Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (17-9) took a 4-0 lead into the seventh inning last night in the series opener against the Cubs (17-9), and despite having just nine outs left to record, they lost the game by a score of 6-4. Just an absolutely brutal outing from the bullpen, with all of Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, and Tanner Scott all allowing runs in their respective innings. Vesia and Scott have been great this season and there is inherent volatility with all relievers, so unfortunately outings last night do happen from time to time. Treinen on the other hand has looked shaky to start the year, coming off of a very rough 2025 season where he was nearly unusable down the stretch and in October. The team is missing Edwin Diaz, because all of a sudden their top right-handed relief arms are Will Klein and Kyle Hurt. Anyway, Roki Sasaki will be on the mound tonight, looking to provide the offense with some breathing room early before the bullpen inevitably makes it closer than it needs to be. The right-handed Colin Rea will be making his sixth appearance of the year for Chicago, but just his third official start due to injuries in their rotation.
 |
 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:15 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| 2B | Hoerner | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| 1B | Busch (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 3B | Bregman | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| LF | Happ (S) | RF | Tucker (L) |
| RF | Suzuki | LF | T. Hernández |
| DH | Ballesteros (L) | C | Rushing (L) |
| SS | Swanson | CF | Pages |
| CF | Crow-Armstrong (L) | SS | Kim (L) |
| C | Amaya | 2B | Freeland (S) |
| P | Sasaki (R) | P | Rea (R) |
Both teams run out nearly identical lineups, with each team giving their starting catcher the night off. Dalton Rushing will start over Will Smith and hit sixth, moving Max Muncy up to third in the order against the right-handed Rea. Miguel Amaya will start behind the dish for Chicago in place of Carson Kelly, while Dansby Swanson slides up to seventh in the order after his go-ahead homer in the ninth inning.
Shohei Ohtani has been struggling for the past ten games or so, not providing much offensively despite everything he has been doing on the mound. He’s slashing .171/.261/.244 over his past ten games and 47 plate appearances with just seven hits and three extra-base hits. Kyle Tucker has been looking better since sliding down in the order, despite having a home run robbed last night by Seiya Suzuki. Smith provided the only offense from the top of the order last night with his three-run homer in the third inning. Including that home run, the top five in the order were 1-for-16 with six strikeouts. That type of performance from your top players rarely gets it done. The bullpen blew the game last night, but the top of the order hardly showed up to begin with. They’ll need to be better, and it starts with Shohei at the top.
——
Here’s how Sasaki and Rea have fared this season.
Sasaki got off to a promising start during his last outing against Colorado, facing just one batter over the minimum in the first three innings. The fourth inning is where things began to unravel for him, with two singles, a hit-by-pitch, and a walk, but just one earned run as he induced an inning-ending double play to get out of trouble. His issues continued in the fifth, allowing a leadoff home run to Kyle Karros, back-to-back base hits, a wild pitch, and a walk. His final line was three earned runs on seven hits, two walks, and a HBP across 4.2 innings.
He’s struggled to find consistency all season, and everything starts with his command. His stuff is good enough to get outs when he has some sort of idea as to where his pitches are going, but when he doesn’t his upside is limited. He’s now made 12 starts in his career and is still looking for his first scoreless start. The issue is that either by allowing too many runs, not going deep enough into the game, or a combination of the two, the Dodgers have a difficult time winning the games that he starts. The team is 1-3 in games that Sasaki starts, and the one win featured the offense erasing a 6-1 deficit by scoring seven runs over the final three innings against the Nationals. He’ll look to get things going tonight against a tough Cubs’ offense.
Rea has had a great start to his 2026 season, featuring an early 3-0 record across five appearances, with all three of those wins coming in his last three outings. His most recent one was against the Phillies, where he allowed just one earned run over 6.2 innings, providing yet another quality outing for Chicago amidst their ten-game winning streak. His first two appearances this season came in long relief, but this will now be his fourth turn through the rotation as Chicago deals with an injured pitching staff. The 35 year-old still sits around 94 mph with both his four-seamer and sinker, but like a true vet he features a seven-pitch mix. He throws the two aforementioned fastballs, in addition to an upper-80’s splitter and a mid-80’s slider as his primary offspeed and breaking ball. He also mixes in a sweeper, a curve, and a cutter, varying the looks against left and right-handed batters. He’s not unhittable, but he’s in good form and has seen improvement in his command with just a 5.2% walk rate thus far, a mark that would be a career best. The bats will have to show up tonight to support Roki.
——
In other news,
While I’m sure the Dodgers will downplay any sort of injury anyway, the emergence of Rushing makes it easier to give Smith the necessary rest to recover from something like this.
Pretty much this.
======
First pitch is at 4:15 PT on Fox.
