Jun 21

Game 76, 2014

Dodgers at Padres, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, MLB free game

Josh Beckett deserves better than his 4-4 won-loss record. He’s got a 2.49 ERA and his last loss was his defense’s fault. He pitches for the Dodgers at Petco Park tonight. The Padres counter with Tyson Ross, who’s 6-6 with a 3.27 ERA. His last outing wasn’t good; he walked seven in 5 2/3 innings and lost.

Lineup when available. Puig is day-to-day with a sore hip, apparently a recurrence of the flexor problem he had last week. Uribe is scheduled to play infield at Rancho Cucamonga tonight.

Jun 10

Game 66, 2014

Dodgers at Reds, 4:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Josh Beckett (3-3, 2.57 ERA) goes for the Dodgers against Mike Leake (3-5, 3.29 ERA) of the Reds. In five career appearances (four starts) against the Dodgers, he is 2-2 with a 4.80 ERA. Another thing: in the last eight games the two teams have played, each team has won four. Six have been one-run affairs.

Bob Welch, who won 211 games in the major leagues for the Dodgers and As, died yesterday. He was only 57. Here’s Jon Weisman’s appreciation of the former pitcher.

Gordon and Puig are both in the lineup, so hopefully their respective hips are fully recovered.

Jun 09

Game 65, 2014

Dodgers at Reds, 4:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA and ESPN (no blackout, supposedly)

Dan Haren has fallen on hard times recently, but he’s still got a 5-4 record and a 3.50 ERA. His opponent is LHP Tony Cingrani, who’s got a record of 2-6 with a 4.09 ERA. Cingrani had a good five innings last Wednesday against the Giants but gave up three runs after two outs in the sixth and lost the game.

I think we can assume that some of the Reds really look forward to facing Dan Haren:

Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips, right fielder Ryan Ludwick and shortstop Zack Cozart each have a pair of home runs in their careers against Haren. Phillips is 6-for-18 (.333) with five RBIs against the right-hander, Ludwick is 5-for-9 (.556) with four RBIs, and Cozart is 3-for-5 with four RBIs.

Puig and Gordon are still day-to-day. Apparently Gordon is more iffy than Puig, since Puig is in the lineup today.

Jun 08

Game 64, 2014

Dodgers at Rockies, 1:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Kershaw v. Jorge De La Rosa. Clayton has a career 5-3 record at Coors Field, but that’s with a 5.24 ERA. De La Rosa is a lefty, and the Dodgers have had trouble with guys who throw from that side all year (207/.338/.282 slash line).

No Gordon (hip), no Puig (hip), no Ethier (see: lefthanded starter), no Turner (unknown). This is a makeshift lineup indeed!

Jun 06

Game 62, 2014

Dodgers at Rockies 5:40PM PT, TV: SPNLA

After a 4-6 homestand, the Dodgers take their show on the road. Tonight they send out Hyun-Jin Ryu, who is 6-2 with a 3.09 ERA overall and a shiny 4-0 away from Dodger Stadium with a 0.56 road ERA. The Rockies will send out rookie Eddie Butler, who’s considered their Number 2 prospect. He’s a right-handed 23-year-old who was 4-4 with a 2.49 ERA in 11 starts at Double-A Tulsa. Last year, he had a Rockies organization-best 1.80 ERA in 28 starts split between A and Double-A.

Via Twitter we learn that the Dodgers have optioned Erisbel Arruebarrena to Triple-A and selected the contract of Miguel Rojas from the Isotopes. In addition, they moved Chris Withrow to the 60-day disabled list.

Young Mr. Puig went hunting for snow (can it be that this is the first time he’s been in the stuff? I suppose so!) and built an “LA” fort.

More Puig: Jay Jaffe of SI celebrates the Wild Horse’s one-year anniversary with some applause and some video.

Lineup when available.

Jun 03

Game 60, 2014

White Sox at Dodgers, 7:10PM, PT, TV: SPNLA

Dan Haren goes for the Dodgers. He hasn’t won since May 12 and his record is now 5-3, 3.28 ERA. I’m sure that’s not what he’d like it to be (although it ain’t all that bad), but it pales in comparison to poor Hector Noesi, who’s starting for the White Sox. The poor guy is 0-14 with a 5.87 ERA over his last 40 appearances, including 19 starts. His last two starts were quality but resulted in no decision for him each time, despite a 2.70 ERA in 13.1 innings.

The Dodgers’ Justin Turner has six RBI in his last three games. Over the last month he’s hit .339, raising his season average to .261.

On the All-Star ballot, “. . . Dodgers star Yasiel Puig (935,276) made an astronomical jump from fifth to first in the outfield voting. He now leads a field that includes Charlie Blackmon (last week’s top outfield vote-getter, now with 883,186 votes) and Giancarlo Stanton (863,307) as the outfielders currently in position to start.”

Puig says thank you to the fans and voters.

The Dodgers put together a Year-in-Review video of Mr. Puig which is full of memories of last season and the first two months of this one.

Jun 02

Game 59, 2014

Today brings a couple of nice long-form pieces about the Dodgers and their family:

Here’s a wonderful profile of Vin Scully from Cee Angi at SB Nation.

And Jon W. has written about Yasiel Puig and his predecessors in supposed “uniqueness” in MLB. Jon argues that there have been plenty of guys who, when they first came up, were viewed in the same jaundiced way that Puig was last year after committing some of his baserunning mistakes and non-cutoff-man throwing “errors.”

White Sox (!) at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

It will be Clayton Kershaw (3-2, 3.57 ERA) for the Dodgers and Jose Quintana (3-4, 3.61 ERA) for the Sox. This will also be the Dodgers’ and their fans’ first opportunity to see the Pale Hose’s exciting rookie, 27-year-old Jose Abreu. He was the American League’s Player and Rookie of the Month for April of this year, but he’s been on the DL with a left ankle injury for the past two weeks.

Abreu and the Dodgers’ Puig know each other very well. They played together for Cienfuegos in the Cuban League a couple of years back. He also knows young Erisbel Arruebarrena, who’s currently holding down a spot on the Dodgers’ bench.

Lineup when available.

Jun 01

Game 58, 2014

Pirates v. Dodgers, 5:00PM PT, TV: ESPN2 (with seven of the network’s Baseball Tonight crew doing commentary — joy!)

The Dodgers send out Zack Greinke, and you have to like their chances with him pitching. This may only be his second season as a Dodger, but get this: “In 20 career appearances at Dodger Stadium, Greinke is 13-2 with a 2.23 ERA, .219 opponent batting average and 137 strikeouts in 133 1/3 innings.” This season he’s 8-1 with a 2.18 ERA.

His opposite number will be one-time Dodger Edison Volquez, who’s 2-4, 4.30 ERA so far this year. He pitched for Los Angeles in September of 2013, making five starts and going 0-2 for the team before leaving as a free agent.

Puig just keeps adding to his legend: he recorded his 43rd hit of May on Saturday. That tied him with Willie Davis for hits in May. Davis did it in 1971.

Lineup when available.

May 31

Game 57, 2014

Pirates at Dodgers, 4:15PM PT, TV: Fox

Ryu vs. Cumpton. The Dodgers’ Korean lefty against the Pirates’ Georgia Tech righty. Ryu threw a 7-inning perfect game in his last outing, faltering in the eighth. In Cumpton’s last appearance on Memorial Day he gave up seven hits in six innings and allowed two runs.


Just to make the day worse, here are some unpleasant facts. When Puig came up in the bottom of the fifth with the bases loaded yesterday and popped up, it added to this frustration:

Los Angeles is hitting a Major League-worst .111 with the bases loaded, and the team has produced just 15 RBIs in 36 at-bats. The Major League average with the bags full is .240 this season, and Cleveland leads the league with a scorching .429 bases-loaded clip.

In a lineup filled with sluggers, that’s amazingly bad.

May 28

Game 54, 2014

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

The Reds have had to face two excellent pitchers already in Ryu and Greinke, and tonight they get Kershaw. All he’s done is go 3-1 on the season with a 3.49 ERA and 2-1 lifetime with a 2.78 ERA against the Reds. In those games the Reds are hitting .214. The Reds send Homer Bailey out against the Dodgers. He’s 3-3 with a 4.01 ERA in eight career starts against them and 4-3 with a 5.34 ERA overall on the season.

Matt Kemp is playing left field because Crawford has been placed on the 15-day DL. The Dodgers have purchased Jamie Romak’s contract from the Isotopes. Romak has been playing mostly 1st and 3rd in Albuquerque with 8 games in the outfield. He’s a 28-year-old from Canada. This is his twelfth year of pro ball and his first callup to the major leagues.

According to Jay Jaffe at Sports Illustrated, Yasiel Puig is a “disappointing” fifth in the first release of All-Star ballots for the outfield, behind Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies, Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates, Ryan Braun of the Brewers and Gioancarlo Stanton of the Marlins. Pack the ballot box, people!