Game 59, 2015

Posted on by

Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

The D-Backs send out LHP Robbie Ray, who’s 1-0 with a 0.82 ERA in 11 innings in his second partial season in the big leagues. He’s thrown a lot of pitches in each of his two starts, which is why he’s gone no longer than six innings in either of them. He’ll face the Dodgers’ Carlos Frias, who’s 4-3 with a 4.25 ERA. He’d been perking along with an under-2.50 ERA until a disastrous start against the Padres on May 24 when he gave up 10 earned runs in 4 innings.

Here’s a list of the Dodgers’ first ten draft picks. Begin your wild speculations now.

Lineup:

Joc Pederson sits down for the first time this season. Ethier sits because Ray is a lefty. Turner probably sits because he hit a ball hard off his knee in last night’s game.

73 thoughts on “Game 59, 2015”

    • Just a big lottery after the first two rounds. There is this guy writes on Dodger Digest, his total interest, maybe even his reason for living, is minor league players and those eligible for the draft. In the past couple of weeks he posted 4 events (?)(they usually post twice a day) totally about potential draftees he had researched and thought the Dodgers might (should) draft at least some of them. You could tell he had put in a lot of time on it and he really cared. Not one player he touted was drafted by the Dodgers (or anyone else as far as I know)… I wonder if he was crushed? I really expected some of his picks might make it and even I feel bad about that. I will probably never again read anything he says, I might bail out of Internet sports entirely. It is such a useless pursuit.

      • It’s a harmless hobby. Lower round picks, in any event, are a crapshoot, as witness Mike Piazza. Plenty of high draft picks fail, plenty of lower picks flourish.

  4. Grandal’s throwing really kept that game from getting away in the early innings.

    • He values AJ for his past performance, future coaching qualities, and all-around good guy, but he’s ignoring what time and effort have done to erode his athletic abilities. I give him credit for having that admirable outlook but baseball is, unfortunately, a business and the past counts for little or nothing. I just see no point in hassling him. It’s not like myself and all other baseball fans don’t live in glass houses ourselves…

      • I too value A.J., but I can’t overlook stupidity (or willful ignorance) in defence of him.

  6. Another quick game tonight. I haven’t seen the overall numbers, but I’m wondering if the length of games has decreased noticbly or not (say 10 minutes or more).

  20. That was an effective relief job right there. Now the problem often comes when Mattingly tries to stretch a pitcher too far.

    • If anything he seems to have a quick hook. Circumstances probably dictate.

  29. From the my $.02 dept.–

    I think the Dodger decision to let Aardsma opt out despite good OKC numbers came down to…

    a) they didn’t think he was an upgrade over the current pen, especially after injured guys return.

    b) Ravin and his 100 mph arm also were available. Old days Aardsma sat high 90s but 91-93 at OKC. As this FO sees relief pitchers, pretty easy choice since they weren’t about to bring up both.

    c) probaby some concern over Aardsma’s durability, age, and injury history. Injury history alone doesn’t seem to dissuade the Dodgers. But they may have thought his risk greater than likely reward, given a) and b).

    • Sounds reasonable. I don’t Ravin will be up for long when the injured guys start returning, though.

  30. Balllslinger continues to defy conventional wisdom, thriving on an upper echelon MLB pitching staff with basically just 2 pitches–neither of which even hit 90 last night, says Gameday.

    From what I can tell, that self-taught curve maybe should count as more than one pitch. Hitters know it’s coming, still can’t hit it. Dunno if his cutter is quality or mostly just to keep them from sitting on that curve.

    Wonder what the Dodgers did to help him. More than that, not hard to think AJ was involved like he was last year with Beckett, telling Josh then to throw his curve more because batters couldn’t hit it. Which he did. And they couldn’t. Wouldn’t be at all surprising if there wasn’t a similar AJ/Ballslinger conversation, complete with charts and lots of detail, like with Josh. And, so far, very similar results.

    When AJ is no longer a player, surely a FO as smart as this one will have a place for him.

  31. Joc sits on a night honoring him?
    Hopefully he’ll respond like Manny did on his bobblehead night.
    On second thought, I hope this is a runaway victory like last night — I need the sleep!

    • Suggests that the FO is not making the line up, as some are claiming?