Dodgers @ Marlins August 28, 2022: Urías starts early game on Peacock

Sandy Alcantara is likely the National League Cy Young favorite, and last night he showed why. He allowed a solo homer to Mookie Betts in the third inning, but rarely faced much of an issue in his 10 strikeout complete game. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the ninth, but ultimately fell one hit short of a comeback. Today features a very early game for those on the west coast, with first pitch coming at just 9:05 AM. Julio Urias will be on the mound up against the 24-year-old rookie, Edward Cabrera.

	9:05 AM		Miami
RF	Betts	3B	Berti
SS	T. Turner	SS	Rojas
1B	Freeman (L)	DH	Anderson
DH	Muncy (L)	1B	Cooper
3B	Turner	C	Fortes
LF	Gallo (L)	2B	Leblanc
2B	Lux (L)	RF	Encarnación
CF	Thompson	CF	Burdick
C	Barnes	LF	Williams
P	Urías (L)	P	Cabrera (R)

Quite a few changes in the lineup for both teams due to the quick turnaround from the game last night. Gavin Lux is back in the lineup at second base after missing five games with neck/back soreness. Austin Barnes will catch, Trayce Thompson will start in center field over Cody Bellinger, and Justin Turner will play third as Max Muncy is the designated hitter, swapping their roles from last night.

Miami runs out an all right-handed lineup against the left-handed Urías. Miami is by far the worst offense in baseball against left-handed pitching, with a 66 wRC+ trailing the 29th ranked Angels team (81 wRC+) by a huge margin.

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Here’s how the two starters matchup.

Cabrera earned his fourth win last time out, coming against Oakland in which he allowed just two hits and three walks while striking out seven batters over eight scoreless innings. Cabrera was dominant in the victory, breezing through a career-high eight frames on only 101 pitches. He racked up fifteen swinging strikes and punched out seven batters while retiring the final 14 hitters he faced. He returned from the IL on 8/5, and since then has made four starts and hasn’t given up any runs while notching 28 strikeouts to ten walks over 22.2 innings. Aside from a blowup start June 12 when he gave up five runs over 3.2 innings against the Astros, Cabrera has been almost impossible to score upon this season. He carries a minuscule 1.41 ERA through 38.1 innings on the campaign. His .138 batting average allowed is pretty remarkable and some of that is due to a .188 BABIP, but Cabrera was a highly regarded pitching prospect with dominant stuff.

His fastball and sinker both average around 96.0 MPH, combining the two for about a third of his arsenal, with his 93 MPH changeup being his most used pitch at over 35% of the time. It can be a devastating pitch and clearly it’s thrown harder than almost (or maybe all) changeups in baseball. It’s hard to describe it, but if you have Peacock you’ll see it in a little while. He also has a curveball and slider in the mid-80’s that fill out his arsenal.

Urías (13-7) took the loss against Milwaukee on Monday, pitching six innings and allowing one run on two hits and one walk while striking out seven batters. He came into the start having won each of his past six starts and having gone eleven outings without taking a loss. Both of those streaks came to an end Monday, though he can hardly be blamed. He gave up just two hits, but one was a fourth-inning homer off the bat of Luis Urias that accounted for the only run against him. Despite the loss, he lowered his season ERA to 2.36, good for sixth-best in the majors among qualified pitchers. After a bit of a slow start, Urías has looked pretty sharp for a while now, with a 2.03 ERA, 2.57 FIP, and a 0.84 WHIP over his last 13 starts and 75.2 innings pitched. He also has a 28.9% strikeout rate to just a 4.1% walk rate over that stretch, with 84 strikeouts to just 12 walks over those 75.2 innings.

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Maybe #Dodgers Blake Treinen can smell the finish line. He threw five sinkers in his rehab outing tonight, averaging 97.2 mph. That’s easily his best velo in an outing since being down there.

— Juan Toribio (@juanctoribio) August 28, 2022

No real updates on anything else between last night and this morning. Blake Treinen is close to returning which will be a welcome addition to the bullpen. Averaging 97.2 MPH on his sinker in his last outing puts him exactly at what he’s been averaging over the last couple seasons.

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First pitch is at 9:05 AM PDT on Peacock. I believe you can get a free week or month of Peacock if you sign up for Premium — this is not me advising to do so, just something worth looking into if you’re trying to watch the game.