Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Well, the Dodgers (56-30) should’ve been able to mount a complete comeback last night against the Cardinals (48-42) had they been able to get past their worst nightmare … bases loaded with no outs. Unfortunately they could not, and they dropped the game by a score of 7-6. More or less, the best way to understand what happened last night is to read Chad’s Recap.
Today features Tony Gonsolin looking to improve to 12-0 against the veteran right-hander Adam Wainwright.
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| 4:45 PM | St. Louis | ||
| RF | Betts | SS | Edman (S) |
| SS | T. Turner | CF | Carlson (S) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | 1B | Goldschmidt |
| C | Smith | 3B | Arenado |
| DH | J. Turner | 2B | Gorman (L) |
| CF | Bellinger (L) | DH | Pujols |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | LF | Dickerson (L) |
| LF | Lamb (L) | RF | Nootbaar (L) |
| 2B | Lux (L) | C | Knizner |
| P | Gonsolin (R) | P | Wainwright (R) |
As we didn’t get to look into it yesterday, as a whole here’s how these two offense stack up.
St Louis trails the Brewers (49-40) by 1.5 games in the NL Central, and obviously they’d prefer to win the division, but even the division leading Brewers trail the Mets (55-34) for the second seed by 6.0 games. The second seed is essential for the new playoff structure as they get a “first round” bye with the number one seed (currently the Dodgers). They’ve ridden an amazing first half of the season by first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, while Nolan Arenado has also been incredible thus far in his second season with the team. Those two will need to keep it up as they try to chase down Milwaukee in the second half.
The Cardinals managed 13 hits yesterday, and it’s especially unfortunate that the Dodgers lost that game, as the Cardinals’ two best offensive players in Arenado and MVP frontrunner Goldschmidt were just 2-8 with both of those hits being singles. Andrew Knizner with a .197 batting average and 62 wRC+ managed three hits yesterday, while Corey Dickerson who’s batting .207 with a 70 wRC+ also added two hits. When you manage to hold Goldschmidt (186 wRC+) and Arenado (148 wRC+) to two singles, it hurts to lose that game.
For the Dodgers however, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Freddie Freeman once again added four hits for the second game in a row, exactly matching his previous game with one homer, one double, and two singles. He’s up to a 151 wRC+ on the season, and approaching the classic .300/.400/.500 split, sitting at .311/.387/.510. Since 6/9 over his last 30 games and 137 plate appearances, he’s slashing .361/.423/.639, for a 1.063 OPS and 195 wRC+. Trea Turner added his 12th homer of the year in addition to a single, while Will Smith continued his hitting with two singles. There are just two players currently in the .300/.400/.500 club, with one being Goldschmidt at .333/.417/.598, and the other being Yordan Alvarez at .306/.405/.653.
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Here’s how the two starting pitchers matchup among 60 qualified starters.
Gonsolin (11-0) earned the win over the Cubs on Thursday, pitching seven innings and allowing two runs on four hits and no walks while striking out three. That’s his ninth quality start of the year, and his 11-0 flawless record is obviously the best in baseball. His lone mistake was a fifth-inning splitter that Christopher Morel knocked for a two-run homer, but Gonsolin still managed to extend his impressive run of allowing two or fewer earned runs in each of his first 16 starts. He hadn’t completed seven frames until his previous outing Friday against San Diego, but he’s now hit that mark in two straight appearances. His strikeout numbers (8.1 per nine innings) aren’t overwhelming, and he may be a bit lucky with a .183 BABIP on the campaign, but his standout season still deserves all the recognition it’s had. In addition to the perfect 11-0 record, he leads all of baseball with a 1.62 ERA, 0.80 WHIP and .157 batting-average against. He might not be a 1.62 ERA pitcher forever, but this first half has been a miracle for an injured Dodgers’ starting rotation.
Wainwright (6-7) gave up two earned runs on five hits and no walks while striking out three over nine innings to take the loss in a 2-0 defeat to the Phillies last Friday. He threw his first complete game of the year but did not get any run support and was handed a tough loss. Not many complete game losses these days. The two runs he gave up both came as solo home runs off the bat of Alec Bohm. The 40-year-old veteran lowered his ERA to 3.15 with the nine-inning performance and he now has 84 strikeouts to 27 walks in 105.2 innings, the 14th most going into this current start which will likely bump him into the top six. Here’s how his Statcast metrics look this season, and it’s pretty interesting the numbers he’s able to put up in spite of a poor looking profile.
The 40 year-old just knows how to pitch. He’s averaging just 88.7 MPH on his fastball and sinker at this point, hardly gets any whiffs, mixes in a mid 80’s cutter predominantly against lefties, and his classic low 70’s 12-6 curveball. He’ll go deep into games, and simply finds a way to make every outing decent at worst. The Dodgers’ offense will still need to show up.
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This is just insane that nearly half of the Royals’ 26-man roster won’t be traveling to Toronto due to vaccination status.
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Not a ton of Dodgers related news going on today. This is a fun little tidbit from Eric.
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First pitch is at 4:45 PM PDT on SNLA.
