), but have the eighth-best team OPS (.739) and fourth-best strikeout rate (19.8 percent) on offense. They actually have more players with a 100 or higher wRC+ than the Dodgers, though the Dodgers have four hitters with a higher wRC+ than Tyler Soderstrom, who has the highest on the A’s at 142. The Dodgers went to Oakland last season and took two of three, dropping the opener before winning the final two games.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| SS | Wilson | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| LF | Soderstrom (L) | SS | Betts |
| DH | Rooker | C | Smith |
| C | Langeliers | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| RF | Butler (L) | RF | Pages |
| 3B | Andujar | 3B | K. Hernández |
| CF | Bleday (L) | LF | Conforto (L) |
| 2B | Urías | 2B | Rojas |
| 1B | Kurtz (L) | CF | Taylor |
| P | Springs (L) | P | Knack (R) |
Landon Knack gets another turn in the rotation after saving the Dodger bullpen in Miami last week. Knack was called up after an extra-inning loss and gave the Dodgers five shutout innings last Wednesday before giving way to Matt Sauer, whose four-inning save helped the Dodgers rest some overused relievers. Knack only allowed four hits and one walk and struck out five in his best outing of the season, and has been decently solid in three of his four outings this season. The other one was a rough 2 1/3 innings in DC, where Knack matched his career-high with five runs allowed and set a new career-high with four walks issued.
Jeffrey Springs gets his ninth start as an A tonight. Springs spent his last four years in Tampa where he split time as a reliever and starter, but posted a 2.63 ERA in 229 innings. He lost over a year after undergoing Tommy John in 2023, but came back at the end of last season and allowed 12 runs in 33 innings over seven starts. Tampa traded him to the A’s in the offseason, where he’s struggled (much like most of their pitching has) so far. He’s posted a 4.81 ERA/4.92 FIP in eight starts, but has had two shutouts and is coming off a solid start against the Mariners. Springs’ ERA was 6.04 at the end of April after he ended the month allowing nine earned runs (and four unearned) in his last two starts, but so far so good in May. He started May with a weird start in Texas, as he held them to two hits over six shutout but only struck out one and only recorded two whiffs (I’m p sure this was a couple days before the Rangers fired their hitting coach). Last time out, Springs allowed two runs over five innings against Seattle. Springs allowed a solo homer in the first and an RBI double in the second, but held the Mariners off the board for the rest of his outing and gave the A’s a chance to take the lead before allowing three runs in the ninth to lose. Springs has never pitched at Dodger Stadium, and his only outing against LA came in his rookie season in relief for the Rangers. Springs tossed two scoreless innings and allowed two hits but struck out three.
Springs is primarily a fastball/slider/changeup pitcher. He throws his fastball 43.6 percent of the time and only averages 90.1 MPH with it. It’s gotten whacked this season, with a .351 average and .667 slugging off it (expected numbers .279 and .542, so better but still not great). He’s thrown a slider 25.8 percent of the time and a change 24.2 percent of the time, almost exclusively to righties. He’s only faced 29 lefties this season and has allowed a .200/.310/.240 triple slash allowed to them.
This is quite the lineup. Michael Conforto gets a start against a lefty, as do Kiké Hernandez, Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor. Will Smith bats third, taking the Teo Tax role ahead of Freeman.
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Lots of pitcher injury news regarding Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and ~gulp~ Roki Sasaki. Some good, some bad.
Dave Roberts said Tyler Glasnow has started a throwing progression and will work toward throwing a bullpen. Roberts said the picture will get clearer on this homestand.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) May 13, 2025
Blake Snell will see the doctor before today’s game, Roberts said.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) May 13, 2025
“If it checks out well from an orthopedic standpoint, he'll initiate a throwing program on Wednesday.”
Glasnow has started throwing and should have a clearer timetable at some point in the next nine days of this homestand. Snell will see a doctor and could begin a throwing program on Wednesday. Kershaw did make his final rehab start on Sunday and will make his season debut Saturday against the Angels.
Finally, Sasaki had some arm soreness after his last start and could be IL’d before the game. Someone will likely be, as J.P. Feyereisen has a locker after being sent down Wednesday. However this hasn’t happened as of me scheduling this post, so don’t yell at me if it happens before this actually posts.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
