So the B-team did alright in Saturday night’s rousing 8-4 win over the snakes. Kike Hernandez had the game of his life, doubling, scoring a run and making two fine defensive plays. The Dodgers scored five of their eight runs off a lefty and the bullpen was fantastic bailing out yet another lousy Kenta Maeda start. The only black mark on the game was the injury to Logan Forsythe. The red-hot keystone king suffered hamstring tightness in his right leg and is out of the lineup today. Veteran Chase Utley will take his place batting eighth.
The Dodgers will go for the sweep series win of the dbacks today as Rich Hill returns from the disabled list. Hill is recovering from yet another blister on his pitching hand. How many blisters can one man get? I don’t know, but this will be Hill’s second start of the season. He was great in his first start although he only pitched five innings. Can the Dodgers get some innings out of him today to rest their beleaguered but awesome bullpen? Of course with Hill being activated today, that means somebody has to be sent down to clear roster space. Reports are indicating that it is Trayce Thompson who will be sent down to Oklahoma City.
#Dodgers have reinstated Rich Hill from 10-day DL (blister on left middle finger) and optioned Trayce Thompson to Triple-A Oklahoma City.
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 16, 2017
Dodgers vs. Arizona
Today's Dodger lineup vs. D-backs:
Toles LF
Seager SS
Turner 3B
González 1B
Grandal C
Pederson CF
Puig RF
Utley 2B
Hill P pic.twitter.com/Gybzy5B4gT— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 16, 2017
Taijuan Walker-1-1 vs. Rich Hill-1-0
Game Time – 1:10 PM – TV- KTLA5- SNLA
The dbacks will send young right hander Taijuan Walker to the hill to counter Rich Hill. The dbacks acquired the former top prospect from the Mariners in the Jean Segura trade. Walker was drafted by Seattle in the first round of the 2010 draft. He made his MLB debut in 2013, and never was able to put it all together.
So far he’s made two starts and is 1-1 with a 4.91 ERA over 11 innings of work. He’s allowed 7 runs on 12 hits and struck out 9. He’s allowed 8.5 hits per nine across his short MLB career, and has a 4.21 ERA. He’s only faced the Dodgers once and lost, allowing five earned runs on six hits over four frames. The current Dodgers are 4 for 10 against him.
Walker vs. Dodgers
| Name | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | OPS |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .333 | .333 | .667 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .500 | .667 | 1.167 |
| Logan Forsythe | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Joc Pederson | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 2.000 |
| Scott Van Slyke | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .500 | .500 | 1.500 |
| Total | 12 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | .400 | .500 | 1.000 |
Hill is 1-2 with a 4.60 ERA in 5 career starts against the dbacks. Arizona is batting only .150 against Hill and has only one extra-base hit. Hills has struck out 11 snakes and walked none in 21 plate appearances.
Hill vs. dbacks
| Name | PA | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | BA | OBP | OPS |
| Chris Iannetta | 6 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | .167 | .167 | .833 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .333 | .333 | .667 |
| Chris Owings | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .333 | .333 | .667 |
| Archie Bradley | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Brandon Drury | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Jeff Mathis | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Yasmany Tomas | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Chris Herrmann | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| Total | 21 | 20 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 11 | .150 | .150 | .450 |
Don’t forget that today’s game will be also be televised on KTLA 5. Also don’t forget that the broom depot has opened for the 2017 regular season. You can purchase all your Dodger sweep needs. Don’t forget to type in the promo code “sweepsnakes” and get 15% off on all Dodger sweep merchandise.
In all seriousness a sweep would be pretty nice. The first sweep of the 2017 Dodger season. Make it happen boys!
EDIT: I totally screwed up and thought this was a three game series when it’s actually a four game wrap around set. Sorry guys, but broom depot will still remain open in anticipation of a sweep. If they lose today you can blame me.
Go Blue!
That looks like a seriously dangerous way to sweep up a rattlesnake, that being said, not a fan of sending down a position player and going with a 4 man bench. Especially since today it will be a 3 man bench with Forsythe unavailable. Thompson obviously needs the reps. He is 0 fer 2017! Hope that Hill has a good outing. Walker can be nasty. So it should be interesting anyway. Dodgers have not seen him much. So lets sit back and let this roller coaster ride continue.
Boy this Braun talk will just not go away. Personally, I am not trading Puig for that guy. Puig is off to a much better start than Braun who is hitting just .212 with 3 homers. Why would you trade the 26 year old Puig for a declining guy with a huge contract. Fly’s in the face of what FAZ is supposedly trying to do. He is far less athletic than Puig, and not as good a defender, and with Puig Pederson and Toles, I think the OF is just fine thank you.
Where’s the Braun talk?
I haven’t seen it this morning….
It was on Yahoo, and it is on the Forbes stream and I have seen blurbs about it on ESPN. I think I saw it on Fox sports also. But it is still out there and according to Forbes, it is getting a little more serious because of the May 24 deadline when Braun hits 5-10…..
I also found it on cbssports.com. It does say that the Dodgers would not consider including Puig, but might be willing to eat the rest of Ethier’s contract and move SVS.
Scott I love your enthusiasm! But this is a four game series. One extra game against AZ tomorrow. So no sweep possible today. But still I love your enthusiasm!
Happy Easter Sunday everyone!
I totally screwed up on this one. For some reason I thought it was a three-game series. If they lose today you can blame me. Oh well.
Grandal’s framing is really something.
Gets Pollack for the game’s first and changes the inning.
It was a strike according to pitchfx.
The Big Blister out after 3 innings pitched. Yep, that 38 million sure looks like a sound baseball investment.
Lets see, we got 4 innings out of Ryu twice, Maeda has gone 4 twice and 5 once, and 3 out of Hill today….naw, our BP won’t be overworked by June………
nothing different than last year really
Always the optimistic fan Michael.
It was blatant sarcasm….nothing more, nothing less……..and the Dodgers want you to pay to see his garbage…..38 million well spent.
Don’t worry the team has plenty of depth. If you believe FAZ.
I think they have a contingency plan for just this. Heck, Hill is gone after 3 and we still hold the highest scoring team in the league to 3. You gotta hit with them to play with them.
We knew we were going to need the bullpen again. Bobby is right. We’ve been down this road before.
I don’t know about you Badger but I am a little more than tired of the picture painted by FAZ that everything is OK and then think we are dumb enough to buy it, so this road is old. The Dodgers have more than enough money to obtain top tier players and they should quit with all the BS about their depth with either old or wore out players. The fans deserve better for sure. The part I don’t get is why the fans let them get by with all of the BS. I hope it stops soon.
There are plenty buying it Package. A guy who does buy it started his own blog back up and only allows those who do to post on it. From what I hear, it’s been busy.
I hope I’m wrong as I would never wish the Dodgers ill, but it appears there are cracks in the strategy. Like Michael mentioned, there are replacements at AAA putting up good numbers so if the trend continues there will be moves made. We already have an O/U of 13 starters so we knew that would happen, but I had hoped the not hitting lefties would be remedied. We hit well against Corbin, maybe that’s a sign. We have another one tonight, Ray, and he’s started well, let’s hope we light him up.
Not true. Dodgerrick posts all the time on that Other Guy’s blog. The difference is the dialog there is civil. It’s kept that way by not allowing certain people to post.
I believe that is what I just said.
Should have left Wood in the rotation and used Hill out of the pen…..he could have lasted 3 games. He made a 35 pitch workout and said he was ready, obviously not, and because of that, they played with a short bench. Should have started the B team…..at least they scored runs.
What they need is a depth charge to blow FAZ up.
When you have the track record that FAZ has to get the team into the playoffs 4 years in a row in spite of our perception of mediocrity, they are not going to change that. That’s business. Plus, the farm seems to be bursting with talent. It is way too early in the season to get down about how the team will come together this season. Personally, I never thought they would get to where they were in 2016. Never. Too many surprises. I’ll admit we had plenty of help from the Giants, et al. This doesn’t change my perception of FAZ. Bad for baseball, good for owners and business. They do enough to keep the team competitive. All that is needed is for those players like Puig, whom the expectations were high early on, to produce like he’s producing this year. With Forsyth, Turner, Seager, and Gonzalez, doing what they do well, it will be difficult to keep the Dodgers down. It’s players like Pederson and Grandal who do not produce consistently that I worry about, and the seeming inability to hit lefties. I say play Toles every game. Play Pederson every game. Stop the B squad. You need A players every day. We don’t rest Kershaw when it’s his turn to pitch. You’re paid to play and produce. You don’t produce, you sit.
Still don’t know why Puig has been resurrected. Any clues?
Brenly was talking about Puig last night and said Turner has been coaching him up on launch angles. He’s got 9 walks and 7 k’s in 54 PA’s so maybe he’s learning to recognize pitches. I hope he keeps it up, but he won’t. A .674 slugging percentage is unsustainable. That’s Bondsian and we know how he kept it up.
FAZ has won 2 West titles and the Dodgers are early favorites for another. I hope the bullpen holds up. If it doesn’t we’re toast.
Point of order Jeff….how did FAZ get the Dodgers to the playoffs 4 years in a row when he has only been here 2? And by the way, FAZ’s drafted players are not yet making waves at the higher levels. A couple of his Cuban signings are doing well, but the heart of that system was there before he got here, and he has already traded some of the top prospects and received in turn some overage under performing garbage. Colletti was in charge in 13 and 14. Replaced after the 15 season. Logan White was in charge of the minor league side and most of those guys were signed on his watch. Not Friedman and Zaidi’s. Kapler is running that stuff now. Buehler is about the best prospect they signed. He is about 2 years away.
Thanks, Badger, for the heads up on Turner and Puig. Remember that Puig was on fire when he first came up. Maybe he won’t sustain the blistering pace (no pun intended re:Hill), but surely you’re not suggesting he’s doping, ala Bonds! (just joking). I look forward to more clutch playing from him. He is a key, I believe, to a strong Dodger season.