Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers survived a close game in St. Louis yesterday to lock up a winning roadtrip with a 2-1 win over the Cardinals. Clayton Kershaw was excellent (despite only striking out two batters) and the bullpen made the two-run fifth inning hold up. The Diamondbacks were swept by Tampa and Colorado took two of three from the Padres, so the Dodgers now have a three game lead over San Diego in the West.
Today, the Dodgers kick off a nine-game interleague homestand with the Mariners, before Tampa and Baltimore come to town. Seattle’s been a streaky team of late. They lost three straight games, then won four in a row before losing five in a row. They snapped that losing streak Sunday in Pittsburgh, so hopefully that doesn’t kick off a six-game winning streak. The Mariners are 64-61, four games behind Houston in the AL West and 5.5 games back of Kansas City for the third and final Wild Card spot.
They’ve been a fascinating case study of what happens when a team puts all its skill points into pitching. Their 3.48 team ERA is the lowest in baseball by a pretty sizable margin (Milwaukee is second at 3.66), but their team OPS (.669) is the third-worst in baseball only ahead of the White Sox and Marlins. Their offense has the highest strikeout rate in baseball (27.7 percent), but they also walk the fourth-most (9.2 percent). The Dodgers swept Seattle in Seattle last September, as they scored six runs in each of the three games and allowed only six total runs in the series. One of those wins did come in extras, with neither team scoring a run until the 10th inning. The Dodgers scored in the top of the inning on a Kolten Wong sac fly, but Evan Phillips allowed a single to score the Manfred man to score. The Dodgers then struck for two walks and four singled in the top of the 11th to lead them to a 6-2 win.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| CF | Robles | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| LF | Arozarena | RF | Betts |
| C | Raleigh (S) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| DH | Rodriguez | LF | T. Hernández |
| 2B | Polanco (S) | 2B | Lux (L) |
| RF | Raley (L) | C | Smith |
| 1B | Turner | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| 3B | Rojas (L) | SS | Rojas |
| SS | Moore | CF | Edman (S) |
| P | Woo (R) | P | Stone (R) |
Gavin Stone gets the ball looking to build off his best start in some time. Stone started last Tuesday in Milwaukee and held the Brewers to a run and three hits in five innings and struck out six without walking anyone (he did hit a batter though). He worked himself out of some trouble in the second after hitting Garrett Mitchell, allowing a single and throwing a wild pitch with one out in the inning. The lone run off Stone came on a third inning solo homer by William Contreras, which has been a common theme of Stone’s recent starts. He’s allowed nine homers in his seven starts since the beginning of July (at least one in each game) after allowing only six in his first 15 starts of the season. While the start in Milwaukee was pretty good, his seven post-CGSO starts have been rough. He has a 6.12 ERA/5.98 since that start in Chicago and opponents are OPSing 1.012 off him, which would be the highest OPS in the National League. This will be Stone’s first start against Seattle, but he turned in his best outing in relief in Seattle last September. He came in with two outs in the sixth and allowed one hit and two walks while striking out five en route to a 3+ inning save. It was his only scoreless appearance of the season and he matched his season-high in swinging strikes (13) in only 57 pitches.
Bryan Woo makes his 15th start of the season tonight. He’s been dealing with some injuries in an otherwise excellent season so far. Woo got a late start to the season with an elbow injury that kept him out until May. He left that first start with forearm tightness, but was healthy enough to make five more start on regular rest. He was scratched from a start and they took an MRI on his arm, but it came back clean and he made two more starts before a hamstring injury landed him back on the IL in late June. He came back just before the All-Star break and has been healthy since.
Around the injuries, Woo has been great this season. He has a 2.06 ERA/2.72 FIP and has only issued seven walks in 74 1/3 innings. Five of his 14 starts have been scoreless, and he has another start where the only run scored off him was unearned. He’s taken a step up in his three August starts, pitching into the seventh inning in all three starts and completing seven in two of them after not completing seven previously in his career.
60.5 percent of Woo’s pitches have been in the zone, which is the highest among starters with over 70 innings thrown this season. Woo only has a 19.1 percent strikeout rate, but has been elite pretty much everywhere else. Among pitchers with 200 or more batted balls against, Woo has the 14th-best average exit velocity against, seventh-best hard-hit rate, and the best barrels/plate appearance at only 1.4 percent. He also has the ninth-best expected batting average against (.211), best slugging and expected slugging percentage against (.284 and .296, respectively) and the best xERA at 2.23. He’s only allowed four homers this season and hasn’t allowed one since his first start after the All-Star break. Woo’s thrown a four-seamer 50.3 percent of the time, sinker 24.1 percent of the time, changeup 9.3 percent of the time, slider 8.4 percent of the time and sweeper 7.9 percent of the time.
Freddie Freeman is back in the lineup today despite being diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his finger. He’s still hitting third and starting at first. Max Muncy returns to the lineup for the first time since May 15, hitting seventh and starting at third. Tommy Edman starts in center and hits ninth in his Dodger debut. For the Mariners, old friend Justin Turner makes his first appearance at Dodger Stadium since leaving the Dodgers in 2022. He faced the Dodgers as a Blue Jay earlier this season and went 2-for-11 with four strikeouts in three games.
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A busy day for roster moves. Not only were Muncy and Edman activated, but Hunter Feduccia was also recalled as Austin Barnes was placed on the Injured List.
Nick Ahmed’s locker was cleared out, and Andy Pages was packing up his locker today.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) August 19, 2024
Dodgers are expected to activate Tommy Edman and Max Muncy today.
Also: Hunter Feduccia is here, and Austin Barnes had a heavy wrap on his left big toe.
Nick Ahmed was designated for assignment and Andy Pages was optioned to make room for Muncy and Edman. They needed a 40-man roster move as well, so River Ryan was transferred to the 60-day IL. Barnes apparently played seven innings with a broken toe yesterday, and now he’s on the IL with Feduccia up.
The roster moves will continue tomorrow as Blake Treinen will need to be activated, and Chris Taylor could be back in the next week as he’s reportedly not feeling much pain in the groin anymore.
Chris Taylor will resume his rehab assignment with a couple games this week with Rancho. He doesn’t feel any more discomfort in his groin but has taken this time to work through some swing alterations.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) August 19, 2024
Feel like using the IL like that might be bad. It’s hard to see where Taylor fits on this roster, barring another injury, with Enrique Hernandez‘s newfound ability to see and Kevin Kiermaier‘s elite defense. I’m sure they’d like to wait until rosters expand to bring Taylor back, but this roster crunch is starting to get brutal.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
