Game 57, 2015

Cardinals at Dodgers, 5:00PM PT, TV: ESPN

The Cards and Dodgers play Sunday Night Baseball. It’ll be Zack Greinke for the Dodgers versus Lance Lynn for the Cardinals. Greinke’s last game was astonishing because it was the first bad one he’s had all year: he gave up ten hits and five runs to the Rockies over six innings. Even with that aberration, he’s 5-1 with a 1.97 ERA on the year. Lynn is 4-4 with a 3.03 ERA on the year. His last start was his best of the season: he went 7 2/3 scoreless innings against the Brewers.

Matt Carpenter’s bruised triceps makes him day-to-day for the Cardinals.

Lineup when available.

Turner hitting cleanup? I’ll bet he hasn’t done that since high school!

101 thoughts on “Game 57, 2015

  1. Counting the playoffs, it sure seems when the Dodgers have a national audience, they don’t do well.
    Anyone with #s on that?

    • Probably more to do with who they are playing in order to rate a national game, rather than the extra glare of the network cameras.

  2. Just saw that the Nationals are 2-8 over the last ten. Wonder how their fans are feeling?

    • Was at the park on Saturday, when they lost to the Cubs. No one calling for the manager’s head, yet. Mets took over first place in the division today.

      • Hopefully, the Metropolitans swat the Gnats well enough to keep that spot over the next few days.

    • The last 10 for the Dodgers are the worst of the stretch, but they have a losing record since May 13th.

  3. There is too much talent on this team to lose as much as they do. You can’t fire 25 players, so maybe you change the manager. No, he can’t hit or pitch for them, but it’s his responsibility to get them to perform better. So everybody’s at fault but only the manager can take the rap for it. We’ll see pretty soon.

        • That would be a valid argument except Ethier, Joc, Turner, and a bunch of kid pitchers stepped up and played fine. They did everything that could have been asked of them, but the club lost. No DL excuses.

          • The argument may be that those guys are capable of keeping you afloat for a while but that, after a certain time, their limitations become more obvious.

  4. No more Cards til the playoffs. Be interesting to see how different our team is then from now.

    • Of course, we have had winning seasons against the Cards from 2010 to 2014, but didn’t help us much in the playoffs.

        • I remember that, but I don’t remember if their losses were like this.
          Going back to the playoffs, the Dodgers could’ve/should’ve won almost every one — but they found ways to lose, including the incredible one where Kersh had the huge lead.

          • They pretty much killed us, the Mets, scoring 4.5 per game against our 1.6.

    • Don’t wanna be Debbie Downer, just Robert Realist . . . we know this Dodger team has talent and we’ve seen how well they CAN play. But we’ve also seen how poor they can play and how they can manufacture defeat from seeming victory. The big question is which version will show up more often through the rest of the regular season.

  5. Something tells me the D’Backs will be welcomed relief for the Dodgers.

    • If only. They seem to be heating up themselves and approaching .500. Sandwiched around being sweep by the Cards, they have won series against Miami (four game sweep), Cubs, Brewers and Braves, before splitting with the Mets this weekend.

      • Yes. But also am I right that he hasn’t pinch hit the last few games? I could be very wrong. ( And of course, the minute I wrote this, he came in to pinch hit.

        • Oh. Yes, there is a discussion on this earlier in the thread, including questioning whether perhaps he is injured.

  6. Our offense has completely disappeared. Even Adrian looks terrible at the plate right now.

  7. Came home from a Crime Writers Conference, to see the meltdown. There goes the RBI theory!

  8. What a waste . . . again.
    It’s as if the Dodgers can’t stand the pressure of playing quality teams and find ways to lose.

  9. Apart from the abbreviated start, Juan has been pretty good this year. Where is Baez?

  10. I like Nicassio here but wish he had just started the inning – matchup or not.

  11. After all the comments about how bad the lineup was last night (at least, I thought it was bad) tonight’s felt like a dream. However, either way you slice it, the Dodgers still have only scored 2 runs.

  12. Graphic just flashed up: Cards scoreless last 14 innings. Maybe the Dodger hitting woes rubbed off.

    Course, CK and Zach do that kind of thing a bunch.

  13. OK, where’s Alex G for about the 3rd straight game? There was some mention of his grimacing after hitting an OF wall the other day as well as some less than stellar LF defense–maybe not too surprising since he’s always been an infielder.

    He may be hurt and the team doing its usual close-mouthed thing about injuries. Otherwise, given the stick he swings it’s unlikely his defense is bad enough that he shouldn’t start at least every other day–someplace.

    He may be the best argument the Dodgers have had for the DH–other than HanRam and ManRam before him….

    • Except for his game-winning slam, he’s hit poorly in recent weeks. It’s a judgement call whether to play him or not, though so far he appears to be an adequate 3B.

    • With Puig back in the rotation getting him starts will be a bit more difficult. An obvious choice against lefties, but with Klayton going the other night I think that defense trumped at 3rd and LF. He has been hitting well, OPS 1.006 over the past two weeks. Don’t believe that an injury is the explanation.

  14. Gnats lose to Fillies. That’ll at least make the blackout easier to tolerate.