Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (40-28) lost the second game of this series agains the Padres (38-28) last night convincingly, giving up runs in five of eight innings in an 11-1 loss. Dylan Cease was good, but with his command last night he shouldn’t have gone seven scoreless innings on three hits with five walks. The game was already out of hand, but it was a sad performance from the offense despite the pitching provided from Matt Sauer. Sauer allowed nine earned runs on 13 hits and three walks over 4.2 innings, which was an absolute nightmare outing for him. Kiké Hernández entered the game in relief and allowed just one earned run on three hits and two walks over 2.1 innings. Realistically, the Cease and Sauer matchup was clearly the most lopsided the Dodgers would have this series, and losing that game was pretty likely in the first place. Ben Casparius will be on the mound looking to provide at least a couple innings before Justin Wrobleski enters the game. San Diego counters with the right-handed Randy Vásquez.
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| 1:10 PM | San Diego | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | RF | Tatis Jr. |
| SS | Betts | 1B | Arraez (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | 3B | Machado |
| C | Smith | CF | Merrill (L) |
| RF | T. Hernández | LF | Sheets (L) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | DH | Bogaerts |
| CF | Pages | 2B | Cronenworth (L) |
| LF | Conforto (L) | SS | Iglesias |
| 2B | Kim (L) | C | Maldonado |
| P | Casparius (R) | P | Vásquez (R) |
The Padres will run out nearly an identical lineup as last night, with Xander Bogaerts shifting to DH, Jose Iglesias starting at shortstop, and Gavin Sheets sliding to left field. They had 16 hits and five walks yesterday, so maybe avoid doing that again.
The Dodgers will also run out a similar lineup, with just a couple changes. Tommy Edman will have the day off as he still seems to be nursing his ankle injury. In my eyes, with Hyeseong Kim playing well and able to play the same positions Edman does, I see no reason why Edman should play on an injured ankle. The team doesn’t optimize to win games in early June, why push it? The same goes for Teoscar Hernández who has looked awful at the plate recently, and slow in the outfield. He’s bad defensively and that was always going to be the case, but if he’s not near 100%, he shouldn’t be playing. Either way, Will Smith is back in the lineup and batting cleanup while Teoscar slides down in the order. Kim is in at second for Edman, and the rest is pretty standard.
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Casparius is likely stretched out enough to provide at least two innings if they go well, but at the very least looks to provide a clean inning for Wrobleski. Casparius has a 2.93 ERA, 1.72 FIP, and a 1.00 WHIP this season with 44 strikeouts to just seven walks over 40.0 innings, and has been extremely valuable in a flexible role. Michael Baumann of FanGraphs had an interesting piece on Casparius the other week and his effectiveness this season. He’s gone more than three innings or thrown 40+ pitches multiple times this year, but hasn’t done either of those for a few weeks. He’s thrown between 20-28 pitches in each of his last four outings, with his most recent three inning outing coming on May 23 after the rain delay against the Mets. His last time out he had one of his worst outings of the season, allowing two earned runs on five hits in one inning against the Cardinals.
Wrobleski had a fine start in his last outing against St. Louis, going six innings allowing four runs on six hits and three walks. He gave up eight runs in his season debut against the Nationals on April 8, but has now posted a 3.60 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over 10 innings across his last two outings. There’s a good pitcher in there, and he’s still just 24 years-old. Pitchers don’t always develop linearly, and I’m still hopeful for Wrobleski. He might not be a star, but he’s a lefty that has dialed it up to the upper-90’s at times, with a true five-pitch mix. I think he’ll be a capable starting pitcher in this league, I’m just not convinced it’s today.
The right-handed Vásquez has been solid this year, as his 3.69 ERA has played an important role in San Diego’s early season success. The issue for them is that the way he’s reached that ERA is unlikely to continue, but it’s hard to argue the results haven’t been good. Across 63.1 innings pitched, he has just 37 strikeouts to 34 walks, which will generally never lead to good results given enough time for regression to kick in. He has a 5.35 FIP, 5.84 expected ERA, 5.68 SIERA … you get the idea. His strikeout minus walk rate (1.1%) is the worst in baseball among 100 pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched, as his 13.4% strikeout rate is the second lowest in the game, while his 12.3% walk rate is the third highest. It’s incredible he’s made it this far with a 3.7 ERA honestly. Hopefully the Dodgers take advantage of this matchup and help the regression kick in.
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Not great.
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I think the Dodgers would love to keep Casparius in his current role due to his success in it and the lessened work load, but Casparius was a starting pitcher throughout the entirety of the minor leagues, it might be inevitable that he returns to that role.
Bad. Somehow, the numbers are better than it’s looked. It looks like he chases a slider low and away every at-bat as if it’s a necessity.
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First pitch is at 1:10 PT on SNLA.
