The day began with the Dodgers getting their NLCS rings. Also rumors surfaced of a potential Matt Kemp for Ryan Braun trade. Maybe it’s an April fools joke. The Dodger’s bats needed to wake up. Kenta Maeda came to the rescue for the Dodgers today. The pitching has been great in this series for the Dodgers. The Dodgers gave Yasmani Grandal and Corey Seager the night off. Austin Barnes and Kyle Farmer got in the lineup today.
The Dodgers came out on a mission. Chris Taylor started off with a walk against Derek Holland. Kiki Hernandez then came up and got a double. Yasiel Puig then hit a sacrifice fly to score the Dodgers first run of the season. Matt Kemp then singled in a run to make the score 2-0. In the bottom of the third Chris Taylor tripled. Hernandez followed that up with a sacrifice fly to make the score 3-0.
Justin Turner is headed to Camelback Ranch to continue rehabbing his broken wrist. That means baseball activities will soon resume.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) April 1, 2018
In the bottom of the fourth with two outs, Kyle Farmer hit what seemed to be a fly ball. Gregor Blanco misplayed the ball and the Dodgers knocked in two more runs to make the score 5-0. The Giants never got a runner to third base. Maeda was in control today with mixing up his pitches. The defense showed up today too. Maeda pitched five innings and struck out 10.
Ross Stripling pitched two scoreless innings. Pedro Baez came on in the eighth and pitched a scoreless inning. Scott Alexander who was acquired in the off-season came in and pitched a scoreless ninth inning and the Dodgers got their first victory.
“The sky isn’t falling anymore!” Justin Turner proclaims in hallway outside #Dodgers clubhouse
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) April 1, 2018
The Giants collected nine hits and left 10 runners on base. Right-hander Chris Stratton of the Giants opposes left-hander Rich Hill in the series finale. Stratton allowed three runs or fewer in each of his last nine starts in 2017 with a 2.42 ERA. Hill is 5-2 with a 2.43 ERA in 11 career starts against San Francisco.
James Moya
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Maeda looked great today. 3 starts and 3 starters looking very sharp. Can Rich Hill continue in this fashion?
I’m happy we won the game, but I’m not happy with the Dodger bats. The team continues to be anaemic at the plate. I’m glad Roberts made an attempt to inject a curve ball into the lineup. He’s still got a pulse! Kiki, in spite of some posters that are still complaining about him, is still producing more than most others. I’m happy to see Seager on the bench as he is not adding much, but I wasn’t happy to see Grandal on the bench as he has also been producing more than many others, especially Barnes. We need the power players to power up. 3 games without an HR? 4 starters without a hit. 1 double. ANAEMIC!! We can’t go on like this.
The Braun trade seems empty.
The Braun trade IS empty. These guys will not add salary this year. It will be done with smoke and mirrors.
4 for 26 yesterday. The slump continues. Pitching looks good. After 3 games we are 29th in hitting – .131 as a team. Go us. First in team pitching though. SF is second. This series has produced 5 earned runs in 53 IP. zzzzzzzzzz
BADGER
Good News!!! Freudy is back!! Check him out.
Great piece. I agree with him.
Do you remember what happened last year? Somebody calling himself Badger showed up and when I asked him who he was, Freudy invited me to leave. So I did. I doubt he will get many posters, but his writing is still superb.
Badger
I believe that was a guy who was Ye Olde Badger or something like that. Yeah, I remember but I think Freudy might have been confused in some way. I posted a welcome back but it is not showing up.
It’s worth the read.
I’ll keep an eye on it.
If Seager’s elbow is not ok, and Taylor’s projections turn out to be accurate, we are going to need Bellinger, Puig and Kemp to step it up or this offense could become middle of the pack.
Jeff
Your right about the hitting except about Corey.
We need to do better, the Giants had 9 hits and I believe we had only four hits.
Puig and Kike , did a really good job, with a runner on third.
The first pitch they felt they could handle, they made sure they hit a fly ball deep enough into the outfield, instead of fooling around, and getting deep into a count, so they could get the runner home on third.
I noticed that Puig started to do that last year, so it was good to see both him, and Kike, have a sac fly while a runner was on third.
Although I think Puig
should still be moved down in the order, because his other at bats, were not as good.
Kemp has had a hit in the last two games, and he hit a single to rightfield, to drive in the third run yesterday.
Cody did hit the ball hard yesterday, so he should be coming around.
Roberts is just periodically giving Corey days off, to make sure his elbow doesn’t get in a place, where I would cause him to miss more then one game.
I thought Maeda pitched a good game, but at times, he had trouble putting certain hitters away quickly, so his pitch count was a little high at the beginning of the game.
And it was good to see Farmer make that first play at third, that was not an easy play, although he didn’t get a hit, but I don’t expect him to not hit if he gets enough consistent at bats.
Badger
What was that site called, I forgot?
Dodger Therapy
YF
Thanks, I couldn’t remember the name of that place.
No thoughts today?
Biggest laugh I got was the headline on the Dodger web site that said Offense Awakens. Yeah? 4 hits is waking up? They did get 2 extra base hits, a double by Kike, and Taylor’s triple that McCutcheon misplayed. Kemp did a nice job going down and getting that Holland pitch to line to right for his first Dodger RBI since 2014. It was the pitching that won the game. Maeda struck out 10, but made too many pitches. No body really hit the ball hard off of him. Most of the hits were bleeders until Posey doubled off the wall. Alexander was a little shaky in the 9th with the walks, but recovered nicely and they got their first W of the year. How about that Utley guy? I am a little concerned with Cody’s approach at the plate. He did finally hit one hard, but it was right at McCutcheon. Joe commented that McCutcheon was the worst outfielder in the NL last year with a -44 runs saved…..Brewers GM shot down trade rumor. Kemp is not going to Milwaukee. It makes no sense anyway, one bad contract for one that is worse. Here is a shocker thought, D-Backs eat 46 million as they get rid of Tomas.
Michael
Joe said McCutchen was the worse defensive outfielder in the last two years, even worse then Kemp, in the last couple years.
This is the same guy that had great defensive metrics in 2013 or 2014, I believe.
But that was when he was playing Center, and that is why the Pirates were going to move him from Center, but their other outfielder tested positive for steroids.
Kemp won 2 gold gloves playing CF. Had he never hit that wall in Coors, he would have been worth every penny of that contract. He was hitting .360 when he had that accident with 20 homers. Only hit 3 more the rest of the year. He came back too early.
One other thing……Dodgers only team in the majors without a homer.
Who the hell is freudy, you aren’t talking about the Child Molester are you?
Writer that Badger, I believe, brought into many people’s radar.
Others, as stated, find him informative. I found last years post ‘wasted movements’ to be knee jerk anti-Friedman. This years sadly, to me, more of the same.
I like his writing. And, many people agree with his take Bluto. What you seem to fail to understand is that quantify everything can in fact overtake many enjoyable parts of the game for a number of long time fans. You find his take “sad” while I find it sad, and irritating, that guys like you don’t understand guys like us. I’m doing my best to understand the changes. Meet us halfway man.
And as for his March 21st post, it happens to support what I’ve been saying since the Guggs took over – there is no financially sound basis for this team cutting corners on its way to a championship – so of course I’m going to look at that take as genius.
Getting below the cap was a choice. It meant no Stanton and it meant no new starter, and we will live, or die again, with that choice. Hopefully it also means that after this year we will blow by the cap again and fill the starting lineup with the stars LA deserves.
Badger
You are very optimistic going forward but I think we both know deep down that these management folks will never pay big money for a star with the exception of MAYBE Kershaw.
I definitely think Freudy is a traditionalist and does not see sabermetrics as any kind of Bible for baseball. He is annoyed by this management group just like you and I.
I agree pack.
From my point of view I can appreciate the moneyball concepts. I get a lot of it. I have been an on base proponent since I was in Little League. Same with slugging. Baseball has always been a game of stats. What bugs me most about our guys are the decisions that thinking leads to. Kazmir, McCarthy, Latos et al sprang from the minds of data analysts. We’ve been bargain shopping and relying on the strong system FAZ inherited. That’s only going to last so long.
You know what else bugs me? The shift. The reason why might surprise you. The reason the shift works is because these launch happy gorillas can’t bunt. I actually saw a shift against Votto that had 4 outfielders and NOBODY on the left side of the infield. That’s a .900 batting average for every baseball player anywhere from Abner to Aaron and players today can’t bunt well enough to take advantage. There are other things but the point is some things about this era aren’t better because of sabermetrics.
Well, my take is most of baseball FO decision making is based on analytics, and has been for years. The FAZ/FBZ is just not as good at it as other FOs.
And don’t give me the contending while rebuilding red herring. We have been contending based on players who were already here. Remove all of their moves and just let the kids play, other than dropping Mattingly (a year too late for me), we end up in the same place.
I really didn’t mean to cast any aspersions at all. Just meant to give my thoughts.
I agree, the team had no real financial reason to get under the cap. I do admit I have no clue about the debt service rules and obligations.
Well Bluto, I know plenty about debt service for billion dollar private equity funds, as it has been part of my job to deal with it for decades. And I can tell you and everyone here that for Guggenheim to claim they have a debt service issue would be a pretense to the fan base, and in fact they have never said they have any debt service problems and they’ve never directly said that their lenders affect their baseball decisions. It’s about profits and hurdle rates for them. It’s the same for many many teams as a lot of teams are owned by private equity and wealthy families who have private equity Co-investors. The Dodgers are not much different, just bigger and better than most of them due to the massive market and TV contract, and you can bet most of the other ownership groups would gladly swap their deals with Guggenheim.
Oh no.
I know about debt service too, and I wasn’t speaking about internally at Guggenheim. That whole Security Benefit scam must throw off tons of cash.
I meant debt service rules for MLB.