Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers failed to complete a sweep of the Astros on Sunday, as they dropped the series finale in extra innings. The loss snapped a four-game winning streak and cost the Dodgers a chance to leapfrog the Giants for second in the NL West.
Today, the Dodgers open a six-game road trip and get their first look at Satan Field. The Dodgers are 19-19 on the road with a -1 run differential away from Dodger Stadium, and open a series against the Rockies. Colorado is better at home than they are on the road, but still only 18-20. They had a winning record in May, but are only 7-16 in June. They’ve had separate losing streaks of six and eight games just this month but are coming off a strange series win against the Angels. They lost the middle game of the series 25-1, but took the bookend games and secured their third series win of the month.
The Dodgers and Rockies met back in the first week of the season, as the Dodgers swept a mini-series in LA. In game one of that series, the two-out Dodgers struck for seven two-out runs in the fifth inning en route to a 13-4 win. They were cruising to a 5-0 win in the second game of the series, but things got tense at the end after Phil Bickford allowed two doubles and a walk to force Evan Phillips into a save situation and he secured a 5-2 win.
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| 5:40 PM | Denver | |||
| 2B | Betts | LF | Profar (S) | |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | SS | Tovar | |
| C | Smith | 3B | McMahon (L) | |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | C | Diaz | |
| DH | Martinez | DH | Cron | |
| LF | Peralta (L) | RF | Grichuk | |
| RF | Heyward (L) | 1B | Montero | |
| CF | Outman (L) | 2B | Montes | |
| SS | Rojas | CF | Doyle | |
| P | Kershaw (L) | P | Seabold (R) |
Clayton Kershaw makes his 16th start of the season and is coming off another strong outing. He had to play the role of stopper in his last start opening the series in Anaheim, and he delivered seven shutout innings to lower his ERA to 2.72. Kershaw’s made four starts in June and completed seven innings in three of them (only six innings in the fourth game, washed). He’s also allowed four runs this month, all of which came on solo homers. Kershaw’s 2.72 is the seventh-best among qualified starters and fourth lowest in the NL (how are the Cubs so mediocre when they have two pitchers with a lower ERA).
Kershaw has, not surprisingly, struggled in his career at Coors. His career OPS against at Coors is .753, which is his second-worst at any stadium (only better than Shea Stadium, where he made one start in his rookie season). He has a 4.82 ERA in 26 career starts in Colorado, but still has an 11-8 record there. Kershaw made 22 starts last season and four of them came against the Rockies, two on the road and two at home. He also had three losses all season, two of which came at Coors. He allowed six runs and nine hits in four innings on June 28, and allowed three earned runs (five runs total) in 5 1/3 innings on July 30. Kershaw made his last two starts of the season against the Rockies in LA, and combined to allow one run and six hits in 11 innings.
Connor Seabold gets the ball for the Rockies. He’s made nine starts and 16 appearances total this season. Seabold started the season in the bullpen and allowed eight runs in seven April appearances, with four of those runs coming against the Dodgers in that 13-4 game. He moved into the rotation in May and had a rough month, with a 6.35 ERA/7.06 FIP/.948 OPS against in his five May starts. Seabold showed some signs of turning it around in June, as he allowed four runs in his first three starts of the month against some tough offenses (Arizona, San Francisco and Boston). Things fell apart in his last outing, as he allowed nine runs in three innings in Atlanta.
Max Muncy returns to third base and the Dodgers run with the all-lefty outfield. Mookie Betts starts at second.
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Muncy is finally back. He’s been out since June 11 with a hamstring injury and after a bunch of “yeah Muncy’s coming back this week wait maybe next week”, he’s finally back in the lineup and hitting cleanup.
Michael Busch was sent down to make room for Muncy. Busch filled in nicely with Muncy and Chris Taylor both missing time. He looked surprisingly solid at third base, but he goes down with Muncy returning.
Julio Urias survived his rehab start and is penciled in to start Saturday in Kansas City.
Urias started Sunday and allowed two hits and a run over four innings with eight strikeouts. He threw 60 pitches, so he’ll probably be on a pitch count when he returns.
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Some All-Star related updates.
The voting update for the All Star game was released today, and three Dodgers are currently slated to be starters. Freddie Freeman currently has the edge over Matt Olson, J.D. Martinez leads over Bryce Harper and Betts is the top vote getting among non-Ronald Acuña outfielders in the NL. Will Smith currently trails Sean Murphy at the catcher position.
2022 second round pick Dalton Rushing will be the Dodgers’ representative at the Future Stars Game. Rushing was Dustin/Josh’s number eight prospect on their preseason rankings and has posted a .938 OPS at Great Lakes
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First pitch is scheduled for 5:40 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
