Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodger offense was again pretty dormant for most of last night. Fortunately, Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned in seven dominant innings and five relievers combined to keep the Yankees off the board long enough for an 11th-inning Teoscar Hernandez two-run double. The Yankees broke the shutout in the bottom of the inning, but Yohan Ramirez got through the heart of the Yankee order to break their eight-game winning streak and give the Dodgers their 40th win of the season. Today, the Dodgers look to give the Yankees their third series loss of the season and to guarantee at least a .500 road trip.
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| 4:35 P.M. | New York | ||
| SS | Betts | SS | Volpe |
| DH | Ohtani (L) | LF | Verdugo (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | RF | Judge |
| C | Smith | DH | Stanton |
| RF | T. Hernández | 1B | Rizzo (L) |
| CF | Pages | 2B | Torres |
| 2B | Rojas | 3B | LeMahieu |
| 3B | K. Hernández | C | Wells (L) |
| LF | Taylor | CF | Grisham (L) |
| P | Stone (R) | P | Cortes (L) |
Gavin Stone gets his 12th start of the season tonight. He had a great May, as he completed six or seven innings in each of his five starts and only allowed seven runs total, four of which coming in one game. He continued his success in his first June start against the Rockies, where he was pulled after five innings but allowed only four hits and no runs. He allowed a baserunner in each inning, but was able to work around the traffic and overcame some Dodger defensive issues for a second straight scoreless start. He only went 75 pitches as he was on four-day rest for the second time this season.
He might be needed to take down some big innings today, as the Dodger bullpen is in some rough shape. Walker Buehler and James Paxton combined to complete only 4 2/3 innings over the final two games in Pittsburgh, and while Yamamoto gave the Dodgers seven strong last night they still used five arms. Daniel Hudson, Blake Treinen and Michael Grove have each thrown back to back games and Ramirez has thrown three of the last four games, so the pen might be down to Anthony Banda (who threw yesterday), Alex Vesia, Ryan Yarbrough and Evan Phillips (who threw 31 pitches in a blowout win on Thursday for some reason).
Stone has been so good this year, he forced Brim to write 1300+ words about it. Check that out here so I don’t have to deep dive on him.
Nestor Cortes goes for the Yankees today looking to continue his bounceback season. Cortes finished eighth in Cy Young voting in 2022 with a 2.44 ERA in 158 1/3 innings. However, he struggled badly in an injury-plagued 2023. Cortes posted a 5.16 ERA in 59 1/3 innings last April and May before a rotator cuff strain sidelined him for just over two months. He returned on August 5 and allowed one run over four innings against Houston and struck out eight of the 14 batters he faced, but his rotator cuff flared up and he was shut down for the rest of the season.
Cortes has been better this season and so far has remained healthy. He’s made 13 starts and has a 3.46 ERA in 75 1/3 innings. Cortes hasn’t allowed an earned run in four of of his 13 starts, but in two of those he combined to allow four unearned runs. The rest of his outings have been aesthetically pleasing. He’s allowed two earned runs in a game twice, three earned runs in a game three times and four earned runs in a game four times. He’s coming off a rough start in San Francisco where he allowed three runs over 4 1/3 innings. The Giants got him for a pair of homers, but the Yankees won as they beat up on Blake Snell (remember when y’all wanted him) and the Giant pen.
Despite his solid overall numbers, Cortes has been hit pretty hard this season. Among pitchers with >150 batted balls against, only seven have a higher average exit velocity than Cortes’ 91.2 MPH. He leads qualified pitchers with a 50.9 percent fly ball rate, but only 9.3 percent of those fly balls have led to homers. He owns the 13th lowest walk rate among qualified pitchers (4.9 percent) and hasn’t issued a walk in his last two starts. Cortes has thrown six types of pitches this year and each of them carry a whiff rate of higher than 20 percent. He’s thrown a four seamer 48.1 percent of the time, cutter 30 percent of the time and sweeper 12.9 percent of the time this season. He’s thrown a change 7.2 percent of the time (exclusively to righties) and has mixed in a sinker and slider. I assume some of his success comes from him doing the Johnny Cueto shit on the mound and trying to mess with the hitters’ timing.
The Dodgers get their biggest threat in the lineup today, as Miguel Rojas starts at second against a lefty. Chris Taylor starts in left with Teoscar Hernandez sliding over to right in place of Jason Heyward. Juan Soto remains out of the lineup for the Yankees.
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J.P. Feyereisen is in New York, but no roster move today.
He’s here on taxi, Dave Roberts said. No move imminent but if the Dodgers need a fresh arm the rest of the weekend, they don’t have to look far.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) June 8, 2024
Feyereisen didn’t allow a run in seven outings in his last Major League stint, but has struggled since being sent down. He’s allowed nine runs in four AAA outings, including a four-run outing on Thursday.
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First pitch is scheduled for 4:35 PM PT and will be shown exclusively on FOX.
