Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers open the home portion of their schedule after a 4-3 road trip to begin the season. A 4-3 road trip is good. If the Dodgers won four of every seven road games, they’d go 46-35. For reference, they went 37-44 away from Chavez Ravine in 2015.
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Diamondbacks
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Dodgers
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1:10 p.m. PT
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Los Angeles
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2B
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Segura
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LF
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Hernandez
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CF
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Brito
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RF
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Puig
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1B
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Goldschmidt
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1B
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Gonzalez
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RF
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Peralta
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3B
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Turner
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C
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Castillo
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2B
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Kendrick
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3B
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Lamb
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CF
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Thompson
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LF
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Tomas
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SS
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Seager
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P
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Corbin (L)
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C
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Ellis
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SS
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Ahmed
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P
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Maeda (R)
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The road trip felt like a failure because of the way things went in San Francisco, which, fine. But let’s get back to the home opener.
Kenta Maeda is making his Dodger Stadium debut against a really good Diamondbacks’ offense (even sans A.J. Pollock). Maeda was great in his first outing on both sides of the ball, and he’ll be formally introduced to the fan base today.
The lineup looks significantly different today than it has this season. Howie Kendrick is back from his rehab assignment and in the starting lineup. With a lefty on the hill, Chase Utley and Joc Pederson are getting the day off. I still think Pederson needs to be in there against lefties more, and Dave Roberts‘ first two chances have had Joc on the bench. There will be two more chances this week for Pederson to start against a lefty.
Scott Van Slyke is missing because he was placed on the 15-day disabled list. While he’ll need only about a week of recovery time, the Dodgers didn’t want to play a man down for that time. That’s a change from the past when, for example, it took them 10 days to place Mark Ellis on the DL. Fun times.
That led to this being a possibility:
Kendrick will be tried in LF, but starts at 2B today.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) April 12, 2016
Big ol’ can of nooooooope. Why even risk a guy — who has a history of hamstring injuries — hurting himself in a position he has all of 4 2/3 innings since 2012. With Trayce Thompson, Enrique Hernandez and Charlie Culberson, there are enough of guys capable of playing left field before Kendrick. Hell, I’d even give Austin Barnes a shot out there before Kendrick. This play can only end poorly, so let’s hope it isn’t a real thing. Yasmani Grandal is also back and will catch tomorrow. He won’t be getting any time in left field.
The D-backs come into the game at 2-5 and scuffling despite a big offseason (or so we’ve been led to believe). That Paul Goldschmidt guy still exists, and they have some other solid offensive players, but after Patrick Corbin today, the Dodgers get Rubby De La Rosa and Robbie Ray — they’ll miss Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller this series. Conversely, the D-backs miss Clayton Kershaw and Scott Kazmir. Every game looks pretty winnable.
Let’s baseball.
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