Dodgers @ Tigers July 13, 2024: Justin Wrobleski gets his second start as Dodgers look win the final series before the All-Star Break

The Detroit series started in a similar way as the sweep in Philly, as James Paxton allowed two runs in the first and failed to complete four innings. The Dodgers were actually able to put up a couple runs against Tarik Skubal, but the Tiger bullpen held them off until the late innings. The Dodger bullpen held the Tigers scoreless for 5 1/3 innings, which allowed the Dodgers to tie it up in the eighth and squeak out a win in the top of the ninth. It snapped their four-game losing streak and finally gave the team some life after a rough series in Philly. Paxton’s short outing hurts the Dodgers quite a bit for the rest of the series, as they’re throwing a rookie making his second career start today and opting for a bullpen game tomorrow. They used five relievers and two of them (Michael Petersen and Daniel Hudson) threw more than 20 pitches, so with the quick turnaround today things might get dicy in the pen. Thankfully, these are the final two games before a nice four-day reset before play continues Friday.

	10:10 A.M.		Detroit
DH	Ohtani (L)	1B	Ibáñez
RF	T. Hernández	LF	Malloy
1B	Freeman (L)	3B	Vierling
CF	Pages	CF	Greene (L)
LF	Taylor	DH	Canha
2B	Lux (L)	C	Kelly
SS	K. Hernández	2B	Keith (L)
3B	Biggio (L)	SS	Baéz
C	Barnes	RF	Vilade
P	Wrobleski (L)	P	Montero (R)

Justin Wrobleski gets his second career start today. He made his debut on Sunday against the Brewers and pitched mostly decently all things considered. He somehow faced the minimum through three despite allowing a walk and a single (they caught Rhys Hoskins trying to advance from first to end the first, he forced a double play in the third). He allowed a leadoff walk in the fourth and then got taken deep by Christian Yelich for his first runs allowed. The fifth started ominously, as he tried to field a bunt and threw wide of first allowing Blake Perkins to advance to second. Will Smith saved the day and backpicked Perkins to clear the bases, but he allowed a two-out double and a second two-run homer, this time to Eric Haase. He took the loss as the Dodgers only scored two runs and the bullpen ended up allowing five more, but he came very close to a very solid debut. It was still a promising start and now he faces a Tiger team that has the fifth-worse wRC+ in baseball against lefties (86).

The Tigers go with a starter with much more experience than Wrobleski. Keider Montero is making his fourth career start (also was a bulk boi in his second appearance) tonight. Montero’s first two outings were pretty rough. He started the back end of a doubleheader against the Pirates and allowed four runs in 4 1/3 innings. He was sent back down and recalled a month later to pitch a bulk role against the Phillies, where he allowed five runs in 4 1/3 innings. He stayed in the rotation and has had a much better time against non-Pennsylvanian teams. Montero got his first career win in Minnesota on July 3, when he allowed only two runs over 6 1/3. Last time out was even better, as he held the Guardians to three hits and a walk over 6 1/3 shutout innings. He’s been quite efficient in those two starts as well, as he only needed 80 and 73 pitches to complete those 6 1/3 innings. Montero was the Tigers’ seventh-ranked prospect according to MLB Pipeline, but struggled in AAA this season with a 5.03 ERA and 1.679 WHIP in only 48 innings over 13 starts.

Montero’s leaned on his fastball in his short time in the Majors. It averages 95. MPH and he’s thrown it 44.6 percent of the time. Interestingly enough, Pipeline gives him a 60 grade on his curveball but he’s only thrown it 11.1 percent of the time in the Majors. He’s only thrown 37 of them and is allowing a .364 average and .727 slugging percentage off it, but the expected numbers are much kinder (.186 and .306, respectively). He’s thrown his slider 32.9 percent of the time and his changeup 11.2 percent of the time, only to lefties.

It’s possible this is the worst lineup the Dodgers have rolled out this season. Chris Taylor starts in left and hits fifth. Gavin Lux hits sixth ahead of Enrique Hernandez and Cavan Biggio. Austin Barnes is behind the plate and is somehow 9 for his last 20 and is riding a seven-game hitting streak. Naturally, this will be the lineup that scores 14 runs or some shit.

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Too early for pregame updates, but last night Brusdar Graterol pitched in his first game since a March 2 Spring Training game.

Brusdar Graterol pitched a scoreless second inning with one strikeout in his 2024 debut, in the Arizona Complex League. Allowed a single and balked the runner to second. But otherwise nothing else

— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) July 13, 2024

Graterol allowed a single in a scoreless inning for the ACL Dodgers. He could start a rehab assignment soon and could possibly be back by the end of July.

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First pitch is scheduled for 10:10 AM PT (morning, Chad) and will be shown on SportsNet LA.