The Dodgers took two of three from the St. Louis Cheaters and sent them on their way. But the schedule isn’t getting any easier. The Chicago Cubs arrived for a weekend series, and they started out with Jake Arrietta. The Dodgers countered with their newest Southpaw Assassin, Alex Wood.
Wood was brilliant once again, adding five more clean innings to his consecutive scoreless streak, now at 25 1/3. He struck out eight over his five innings, and got four ground outs. Nothing went in the air against him tonight. He cut through the Cubs lineup like it was easy.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers- and especially Chase Utley – continued their offensive resurgence. Utley hit his second home run in two nights to get the Dodgers on the board in the second inning.
In the third inning, Yasmani Grandal stayed hot and knocked in the heating up Corey Seager with an RBI double.
Pedro Baez took over after five, and he continued the domination over the baby bears for two more innings. In between those two innings (bottom of the sixth), this happened…
Gonzalez smashed his first home run of the year, good for two runs. Oh yeah, heating up Corey Seager was standing on second at the time.
Chris Hatcher came in to pitch the eighth. His hide was saved when Cody Bellinger made a sliding, Sandy Amoros-esque catch in left field. The skipper kept his faith in Hatcher, sending him out for the ninth, and he kept the Cubs quiet for his second inning. He went out with a line of goose eggs. Two innings pitched, no runs, no hits, no walks, and no Ks.
The Dodgers take the first game of the series impressively – 4-0.
Line ’em up: Alex Wood’s consecutive scoreless innings streak extends to 25 1/3. It’s now the longest in the majors.
Tempersture’s risin’: Corey Seager had two hits and a walk tonight.
Oscar Martinez
I was born in the shadow of Dodger Stadium and immediately drenched in Dodger Blue. Chavez Ravine is my baseball cathedral, Vin Scully was the golden voice of summer all my life, and Tommy Lasorda remains the greatest Dodgers manager ever. My favorite things are coffee, beer, and the Dodgers beating the Giants. I also blog about my baseball card hobby at All Trade Bait, All the Time.
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Southpaw Assassin!
Nice game by Wood. I would prefer if he went a little longer than 5 innings. But he had already made over 90 pitches and the game was close. Corey looked like his bat may be coming around. Bellinger looked over matched again. Although he did make a great catch in left. Hatcher looked like the Hatcher that the Dodgers traded for. Hope he keeps it up. If he does, Romo is no more than a mop up guy in blow outs. That was a vintage shot by Gonzo and Utley amazes that he gets that kind of power out of such a short stroke. Yasiel needs a day off.
Hatcher is Hatcher. Tire fire in waiting. Keep rolling him out there with 4 run leads and a short leash.
Bellinger definitely going thru a slump right now. When does he come out of it? It’ll show what kind of future he’ll have.
Wood didn’t have his best stuff yet still got 5 scoreless. Signs of a big time starter developing here!
I don’t think Wood lasts the whole schedule and the postseason, but we need all these wins to keep pace with the Rockies and stave off the DBacks, both of them won again.
On this day in 1972 Maury Wills collected his 2000th base hit against the Giants. News and notes….Rob Segedin to have surgery to remove bone spurs on his wrist. Kyle Farmer is now at AAA OKC and has played in 4 games. He played 3rd base tonight and hit his 2nd HR. He has 4 RBI’s in those 4 games. He is hitting .400. Trayce Thompson’s average is up to .189 now. He Has 4 HR’s and 10 ribbies. Joe Broussard’s ERA at OKC is 1.93 and he has 18 strikeouts in 14 innings.
Interesting article on Grandal. I post it because it’s a great analysis, but also because it will annoy anti-Grandal partisans, pitch framing skeptics and sabre-Luddites, and I like doing that. It was a brilliant move by FAZ to land Wood for dead wood, and it was brilliant move to get Yaz for Kemp. Those trades were so lopsided I’m surprised Preller and that Braves GM still have jobs.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yasmani-grandal-is-doing-it-again/
Patch, I think you should also mention that the author is the biggest Grandal fan there is and was the only eligible voter to give Grandal an NL MVP vote. He’s very up front about his bias and it’s an interesting read.
The first sentence of that article sums it up. The last sentence in patch’s post is just provocative tripe.
I think most are tired of the argument. Harold at TBLA sums it up best:
“Pardon my sarcasm but pitch framing, in my opinion, is a myth perpetuated by the need to have a new type of subjective stat pop up every few years. It is not substantive because even with PITCHf/x – a pitch tracking system created by Sportvision – a determination must be made if the umpire would have called a ball or strike with a pitch in the same location without a catcher. That is indeed impossible to do. Additionally there is no way to determine how many runs good pitch framing would save or poor pitch framing would give up”
I’m not a Grandal fan. He’s having a decent year so far. I hope he keeps it up.
Harold doesn’t get it. There is absolutely a way to determine how many runs pitch framing will save. While he’s right that IN A SINGLE INSTANCE, it’s impossible to determine if the umpire would call a ball or strike without a catcher, the whole point of ANY statistic is that it measures TRENDS OVER TIME. With Pitch f/x data, you have a record of every single pitch that has been thrown and whether it was ACTUALLY a ball or a strike and what the call was from the umpire. It’s really not a statistic stretch – nor is it really even hard – to determine which catcher gets more calls his way. And, thusly, from that, we can determine how many additional strikes, and additional outs, and finally, additional runs are saved. IT’S …ACTUALLY….MEASURABLE. PItch framing is a thing because certain catchers tend to do this more than others. We can measure this. He makes such a stupid argument it’s irritating.
Here’s an aphorism you should remember and take to heart: facts don’t care about your feelings, and the corollary : statistics don’t care about your biases.
You might not be a fan of Grandal, but statistics don’t lie (well, they can if you manipulate them).
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
While I was being a little cheeky with the GMs still having jobs, I am actually surprised Preller is still around. He was brought in the make the Pods relevant and inject some offense into that team and he paid a lot for Kemp and Wil Myers, who, because of their poor outfield defense, where just bad fits for cavernous Petco Park to begin with. James Shields was a bad signing….and Olivera? The Pods are a small market team that starting spending big bucks under Preller and they’re as bad as they’ve ever been.
They need FAZ in the worse way. For the good of baseball, I vote we let him go help the Padres…
Wood pitched another good game last night, it is to bad his pitch count went up so early, in the game.
I thought like Michael did, that he could have pitched another inning, but after thinking about it later, I think Roberts made a good move to take him out, after the fifth inning.
Because if Wood would have started the sixth inning, and allowed runners to get on base, and wasn’t able to finish the sixth inning, that would be a bad situation, to bring Baez into.
Because Roberts didn’t allow Wood to pitch in the sixth, Baez came in to pitch at the begining of the sixth with no runners were on base, and Baez pitches much better when he starts in the begining of an inning, when there is no runners on base.
It was also good to see our old guys, show the kids that they can still hit a good fastball, like both Utley, and Agone did to center.
And it is really good to see Agone show he is feeling better, because he is a very important bat in this line up, even if Bluto doesn’t believe that.
Because Agone is one of our few hitters, that is able to hit good pitching, and we are missing Turner’s bat in the line up, because he is another one of our players, that also hits good pitching.
I don’t know how Utley missed that double play, even though the broadcasters said Utley didn’t have a good view, because he was positioned, in a bad place.
But it didn’t hurt us, even though good teams usually take advantage, when you give them another out.
Patch, I have never been a Grandal fan and I have made no bones about that. I also think that pitch framing is a phantom skill. But that’s me. My gripe with Grandal is that he cheated by using PED’s and I do not want those guys on my team, another reason I do not want Braun. Also, he is a career .240 hitter with some pop. He is terrible blocking pitches in the dirt and has been since he came. As for dead wood, Kemp is out hitting Grandal and has in all 2 1/2 seasons since he left. More homers, more RBI’s and a higher batting average. An despite what people say about his defense, it is not like he is not doing a good job out in LF. I think he was traded because there were those who felt he was a bad influence in the club house. And they probably felt he would never really regain the power he had prior to his injury and following surgery’s. Moot point now anyway, there are where they are and all the griping in the world will not change it. Grandal has improved in one facet of his game that is very visible. He is throwing out runners better than he ever has in his career. I still think his game calling is mediocre. I see more catcher pitcher conferences with him back there. If he manages to keep this pace, he will have a very good season. But I think injury’s and most likely the fact that he is prone to slumps will keep that from being the result. He still strikes out too much and is a rally killer a lot of the time. He, Puig and Gonzalez are huge double play threats.
Utley did not see Gonzo step on the bag first. And he could not hear him yelling to tag the guy. From where Utley was when the throw was made, it is hard to see hat Gonzo had done. But since it did not hurt the team, it was quickly forgotten. I am sure Gonzo and Utley talked about it afterwards.
By the way, Fangraphs also has an article saying the Dodgers basically have a 6 man rotation. Also an interesting read.
I think it will be more than 6 before the summer is done.
I like Grandal and I am happy for him, because right now it looks like his hard work in the off season, has paid off.
He isn’t swinging for the fences every time he is up, and he is also throwing runners out, about 50 percent of the time, I believe.
And I know he has had times in the past where he got red hot for a month or two, but I hope he can be more consistent this year, since he is finally feeling healthy again!
About Kazmir:
https://twitter.com/McCulloughTimes/status/868247126484164608
About Segedin:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/05/nl-west-notes-kazmir-segedin-arroyo-margot-bettis-wall.html
So tell me… Why, when I post a comment with a hyperlink in it, does it get marked as awaiting moderation? Why is it so marked for several hours? Does that mean no one else sees it during that time? We may need more actually awake moderators….
Jonah
I am not sure what a hyper link is.
It must be a link to an article you would like to share.
Correct, in other words, a web address.
Jonah
Where do you get these web addresses at?
Those came from MLBTradeRumors
It’s not like Scott has anything better to do on a Saturday than to stay hyper vigilant lest one of your posts awaits moderation.
Maybe he can set up a paging system so he’s instantly alerted when you post.
Kidding.
Yes Jonah, the links cause a delay.
In the future then, I will copy and paste.