The Dodgers got shut out Thursday night with a Joe Panik solo shot. Clayton Kershaw was in and out of trouble all night until Panik hit his shot. The Dodgers offense got shot down last night again with Justin Turner being out due to his wrist issues. So tonight instead of facing Ty Blach, the Dodgers would be facing shifty Johnny Cueto. The Dodgers brought Alex Wood to the mound, who got his opportunity to be the number two starter in the rotation.
Throughout the game, Alex Wood was dominant. The Dodgers who couldn’t hit Ty Blach last night, couldn’t seem to figure out Johnny Cueto. The Dodgers tried to figure out Johnny Cueto but to no avail. The Dodgers had 4 errors while Alex Wood battled to keep the Dodgers in the game. The game featured a total of three hits. Alex Wood pitched 8 innings of stellar ball. Wood proved he is a number two starter. Kenley Jansen came in to pitch the ninth inning. Dodger killer Joe Panik hit a solo shot off Jansen. So the long ball seems to be a problem for the Dodgers in the early going. Tonight was Kenley Jansen’s first loss at Dodger Stadium since July 3, 2015. This was his 106th home appearance.
The Dodgers are going through a World Series hangover and are really missing Justin Turner. I know its early but you have to figure that the offense was going to regress from last year. Even with Turner in the lineup the Dodgers will still need another stick. Giancarlo Stanton would’ve been perfect but I digress. Johnny Cueto retired 18 Dodgers in a row until Chris Taylor hit a single in the 7th inning. Tony Watson and Hunter Strickland came in for the Giants and finished off the Dodgers for the second straight night.
LHP Derek Holland makes his Giants debut against RHP Kenta Maeda for the Dodgers. Holland was 7-14 with a 6.20 ERA for the White Sox last year. He has only faced the Dodgers one other time in his career, back in 2009. Maeda is 3-1 with a 5.56 ERA in five career starts against San Francisco. The Dodgers will try to avoid the sweep later today.
James Moya
Hi I’m James Moya. I am an avid Dodgers fan. I graduated Cal State Fullerton with a Bachelors in Communications. I used to freelance at the San Bernardino Sun. I’m excited about this opportunity to write for LA Dodger Report to gain experience. I’m a straight shooter on my opinions and I hope to get some good conversations going. My dream has always been to report on the Dodgers because Baseball is the National Past-time. I hope you enjoy the ride with me.
Follow Me:
We need a jolt of fresh blood on this team. The regulars hardly mattered this Spring. The minor leaguers were the ones competing for jobs and none of them made the team except Farmer, who played at the end of the season last year.
Let me say that the Dodgers are starting the new season just like they did last year, underachieving.
They seem to forget how to hit and this is getting to be an old song that I would like to stop singing. I’m not sure what happened last year to turn the tide and why the Dodgers suddenly woke up from their slumber. Was it Bellinger that sparked the turnaround? Turner and Taylor were red-hot all year. Certainly it wasn’t Roberts who seems to have only mediocre ideas about innovative changes in the lineup and winning jobs based on production.
I mentioned having Forsythe at 3B as a possible liability a couple of times in earlier posts. Can’t say if Farmer would be a better fielder at third, but I would strongly suggest trying someone else there. 3 errors in one game is not just bad luck for a guy playing out of position. Plus, he’s not hitting so who cares, right?
Seager continues to unimpress me in many ways and I will continue to harangue him until I see a visible change to his game. He is the best hitter on our team? Come on. This guy slumps every year and his injuries are getting tiring. That fielding error tonight was a bad one. He seems kind of asleep to me. I don’t see the passion there. He needs to be moved down in the lineup until he shows a consistent game. Is Roberts afraid to shake things up?
What did impress me was Wood’s command. What a shame for Jansen to lose him the game like that. So far, our pitching has done its job, for the most part. Too bad our bats are not doing their job. It is our only chance to repeat last year and I don’t expect another insane surge as we saw last season.
Taylor, Puig, Bellinger, Kemp, Grandal, Farmer/Kike, Seager, Forsythe.
Jeff
Corey hit 300 in 2016, and he was on his way to another 300 season, before he got hurt last year, and he hit 295 for the season.
He had the hardest hit ball last night, to rightfield, but he needs to get his timing.
He is just a quiet unassuming guy, and that is a better temperature to have for a long season, like baseball is.
Take a look at his splits last year, no one on the team, had better splits then Corey.
We agree about Forsythe. I said it before and I’ll say it again, that FAZ decidesd to exercise a $9 million option surprised me. Not like them. With some subtle jockeying we could have possibly reset the cap, or come dang close, and still had enough to bring on Stanton. Forsythe, Joc and Grandal for Stanton? I think I would have done it. But that’s water under the third base dugout. Looking ahead……
Seager and Bellinger will hit. Not sure about Taylor as most projections have him around .270/.330/.420. That’s about league average and not good enough for a championship lead off man.
There’s some work to do here. And it’s not like we are going up against the Cubs or Nationals pitching staff. These are the giants, and they aren’t that good right now. We’ve held them to 2 runs in 2 games and we’re 0-2? Yoiks.