Game 153, 2015

Posted on by

Dodgers at Rockies, 5:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

The Dodgers, whose magic number is down to three, send Mike Bolsinger out to see if he can recover the form he showed before being sent down to AAA in the wake of the Latos-Wood acquisitions in July. He had a 2.83 ERA to that point, but he’s had a 6.23 ERA in his three starts since returning. Overall he’s 6-4 with a 3.26 ERA in 2015. He’ll face right-hander David Hale, who’s 4-5 with a 6.32 ERA. Hale spent the year starting until September; he’s only made four appearances this month, all in relief.

Lineup when available.

90 thoughts on “Game 153, 2015”

  2. Apologies for hoping for losses for next two Dodger games and wins for Giants, but I want at least one of the games up there to mean something. It would be just so much better to clinch there than to keep “backing-into-it”.

    • No, you want to be able to stroll into The Phone Booth as division champions, and put out the scrubs to play v. BadGums on Tuesday night.

    • 20-10 (.667) in our last 30 games is hardly “backing into it”, but I share your desire to beat the giants in Phone Booth for the Division championship.

    • I also agree with wanting the Dodgers to earn it vs. backing into it (and let’s face it, if their division wasn’t the West, they wouldn’t be best).
      But if they do it in CO, that works for me.

    • Where you’re eight games ahead of your nearest competition, and blew them away with a sweep to take command of the division, you’re hardly “backing into it.”

      • If what Audit means is going 2-6 in recent games and whittling the magic # only because the team behind you loses, then I agree that it’s “backing in.”

          • If they ended up 161-1, I’d be unhappy they lost that game. Which probably helps explain why I’m a bachelor…

          • You and Bobby V are tough to please. Don’t agree, but also don’t begrudge you guys for wanting more.

          • Not so much tough to please as calling it as I see it.
            I think the record is an accurate reflection: the Dodgers have at least three other teams in the NL who are better than them.
            Yes, LA has Kersh and Zack, but if either of them is beat right away — especially in the best 3/5 LDS — that advantage disappears immediately. And they can easily be beat if they give up just one run — we all know how ineffective this Dodger offense can be, even when they’re not hitting against “quality” pitchers on “quality” teams (not just this year — recall the first two games vs. Cards two years ago).
            All that being said, they’re my team and I’m rooting for them — Go, Blue!

          • You don’t need to cherry pick games, I think we all know that scoring runs won’t be easy. If I used the first two games of the series last year against the Cards, I would come up with 6 runs scored by us per game, but it brings me no comfort.

          • With all due respect, because I know you over the years blogging together as a loyal and fierce Dodger fan, but you see what you want to see. For months you kept harking back to the first 37 games and using that as a measure. Our winning percentage in that period was ..648. Over the past 30 games we have gone .667, yet now you are looking at the last eight games and questioning the team. The team has its uncertainties and a tendency for the offense to go to sleep, but give them their due.

        • You can parse down the data to fit your mood, but we are at .667 winning percentage in last 30 games. I suppose we could have split the past 8 games and been at .733, but you are asking for the moon in baseball terrms.

  4. Tomorrow afternoon at 1:05PM in Oakland one-time heroes of the Oakland pitching staff (with Mark Mulder) Barry Zito and Tim Hudson will start the Athletics-Giants game against one another.

    Hudson is 46-15 with a 3.04 ERA lifetime pitching at the Coliseum. Zito is 51-32 with a 3.77 ERA in his career in Oakland.

    Both pitchers won World Series championships with the Giants. Zito’s came in 2012 while Hudson’s came in 2014.

    The odds are against it, but it would be fun to have a good 1-1 game when they each got relieved.

    So shoot me, I’m sentimental.

    • No, I’d like Zito to gno-hit the Gnats but, given his recent lack of work he’s not likely to go more than a few innings.

    • Unfortunately, that makes it 2-3 against weaker teams, 0-3 against “better” teams recently.

      • But as the “house men” will point out, this is a great team, leading its Division, going to win maybe 90 games, Mattingly should be “Manager Of The Year”, etc, etc. I don’t know about you but I find it impossible to be proud of them. They should have done so much better…

        • Meh. We lost our number 3 and 4 starters, which probably kept us from being a “great” team this year. Still, we have managed to be the third best team in the NL in ERA+ to go along with being the top hitting team in OPS+. As regards our “coasting” vets, which you complained about recently, Agon is having his best season since 2011 and Dre since 2010. With Bochy as manager, maybe we would have won a couple more. In a short series with Clayton and Zach on the mound I like our chances. Our offense should benefit from Seager being around and hopefully Puig on the mend. Pretty proud of these guys.

        • Most everyone at this site–even if they don’t despise DM and the FO–thinks this is a team good enough to win it all if breaks go their way, which is one thing it takes to win a WS these days. Doubt anyone thinks they’re “great.”

          Also, most everyone here has pointed out DM’s shortcomings. No one is under the illusion he’s a great manager, tho he is a good handler of players.

          If you can’t be at least halfway happy with a first-place team, why bother?

      • Since we are looking at SSS, when we face the better teams in the PO, we have Clayton and Zach. Against the other four team likely to make the playoffs, Clayton has an ERA of 0.481 in 52 innings, Zach at 0.512 in 27.2 innings.

    • Some good news in that story: Mattingly said Enrique Hernandez was scheduled for a heavy workload day in Arizona on Friday. Barring a setback, Mattingly said he expected that to be the final test for his hamstring and he would rejoin the club.

  15. I’m not concerned about the pitching here. Bolsinger will not make the post-season roster. The inconsistent offense, though, is cause for concern, especially when elite pitching.

    • Of course the tricky thing about not being worried about the pitching (and I’m guessing you mean starting not relief) and only about the offense is how do you know when it is okay? 4 runs? 6 runs? 9 hits? 12 hits?

  21. Howie was having a fantastic August before he went down. A little slow coming back, but only around 20 PA so far.

  22. Just walked in from the grocery store in time to see Kendrick bounce into an inning-ending double play after having men on 2nd and 3rd with none out. Grrrr.

      • It’s meaningful if you care about home field advantage against the Mets. Maybe having Wood start in LA is not a bad idea.

        • It’s not totally meaningless, but Mattingly will not start Kershaw in the last game of the season simply to gain home field advantage. It’s part of the corruption of the wild card system.

          • I agree (then he wouldn’t have him to start first game of the playoffs), but don’t follow the rest.

  27. I will miss most if not all of tonight’s game (and commenting on the thread). Having company over who will be here until at least 9 or 10.

    • I see ’em all. The biggest cable provider in Hawai’i is Oceanic, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and they added SPNLA to their lineup the moment it was created. I also get the Fox Sports San Diego channel as well as Prime Ticket and the Fox Sports West channel, so I can see most if not all of the Angels’ games too.

      Of course, our cable bill is $200/month.

          • Wow – you really track the news! I guess I get stuck in the candy store (sports) a bit too much, while you are in the grocery store (news).

          • Well, 1/2 hour local, 1 hour national on two different networks and then the long form on PBS. I’m cooking and eating for two. I serve up right around 6:00PM our time.

          • It sounds as if you’re a real news junkie. I can’t stand to watch TV news of any kind, though I regularly listen to NPR.

          • What news? The same things have happened regularly since radio and television were invented. After the first time they are not news. It even makes more sense to watch the weather…

      • We have no cable, and no cable bill. Occasionally, when I’m in the kitchen, I’ll take the iPad with me and watch the game(s) on that.