Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Rich Hill (Blister Boy) Returns To The Mound in San Francisco

The Dodgers have made losing to the Giants in San Francisco into an art form. Honestly you could consider them the Vincent van Goghs’ of the loss to their hated rivals. My god it’s infuriating. I can handle the losing, but when the club totally rolls over to the Giants in almost every game up North it gets a little tiresome. It’s hard to believe that they can’t squeak out one little win in Phony Book park?

Well they can’t probably. Let the numbers speak for themselves on this. The Dodgers are now 6-19 at At&t Park in their last 25 games played there. Keep in mind 4 of those 6 wins were with Clayton Kershaw on the mound. Monday night’s 8-4 losing masterpiece is yet another example of the club’s inability to beat the clubs in their own division.

The Dodgers are now 15-15 against the NL West. In comparison the Rockies have an 18-10 record within the division. You have to win in your division to win your division and the Dodgers have shown an inability to do that as well. Not only can they not beat the Giants, but can’t beat the Rockies or dbacks either. The Dodgers can only beat the Padres.

Dodgers @ San Francisco

Rich Hill-1-1 vs. Ty Blach-0-2

Game Time – 7:15 PM – TV-SNLA

And it doesn’t matter how good or bad the Giants are. The Dodgers will still find a way to lose against them. For the record the Giants are bad this year. They’ve been one of the worst clubs in MLB up to this point in the season, languishing in last place until the other day. That matters not to the Dodgers because they will still lose anyways. They’ll find a way to lose in many different ways which makes them experts. They’ll blow leads in the late innings to Mendoza line hitters. They’ll make stupid defensive boners, or base running mistakes. Or the bats will just go cold. Either way they’ll lose. Oh yes they will lose.

It’s pretty annoying because they’ve been playing so well of late. They had won 13 of their last 17 and are still only two games out of first place. Brandon McCarthy (the hulk) was unsurprisingly awful in his return start from the disabled list. His ERA has now jumped to 4.15. As I have said before it’s not surprising to see him pitching poorly and getting hurt. We’ll revisit this later in the season when he’s probably on the disabled list.

The Dodgers will try to even up the series as Rich Hill returns from the disabled list. The Giants will counter with rookie Ty Blach.

The blister boy has pitched in only two games this season. He’s 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA in eight innings pitched. In his career against the Giants he is 3-2 with a 2.70 ERA in 8 starts. At At&t Park he is 0-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 3 career starts.

The current Giants are hitting .344 (15 for 44) against Hill and have posted an .852 OPS. Check out the numbers below.

Hill vs. Giants

Name PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG
Gorkys Hernandez 8 8 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 .250 .250 .375
Eduardo Nunez 8 7 3 1 0 1 2 0 1 .429 .375 1.000
Buster Posey 8 8 4 0 0 0 1 0 1 .500 .500 .500
Brandon Belt 7 6 3 1 0 0 0 1 1 .500 .571 .667
Brandon Crawford 6 6 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500 .500 .500
Johnny Cueto 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 .000 .000 .000
Kelby Tomlinson 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000
Mac Williamson 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000
Mike Morse 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000
Joe Panik 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1.000
Denard Span 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1.000
Total 48 44 15 3 0 1 3 3 11 .341 .375 .477

 

Ty Blach is the 26-year old left hander that was placed into the rotation when ace Madison Bumgarner went down with the shoulder/rib injury after crashing his dirt bike. Blach’s super low strikeout and swing and miss rates should be very concerning for the Giants. In 27.2 innings pitched he’s struck out only 7 and walked 8.

His strikeout per nine rate is the lowest I have ever seen for an MLB pitcher at 2.3. Yet Blach isn’t as bad you think. He’s posted a 4.88 ERA and his 2.6 BB/rate has helped him keep runners on base. He’s a control pitcher, and while he may not have a dominant pitch, he can still get batters out.

The Dodgers couldn’t do much off of him when they faced him back on April 25. In that game he tossed 5 innings and allowed two earned runs on four hits with two strikeouts in a tough 2-1 loss. The left hander has a 1-1 record with a 1.13 ERA against the Dodgers in two career starts.

The Dodgers are batting just .154 (6 for 39) against him. Check out the rest of their numbers below.

You can also check out Numberfire’s numbers with Nerd projections for the nerds, and runs allowed.

Numberfire
Numberfire

Blach vs. Dodgers

Name PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG
Yasiel Puig 6 6 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 .333 .333 .333
Corey Seager 6 5 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .167 .000
Justin Turner 6 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 .333 .333
Yasmani Grandal 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .000 .200 .000
Enrique Hernandez 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 .000 .000 .000
Clayton Kershaw 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000
Joc Pederson 3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 .333 .333
Chase Utley 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000
Cody Bellinger 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Chris Taylor 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500 .500 .500
Total 42 39 6 0 0 0 1 2 8 .154 .195 .154

Red Hot: Yasmani Grandal has a 9-game hitting streak and is now batting .292 with an .845 OPS.

We’ll see if the Dodgers can actually pull out a win in San Francisco without Clayton Kershaw on the mound. Let’s also see if Hill’s blister pops up again. I think (unless they’ve already tried this) maybe they should just pop it. Get a safety pin and just bust that baby open and rip it off like a band aid. He’ll miss another couple of starts, but that might be the solution to it not reoccurring.

Or maybe they can put him in the bullpen. Either way is fine.

Scott Andes

Scott Andes: Longtime writer and Dodger fanatic

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Scott Andes
Scott Andes: Longtime writer and Dodger fanatic
https://ladodgerreport.com

20 thoughts on “Rich Hill (Blister Boy) Returns To The Mound in San Francisco

    1. Yes, Avilan is the only LH reliever. Liberatore on the DL. You have to wonder how this shuttle between LA and OKC is affecting some of these players. Fields has been sent down twice, so has Dayton. Eibner is on his 3rd trip down. Has to affect you mentally you would think. Eibner’s average at OKC nose dived after his last demotion.

  1. Today’s lineup is out. Doc must’ve smoked a couple of good ones before he came up with this:

    Taylor
    Guiterrez
    JT
    Kike
    Barnes
    Puig
    Joc
    SVS

    1. Bobby

      Looks more like you will have to smoke a couple of good ones, after this game!

      But let’s hope it is more a celebration, then an escape.

    2. Oh my. On paper that is one weak lineup. Is that what depth looks like?

      Kike will be really swinging from his heels tonight.

  2. Joc got one hit off this pitcher we are facing tonight, and that is probably why he is playing.

    But I don’t see him doing enough, to cover for the production for both Cody, and Corey, but let’s hope he does.

    Puig did get two hits off this pitcher too, so maybe he will do better against this leftie tonight, then he has been doing against lefties, this year.

    Because Puig is only hitting just below 180, against lefties this year.

    I would have batted Puig eighth, to make him see more pitches.

    Because Puig seems to do better, when he sees more pitches.

    And they better have our outfielders positioned correctly, when this Giant pitcher is hitting, tonight.

    Because he has hit the ball just beyond our outfielders, a couple of times, in the games he has pitched against, us.

  3. Scott

    Nolan Ryan would just slice off the top skin on his fingers, he used to throw curves, with.

    The second layer of skin, won’t form a blister

    I read that in this same article, about Nolan Ryan.

  4. I will give this lineup a mulligan but if they suck and I personally believe they I will eat crow. If not I will be ALL over FAZ.

    1. With all the stupid inept moves he’s made in the last 2+ years, you have to believe he’s bulletproof.

  5. Blach mowing down this thunderous lineup.

    Hill at 68 pitches to get through 4. I think he’s nearing his every 2 weeks pitch limit.

  6. Pointless lineup and still can’t hit the pitcher. Just give away games. Defense always blows it.

  7. Well Hill pitched a lot better then I thought he would, so I have to give credit to him, for that.

    We will have to see how he pitches to a team with a better offense, but just the fact he had decent control and I haven’t heard anything about a blister, the news on Hill is good.

    I didn’t expect much from our offense, but I can’t believe that Taylor was able to hit one out to strait away center, in that weather.

    That isn’t easy to do, especially for a player like Taylor, that isn’t that big, and is more geared with speed.

    It is to bad that Turner got thrown out at home again, we need to work on getting our runners on third, home better.

    Kike actually had a really hard hit ball, that sailed over the left fielder’s head, too, and he and Taylor, provided most of the offense on the team.

    It looks like we never learn what we do wrong, when we play the Giants at their park.

    But with that line up, it is hard to get on the team for that game.

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