Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (69-44) are amidst a four-game losing streak after being swept by the Boston Red Sox (60-51) at home, and now having dropped the first game of the series against the Chicago Cubs (64-59) in a 10-5 loss. The offense was more or less fine, with five runs scored on ten hits and one walk, but the pitching was dreadful with Justin Wrobleski giving up four home runs for the second consecutive outing. The staff issued seven free passes, allowed four home runs, and the offense made two outs on the bases. Just a poor performance against a good team. The Dodgers are yet to have a five-game losing streak this season, and they’ll look to newly acquired superstar ace, Tarik Skubal to set the tone and get them back on track. Chicago will send out the right-handed Javier Assad, who all of a sudden is pitching to establish a role for himself as the Cubs acquired three starting pitchers at the deadline in Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes, and Braxton Garrett, in addition to Ryan Zeferjahn in the bullpen.
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| 5:05 P.M. | Chicago | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | CF | Crow-Armstrong (L) |
| CF | Pages | RF | Suzuki |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | DH | Bregman |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | 1B | Busch (L) |
| SS | Betts | 2B | Hoerner |
| RF | Tucker (L) | LF | Taylor |
| LF | T. Hernández | SS | Swanson |
| 2B | Edman (S) | 3B | Ramírez (S) |
| C | Rortvedt (L) | C | Amaya |
| P | Skubal (L) | P | Assad (R) |
The Cubs made a couple tweaks to the lineup despite facing a lefty for the second day in a row. Tyrone Taylor makes his Cubs’ debut in left field over Kevin Alcántara after being acquired in the Clay Holmes deal, while Jacob Amaya replaces Carson Kelly behind the plate.
Max Muncy will be back in the lineup against the right-handed Assad, after sitting last night against the lefty Matthew Boyd. Tommy Edman will slide down to eighth in the order, while Ben Rortvedt makes his season debut catching Skubal.
The offense has been quite disappointing for the better part of a month now, with a 95 wRC+ and a .711 OPS since the beginning of July, ranking 22nd and 19th, a far cry from where this offense should be. They haven’t been getting much out of anyone aside from Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Tommy Edman for the better part of a month. There are a lot of at-bats going around resulting in very minimal damage, if any at all. Freeman has a .391 on-base percentage since the beginning of July, having reached based safely in 43 of 110 plate appearances, yet has scored just eight runs in that stretch despite hitting near the top of the order. Two of those runs scored came on homers that he hit, so he’s scored just six times the other 41 times he’s been on base. The middle of the order bats just simply need to be better.
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Here’s how Assad and Skubal compare. Skubal’s ranks are amongst 105 starting pitchers with at least 90 innings.
Here’s what Chad had to say in his original write up about the trade on Saturday.
Most people are probably familiar with Skubal by now, who is arguably the best pitcher in baseball, coming off back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards in 2024 and 2025. Over the last three seasons he has a 2.40 ERA/2.50 FIP in 484 innings over 78 starts, including 585 K/82 BB for a stellar 26.8% K/BB%. Pure ace-level stuff.
The wrinkle here is that on May 6 he had surgery to remove loose bodies from his left elbow, though thanks to new technology he was able to return in under six weeks on June 13. In his seven games prior to the surgery, he threw 43.1 innings of 2.70 ERA/2.11 FIP ball with 45 K/6 BB for a 23.5 K/BB%. In the nine games since returning, he’s thrown 53.1 innings of 2.87 ERA/3.00 FIP ball with 71 K/8 BB for a 30.3 K/BB%. Most importantly, after showing signs of rust in four June starts (4.03 ERA/5.02 FIP), he has been back to his dominating self over five July starts (2.03 ERA/1.55 FIP). Any worries about the stuff can also be put aside, as his metrics on all his pitches look nearly identical since his return, so it seemed like the surgery worked and he’s just back to normal.
Not much more to say. He has a ridiculous 116 strikeouts to 14 walks this season, with some of the best command in the game while also being one of the most dominant strikeout pitchers simultaneously. The Dodgers are most looking forward to having him at the front of the rotation throughout the postseason, where he has also dominated over the last two seasons. He’s posted a 2.04 ERA, a 1.91 FIP, and a staggering 0.73 WHIP with 56 strikeouts to just six walks in 39.2 postseason innings. Last year he had both a 13 strikeout, and a 14 strikeout start in the playoffs. Jacob Misiorowski is having a season for the ages, but it’s hard to argue against Skubal still being the best pitcher in the world.
Assad has been a versatile and quality arm for Chicago this season, making 18 appearances and nine starts on the season, operating in both a swingman role, and as a starter based on their ever-evolving pitching situation. He allowed one run over 4.1 innings as a starter his last time out against the Cardinals, but both of his previous two outings prior came out of the bullpen. He’s had two abysmal outings this season in which he was forced to just wear it, one against the Phillies in April where he allowed nine earned runs in 4.1 innings, and the other against the Dodgers, allowing six runs over 2.1 innings. Since that outing in Los Angeles on April 25, Assad has a 2.31 ERA over 50.2 innings, although essentially no other metrics believe that it’s sustainable, as he has a 4.16 expected ERA and a 4.77 FIP, with just 37 strikeouts to 12 walks and nine home runs allowed in that stretch.
He’s in the first percentile in both whiff and chase rates, surviving mostly by good batted ball luck and sequencing, limiting walks, pitching in front of an awesome defense, and kind of kitchen-sinking his way to results. He mainly throws three variants of a fastball, with a four-seamer, sinker, and cutter making up the majority of his arsenal, all coming in the low-to-mid 90’s. He mixes in a changeup, sweeper, curveball, and slider based on the situation and handedness of the opposing batters, but he primarily gets his work done with fastballs. Naturally with how the Dodgers have been performing at the plate lately, he’ll shut them out over six innings.
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Take a minute to check out Bruce’s farm system update after most notably moving Zyhir Hope, River Ryan, and Brady Smith, while adding Jacob Kmatz.
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Ben Rortvedt and Hunter Feduccia both rejoin the team, and will cover all the innings behind the plate in the absence of Will Smith and Dalton Rushing.
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Tyler Glasnow returning in a few weeks seems to be realistic, as a rehab outing is a big step in his progression.
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First pitch is at 5:05 PT on SNLA and TBS.
