The Dodgers certainly had a productive day on Thursday afternoon’s series finale against the Padres. The Dodgers defeated San Diego by a 10-2 score as Yasiel Puig homered twice and Brandon McCarthy turned in a quality start. Everybody contributed. Corey Seager went 2 for 3 with 2 runs batted in. Puig drove in four runs and is off to a scorching start. Right hander Chris Hatcher struck out three, and even my good friend Kike drove in a run with an RBI double. Oscar was there again and I am beginning to think he’s a good luck charm. Perhaps he can fly to Denver for Friday’s game?
Dodgers @ Colorado
Hyun-jin Ryu-0-0 vs. Kyle Freeland-0-0
Game Time- 1:05 PM PST- TV-SNLA
The Dodgers will open up a weekend set at you know where (gasp) Coors Field in Colorado against the Rockies, where they will open up the series against (gasp) a left hander. Rookie Kyle Freeland will make his MLB debut against fellow southpaw Hyun-jin Ryu.
We’ll get to Freeland in a minute. Ryu is making his 2017 debut and he’s trying to recover from major shoulder surgery and elbow problems. Ryu looked fantastic in spring training and I am having high hopes that he can make a comeback this year. Although sadly major shoulder and elbow problems are usually career enders. What a tough assignment for him to make his season debut at Coors Field the place where pitching goes to die. How has Ryu done there in the past? He’s made just one start there and won. He went 6 innings allowing two earned runs on 8 hits and striking out two. Overall Ryu is 3-2 with a 4.00 ERA in 5 career starts against Colorado. He has a 27 strikeouts and just 6 walks against the Rockies. Here’s how the Rocks have done against him.
Ryu vs. Rockies
| Name | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Gerardo Parra | 18 | 18 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .222 | .222 | .278 | .500 |
| Charlie Blackmon | 12 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .500 | .583 | .600 | 1.183 |
| Alexi Amarista | 7 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .286 | .286 | .286 | .571 |
| Nolan Arenado | 7 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .286 | .286 | .286 | .571 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .250 | .500 | 1.000 | 1.500 |
| DJ LeMahieu | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Total | 53 | 49 | 14 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 | .286 | .340 | .388 | .727 |
Left hander Kyle Freeland is a 23-year old rookie out of Denver. Freeland went to high school locally in Denver and went to the University of Evansville in Indiana. He was originally drafted by the Phillies in the 35 round of the 2011 amateur draft, but chose to stay and finish school. In 2014 he was drafted by the Rockies in the eighth round of that year’s draft.
He spent most of 2016 between the Rockie’s triple-A affiliate Albuquerque (remember them?) and Double-A affiliate Hartford Yard. Freeland made 12 appearances for Albuquerque and posted a 3.91 ERA in 73.2 innings pitched. He struck out 57 and walked 19 while posting a 7.0 strikeout per nine rate in Albuquerque. He had a 3.87 ERA at Double-A and struck out 5.2 per nine.
Freeland is not long removed from having shoulder problems himself and bone chips removed from his elbow back in 2015. Freeland doesn’t throw hard and is primarily a fastball/slider guy. He has excellent control according to the reports. He averaged a little over 2 walks per nine innings in the minors. So all of this should mean he tosses a 4-hit shutout against the Dodgers.
Speaking of a shutout, remember since it’s a left hander expect to see the all-righty lineup in their once again. That means Kike, Scott Van Slyke, Austin Barnes, and Franklin Gutierrez will probably all be playing. I’ll be at least a couple of those guys will be in the lineup.
First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 PM PST. I’ll be at work again, (booooooring!) but Oscar will have the recap for you immediately after the game.
Go Blue!
Well at least Joc is in the lineup playing CF. Puig in the 4 hole. Forsythe leading off and Gutierrez 2nd. Should be interesting. Puig is hot, hopefully he can keep it going
Hill already on 10 day DL with blisters!
Today is one of 5 games our of next 8 against a lefty. Will the Dodgers’ offense do any better than it did on Tuesday?
Yes. Maybe.
They were awful on Tuesday. I can see better than awful today.
10 day DL with a pitcher, so wouldn’t that mean Hill just misses one start to let the blister heal?
10 day DL is a new thing. The 15 day no longer exists. They say it is not serious, but I believe that about as much as I believe the pope is Jewish. They recalled Fields.
Kike at SS. Oh well. Hopefully he has a good game.
OMG…….Unbelievable! 1 game, 5 innings. Who could see that coming?
I guess next time they’ll have to limit his innings to 3.
And to all that said that Urias was going to go to extended spring training and ‘rest’……think again.
http://www.truebluela.com/2017/4/4/15185612/julio-urias-start-triple-a-oklahoma-city
He never was going to “rest!” Who said that?!?!?
He’s going because he has inning limitations!
Didn’t you say he would go to extended spring training?
Is OKC that?
So what is his innings limit?
And whatever it is, doesn’t every inning pitched in AAA deduct from that total?
Yes. I was wrong about his destination. If you are keeping track that’s about the 900th time I’m wrong, and won’t be the last.
I believe he’s pitching 3-4 innings on the 10th.
That’s what being on an innings limit looks like. To me at least.
I think these outings will be more like bullpen sessions for him. Outcome matters not. Maybe 50 pitches for a while. These innings won’t count on the limit.
‘These innings won’t count on his limit.’
So AAA innings aren’t really innings? Hmmm.
So do you think he’s going to pitch at 75% of capability? No. He’s going to throw normal, at a 100% level. I find it interesting that last year his minor league innings were accounted for but this year, ahh, they don’t count.
Right!
I have no idea what his inning limitations/pitch count are but every pitch thrown at AAA in a game situation is/should be one less pitch againt his 2017 workload.
Of course they will count against his limit.
That’s why they are limited (pun!) at AAA.
If Roster sizes weren’t fixed, I’m sure he’d be getting similar sporadic usage at the Major League level.
Yeah, all innings “count”, i just think those AAA innings might be weighted differently. Don’t you think pitching in the Majors would be more stressful than pitching in the minors? Urias is not pitching to make an impression and get promoted, his future is secure. He’s just pitching to establish his routine and stay in shape. It doesn’t really make much difference where it is because the way I see it Dodger pitchers are only asked to pitch 5 innings, so if his innings limit is say 150, that’s 30 starts. And I doubt he goes 5 at AAA very often. For the first month he may be on a pitch limit that will get him out of there before 5. I think the Dodgers know damn well they are going to need him as fresh as possible in September and October. It’s also possible with this staff he may be needed sooner than later.
Ok. Got it.
Grandal – would have been a double play if not for the fact there were two outs.
Urias. OKC. I believe I had that one. A start here, a start there, a few innings, limited pitch count. He’s abbreviated. He couldn’t do that here.
Grandal with a passed ball, Kike” with an error, Grandal kills an inning, Rich Hill on the DL. Lather rinse repeat.
Blue expanding the strike zone for Ryu. Both those third inning strike outs were not strikes.
Adrian Johnson. Add his name to the bad ump list. He’s missing all over the place now.
Well at least they have scored a run. Against a rookie no less. The lefty killers are not performing so far. Only Turner and SVS with hits. Puig did walk and hit a rocket that Arenado bagged. Kike about as advertised. Grandal still cannot block balls in the dirt and Badger is right, his first inning grounder would have been a DP if there was only 1 out. Not looking good…..but that could change. They need to get the kids pitch count up so the Rocks have to go to the pen. Ryu has looked good so far. Better than I thought he would be at the Coor’s launching pad.
4.2 IP.
Stripling. Gives us 3 kid.
Adrian Johnson – Balls called strikes. 35.31%. MLB rank 73
Yep. He’s rank alright.
I mentioned in the last post, that I was very concerned having Puig, VanShite and Grandal back to back to back. I’m still concerned after 5 innings. Like they say in the computer business and making a line-up, Shite in Shite Out.
12 for 63 against lefties this year so far with 19 strikeouts. Yup the poor hitting against lefties was addressed in the off season alright. Haven’t I seen this movie before?
You must be one of those guys who think FAZ is an idiot. Like me. I still think a real manager would tell him where to stick his lineups. He’ll be fired eventually anyway, why not show some integrity?
When does Forsythe arrive from Spring Training, to this point he has been a no-show.
Ugh, another season of Grandal! He really is awful behind the plate. He is really awful with a bat in his hands at the plate as well. Total streak hitter, he is either on or he has fallen off the face of the earth (except for HIDP, he’s damn excellent in that department).
I can’t understand why any other team starts a right hander against the Dodgers… They ought to call up their left handed minor leaguers when ever they have a series against the Dodgers.
Agree Jonah.
That alone would get a minimum of 2 of the following out of the lineup…..Seager, Gonzalez, Grandal (his better side), Pederson and Toles. Each is being replaced by inferior hitters.