The Dodgers have responded well to home cooking, taking two of the last three games from the Arizona Diamondbacks. With a win tonight, they’ll be able to push themselves into a two-way tie with the Dbacks for second place.
Luck may be in the Dodgers’ corner, as throwing for the Dodgers tonight is one of their strongest pitchers, Brandon McCarthy. McCarthy is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA so far, and he’s pitched well at Dodger Stadium. Last year the snakes only managed to bat .158 against him. McCarthy doesn’t give up a lot of home runs, and that continues with the snakes. Best of all that, Dodgers-killer Paul Goldscmidt has yet to homer against him.
Taking the ball for Arizona is Robbie Ray (1-0, 2.19 ERA). Ray pitched well against the Giants in his last outing, with 6 2/3 shutout innings. Both Enrique Hernandez and Yasiel Puig have tagged Ray for home runs in the past, so look for Kike to get the start tonight.
Red-hot Puig should continue to to tear things up, although Orel Hershiser and Joe Davis have been deconstructing Puig’s winces following his swings in the batter’s box. Winces aside, Puig is 5 for 14 against Ray, with one home run.
The Wild Horse is leading the Dodgers with his 4 HRs and 11 RBIs, and we know he’s hungry for more. Speaking of batting leaders, Justin Turner is leading in just about every other category: BA:.372, OBP:.449 and 16 hits.
As of this writing, Logan Forsythe was running and testing his hamstring with trainers in the stadium’s outfield grass. It looks like he’s alright, because he’s in.
Here’s the Dodgers lineup:
Forsythe 2B
Seager SS
Turner 3B
Puig RF
Grandal C
Hernandez CF
Segedin 1B
Van Wasted Space LF
McCarthy P
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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Kike, SVS, and Segedin!
Segedin???? Where the hockey puck did he come from. Okc right? Welcome aboard Rob!
Segedin’s a nice surprise. We are facing a string of lefties this week. I hope Segedin crushes a few.
It sounds more and more like Hill may be ok with pitching out of the pen after his DL stint. Too early to tell, and he’s paid a ton of money to be middle relief, but it’s still early in the season, and maybe he should not let that finger flare up too much (or fingers – remember he had blisters on two fingers last year).
Whoever called SVS was on a short leash got it right on the nose! I know SVS is playing today but with Segedin around (who can also play left), the pressure is on.
YF
Lately Corey, Turner, Agone, Puig, and Logan have been playing when we face a leftie, but the only players providing offense, are these above players, not the part time players.
They should just have the other players that play against righties, play instead of these part time players.
The best hitters should hit.
We’d love for our best hitters to hit everyday, just like I’d love for the FAZ to stop signing veteran reclamation projects. But that is not likely to happen, with the FAZ’s and Robert’s love of platoons and “underpriced” pitchers.
So what we’ve got are baby steps, and maybe Segedin shows us something (or SVS steps up).
Hill back to DL while the Cotton in Oakland is starting to look good.
Forsythe walks. Gameday showed all four of those pitches to be strikes. Somebody is crazy…
Umpires. Take the strike zone away from them.
McCarthy got lucky. With those two gift outs he still threw 21 pitches.
Grandal with a double play ground ball to short. Fortunately there was two outs.
But he did throw those two players out, and that helped a lot.
He threw one guy out. Bad slide by the other guy. He was safe.
This pitcher has almost thrown fifty pitches.
Ray not sharp. He’s getting squeezed a bit, but he’s missing his spots. We need to take advantage.
Badger
Hopefully, Kike won’t get HR crazy again.
He swings for loft and he seldom gets cheated.
Brenly all over this ump.
We sure seem to swing and miss a lot.