Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers had an eventful day yesterday, as Clayton Kershaw got his 3,000th career strikeout, Max Muncy got injured and the Dodgers walked off the White Sox with a 5-4 comeback victory. Kershaw wasn’t at his best but he did record 15 whiffs, the most he’s had in a game this season. It didn’t really help the strikeout total, as he only had two through the first five innings before a two-out punchout of Vinny Capra in the sixth. Lou Trivino, Alex Vesia and Will Klein combined to allow one walk over three otherwise-perfect innings and a single, three walks and two productive outs set the stage for a Freddie Freeman walkoff single in the ninth. The Dodgers now sit a game ahead of the Tigers for the best record in baseball and now find themselves 8.5 games up in the NL West, the second-largest division lead in baseball right now. Tonight, they look to finish off a sweep of the White Sox and look for their ninth win in the last 10 games headed into a weekend series against Houston.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| RF | Tauchman (L) | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| SS | Meidroth | SS | Betts |
| LF | Benintendi (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 1B | Vargas | RF | T. Hernández |
| C | Teel (L) | CF | Pages |
| 2B | Sosa | LF | Conforto (L) |
| 3B | Rojas (L) | 2B | Edman (S) |
| CF | Baldwin (S) | C | Rushing (L) |
| DH | Noda (L) | 3B | Rojas |
| P | Civale (R) | P | May (R) |
Dustin May makes his 16th start of the season. It’s been a rough go for May lately, with a 5.67 ERA/6.24 FIP and 17 strikeouts with 15 walks in his five starts in June. May had completed five innings in each of his first 14 starts, but needed 84 pitches to get through four innings in Kansas City last time out. The offense gave him early run support, but May allowed four hits, four runs and a walk in the first two innings. He threw a perfect third but allowed a pair of hits and a walk in the fourth. He did get out of it without allowing a run, but that ended up being his last inning of work. May’s been especially dinger-prone this season, with 12 allowed in his 15 starts and at least one allowed in eight of his last 10 starts (11 total in the last 10). The White Sox have the third-fewest homers hit this season, but he did allow one last start to the team with the fewest (only 58 in 87 games).
Aaron Civale makes his ninth start of the season and his fourth since fucking around and extremely finding out. He requested a trade from the Brewers, and they sent him to the White Sox in a 1-1 swap for Andrew Vaughn. Civale’s been mostly solid this season, with a 4.74 ERA in 38 innings but 10 of his 20 earned runs have come in two starts. He’s allowed two or fewer in all of his other starts, but has only gotten through six once so far. He’s coming off a one-run outing against the Giants, but needed 80 pitches to get through four innings. He’s nearly issued as many walks as strikeouts in his three starts for Chicago (9-10). Civale made his first start as a Brewer almost a year ago today in LA (July 5), his first career start against the Dodgers. He allowed four runs and five hits over five innings, but three of those hits left the yard (Will Smith x2 and his current teammate Miguel Vargas). He did match his season-high with eight strikeouts in that start, but left the game in line for the win before the Dodgers beat up on the bullpen.
Savant has Civale throwing seven different pitch types this season. He’s thrown a cutter (35.4 percent), sinker (20 percent), four seamer (15.3 percent), curve (14.9 percent), slider (9 percent), splitter (4.5 percent) and sweeper (0.9 percent) of the time. Very small sample sizes, but he’s thrown the splitter a bit more in his three starts as a White Sox (19 of his 30 this season have come in his last three starts).
Smith gets the day off with Dalton Rushing starting behind the plate. Miguel Rojas gets the start at third today.
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Muncy was officially placed on the IL, with Esteury Ruiz called up for the first time as a Dodger.
Max Muncy: "We possibly got best-case scenario. No structural damage in there."
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) July 3, 2025
Muncy estimates he'll be out for six weeks.
Muncy has a bone bruise and thinks he’ll be out at least six weeks. No structural damage is pretty miraculous, and he could be back with time to get back in rhythm before the postseason. Rojas is in there today, Enrique Hernandez will start at third tomorrow and Tommy Edman will get some reps in at third as well.
Ruiz has been quite good in AAA this season. He’s played 66 games with OKC and has a .852 OPS and 38 steals with six caught stealing. He’s struck out 55 times and drawn 35 walks, more than he’s drawn in 178 career games in the Majors. He’s played all three positions in the outfield, but despite his speed he’s graded out pretty poorly defensively. With Edman potentially getting games in at third, maybe Ruiz gets some run in the outfield with Hyeseong Kim playing second.
They also added some extra infield depth, as they claimed CJ Alexander from the Yankees and designated Steward Berroa for assignment.
Alexander posted a .920 OPS in 94 AAA games last season, but has struggled pretty badly this season. He’s posted a .777 OPS and struck out 63 times in 55 games in the Minors and was waived by the A’s in early June, then claimed and DFA’d by the Yankees earlier this week. He has four hits (all singles) in 25 Major League ABs over the last two years and has played both corners on the infield and outfield in his limited Major League time. Berroa posted an .857 OPS in 27 games since coming over from Toronto in May.
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The Dodgers are rocking their bullpen games to open the series with Houston. They announced that Ben Casparius would get the start tomorrow.
Ben Casparius will start on Friday.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) July 4, 2025
They very specifically say “start”, so I reserve the right to crash out if I prewrite that thread with him starting and they end up using him in a bulk role. Ohtani starts Saturday, and Sunday is listed as TBD with Emmet Sheehan seeming like a logical fit.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
