Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Lots of complaining about the lineup recently, some justified and some less so. This, friends, is a lineup. With Howie Kendrick out again — though he’s likely to be back tomorrow — this is about as close to perfect as you can get with the players available. Yeah, I know people want to see Alex Guerrero, but, really, it’s hardly a slam dunk that any of Andre Ethier, Justin Turner, or Yasiel Puig should be on the bench instead. (You could probably make the argument to sit Enrique Hernandez and slide Turner to second, but really, whatever. Over the last month, Guerrero has the seventh-most Dodger plate appearances, which sounds just about right.)
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Cardinals
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Dodgers
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5:05 p.m.
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Los Angeles
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2B
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Wong
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CF
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Pederson
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3B
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Carpenter
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RF
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Puig
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LF
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Holliday
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1B
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Gonzalez
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SS
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Peralta
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3B
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Turner
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RF
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Heyward
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LF
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Ethier
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1B
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Reynolds
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C
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Grandal
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CF
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Jay
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2B
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Hernandez
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| C |
Cruz
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SS
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Rollins
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P
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Lynn (R)
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P
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Greinke (R)
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If the Dodgers lose tonight, they’ll lose the series, and while I know everyone cares way more about series” than I do — at the end of the year, it’s how many games you’ve won, not how many series — this note from Bill Plunkett is still pretty interesting:
#Dodgers need win today to split series, avoid losing 1st home series since Aug 2014, 13 series ago (12-0-1) longest active streak in MLB
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) June 7, 2015
Which.. that’s pretty impressive, right? Right?
Anyway, Zack Greinke against Lance Lynn tonight, and that’s a much better matchup than you think it is. Lynn has a reputation as something of an “innings eater,” having thrown over 580 innings over the last three seasons, but he’s also surprisingly effective. Since the start of 2014, he’s got the 24th-best FIP (better than Cole Hamels or Johnny Cueto) and the 15th-best ERA (better than Madison Bumgarner or David Price). He doesn’t get talked about like an “ace,” and that’s partially because Adam Wainwright is usually around and partially because he’s just not that flashy at any one particular thing. All of which is a long way of saying: Lynn is pretty good, and if & when the Dodgers don’t score on him, don’t undersell the man they’re facing.
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