Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 1:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA
Two Andersons face off in the third game of the series this afternoon: Chase for the D-Backs, making his fifth start, and Brett for the Dodgers, also making his fifth start. Chase is 0-1 on the year with a 4.24 ERA; he started and went five innings against the Dodgers on April 10, giving up three runs in a game Arizona eventually won 4-3. Brett pitched in that same game, giving up three runs over six innings and getting no decision. He’s 1-1 on the year with a 5.49 ERA. He hasn’t gone longer than six innings in any start this season, and in his last two he didn’t make it through five.
Lineup when available.
Today's #Dodgers lineup vs. the D-backs:
Pederson CF
Rollins SS
Kendrick 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Guerrero LF
Ethier RF
Uribe 3B
Ellis C
Anderson P
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 3, 2015
NPUT
Chad Billingsley P
Lehigh Valley IronPigs
Seems to be doing well every other time out, 4 starts so far.
http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=451532#/career/R/pitching/2015/ALL
His last outing was very good. 99 pitches – 66 strikes. Good for Chad, as long as he doesn’t come back to bite us in the playoffs down the road. 😉
Since he has a bit of age on him baseball-wise and the Phillies are a certified disaster area, I’m thinking they trade him for prospects if he makes it back to the majors and does decently.
Which, come to think of it, might make it more likely to see him in playoffs, and sooner….
Ok, you’re TWC. You’ve been holding out against the cable companies for your price for a year and a half and there’s not even a hint of a crack in the phantom negotiations. It’s costing the $300 million or so you’re paying the Dodgers every year. Would you consider saying, “OK, you can have it free for all your subscribers for the rest of the season”, in hopes that the subscribers would enjoy it so much they would pressure the cable companies to settle in order to keep the channel next year? If I were TWC I think I would try almost anything to avoid those back-braking losses stretching away in front of me for 25 years.
I can’t understand why they haven’t lowered their asking price per subscriber, unless they were hoping the Comcast takeover would affect it somehow.
Now why would the Dodgers buy First Baseman Andy Wilkens from the Brewers? They are well supplied at all levels, a pitcher or catcher would have made more sense…
What a great win!
I heard the play to end the top of the 13th — talk about a roller coaster of emotions on one play! — but missed Grandal’s HR. I look forward to the video.
Keep on trucking, Blue!
I am not a James Taylor fan, but I appreciate that he did not perform GBA in Boston tonight. Instead, he sang “America the Beautiful.”
Bill Plunkett
@billplunkettocr
#Dodgers will DFA veteran RHP Scott Baker. Possibly to add fresh arm after using 7 relievers today, moving Carlos Frias to rotation.
7:50 PM – 3 May 2015
J.P. Hoornstra
Yasmani Grandal said he was playing through an injury to the AC joint in his right shoulder when the season began. Got past it w/treatment.
7:41 PM – 3 May 2015
Yesterday and today, the bullpen was almost flawless. Báez K’d the heart of the order on 15 pitches.
well done to John Galt for the prediction (even if it came later on) 🙂
Grandal has now doubled Kemp’s HR total.
Grins. Objection, your Honor. Irrelevant.
The greatest players in Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers history with the initials YG:
1. Yasmani Grandal
2. Yimi Garcia
3. There are no others.
We are winning in many different ways this season.
1-0 in the 13th. Wowsers.
I expect not even package will complain about Grandal tonight.
Woo-HOO!!!
Right? I’m on the road.
Wonderful play by Grandal and Howell.
How close was it?
Caught the feed from Grandal with his back to the runner, put his glove down (right-hand has the glove, remember) and hoped. The glove got down before the runner’s foot got to the plate.
Extremely close, and a little lucky.
But the umps got it right. The runner was out.
True, but they were very lucky it didn’t roll farther away, that Grandal handled it quickly, and that Howell caught it and got the blind tag down.
Pray for Snakeman
Time for a walk off.
29 Ks, 11 1/3 innings. Wow.
This has the feeling of last year — no room for the bullpen to make a mistake.
The difference is that there’s no Brian Wilson or Chris Pérez.
Why are they pitching to Adrian? Isn’t the pitcher’s spot up next?
Amazing how well they can hit one game and be soo ineffective the next.
If hitting is contagious, I guess non-hitting is, as well.
Go, Blue!
Sometimes the pitchers deserve credit.
I was about to edit my post to say in a game with a non-ace.
But do you really think all the AZ pitchers are better than the LA hitters? (They are today, just asking in general.)
Blind pigs and acorns.
True!
I wonder if Inciarte has an older sibling named “Beginner.”
I was hoping that would be it, because now I have to go to class, so I will check back later
Don turned that inning around.
alright, two lots of leadoff doubles leading to nothing, what next?
Rats.
Foo, SVS.
C’mon, Joc – after the famine, time for a feast — just a run-scoring single.
Van Smash!
Let’s hope! . . . just enough to bring in Dre.
Home run for Grandal.
Greedy!
John got it right
All this $$$$ and they can’t lay down a bunt?
That should be mandatory practice each BP.
Don should practice not giving bunt signs.
But there are times when the bunt is good, often just for a basehit. If you can do it, it adds another weapon to your arsenal.
Other than with the pitcher, only the very rare squeeze.
Uribe looks like he’s killing snakes when he bats…
Can’t bunt anymore.
Okay, Dre!
Dre!
Stay at 2nd!
Walk off Andre! Think 2007!
That long ago 🙂
Wow!
Actually 2008-2010: http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/5838
Our turn. Go Dodgers.
Mr Santos looks sharp.
Except v. Goldschmidt.
No Dodger pitcher looks good against Goldie.
No pitcher, period.
Báez blew him away.
I consider this game lost, am going on to other things, will check back later to see how it turns out.
Home game, last at-bats.
it may take a while, but i think we will win
from your keyboard . . .
Free baseball. Great pitching throughout.
C’mon, AGx2!
AG-ear
Good hustle, AGon!
Bad idea to keep running, Howie.
Either the coach or the runner is an idiot.
What the heck did Kendrick just do?!?
If that wasn’t rhetorical, Scoop, he had a double and tried to stretch it when the OFer dropped the ball. He was out at 3rd.
No, it wasn’t rhetorical, although in hindsight it could have been. Thanks for the report.
I consider letting Ellis bat there as throwing away a precious out. No matter how much you like him personally, he is now toast.
Sad, but true. I expect he will be a manager within a few years.
Hi all. Just sent off the grands… Time for some runs.
Pitchers have done their job . . . c’mon, bats!
Three more strikeouts for Joc today (so far). I’ll bet Mattingly rests him next game.
I doubt it.
The way Pederson has been going lately, he is due to hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th.
Báez seems to coming into his own recently.
DM seems to be continuing a positive trend of having a fresh pitcher face the heart of the opposing order…except Baez today, not Yimi.
———————
Who’s sitting hi 90s.
Quite a turnaround for our Anderson so far in this game. 6 IP, 0 walks, 4 Ks.
Unfortunately his counterpart/namesake doing slightly better.
Meh. Not in the all-important “R” column. 😉
Not only has the offensive output this year been without Hanley and Matt but also — for the most part — without Puig.
In San Francisco, Aoki hit Weaver’s first pitch for a homer, Panik hit his fourth pitch for a homer and Pagan then tripled. The Giants couldn’t get him home and lead the Angels 2-0 after an inning. Weaver’s ERA is now 6.23.
The Poseur and his acolytes couldn’t advance Pagán.
C’mon, Adrian — take advantage of the break (hopefully not a literal one).
After going 0-for-4 so far today, Chase Utley is hitting .110, and is on a pace for 87 RBI.
That seems impossible.
Utley appears to be in baseball’s Twilight Zone. He needs to go another 0-for-8 to fall below .100.
A different part of the twilight zone:
Enzo Hernandez, for the Padres in 1971: 618 PA, .222 BA, 12 RBI.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hernaen01.shtml
That’s remarkable: one RBI about every two weeks. Hernandez finished his MLB career with a very small cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 1978.
That little gem was in one of Roger Angell’s books. A player he was talking to told him, and he reacted like most of us would: “That’s impossible.” The player told him to look it up.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/old-man-3
Here’s a great piece by Angell — not having to do with baseball — that appeared in The New Yorker last year about what it was like to be in one’s 90s.
Angell is a national treasure.
Mike P of DD with a take on another Cuban making some noise and rapidly moving up the Dodger minors food chain. Now at AA, where he homered among 3 hits his first game–Yadir/Yasier/Ysomething Drake. [So little known apparently it’s not clear what his first name is.]
http://dodgersdigest.com/2015/05/02/yadir-drake-is-someone-you-should-probably-pay-attention-to/
“He can also pitch. He filled in when needed in Mexico and says his fastball can hit 97 mph.
“But my best pitch is the splitter,” Drake said. “I play the outfield here. If they need me to pitch, I can. I can do anything they ask me to do.”
If so, could make for some interesting future boxscores: Drake, OF-P. Or P-OF, depending on situation…maybe even moving from mound to OF same inning. Unlikely, yes. Even talk of trying him at C. But who knows?
Fernando did it, so why can’t Drake?
He’s Sidd Finch, Cuban edition!
Or even in the mold of Babe Ruth, who did both. Not comparing him to Ruth, of course.
Eric Stephen with an interesting take on “gaps.”
http://www.truebluela.com/2015/5/2/8536889/dodgers-home-runs-walks-gap
Looks like the Yankees knew what they were doing cutting Scott Baker loose. Decent enough first Dodger start, but last night more likely what can be expected. Looks like a AAAA pitcher who might help in emergency but who needs to live at AAA until and unless.
Dodgers have better choices, 2 of which haven’t seen the big club yet–Weiland and Lee. Both deserve a chance while the rotation is in flux–which, who knows, could be all year. Bolsinger might deserve another shot or two also. Frias for sure does. Huff, meh…
Lee has come on strong after getting out of ABQ and making some adjustments. It’d appear there’d be very little downside to giving him a start or two. He should be able to do at least as well as Baker. If not, at least the team finds out where he is and he gets a taste of the bigs. What’s not to like?
Think I’ve seen talk about not wanting to bounce Lee back and forth. But committing to him longer term, sink or swim, wouldn’t seem best when they easily can get an advance preview of what they have–or don’t have. He’s been around a while. Time to see how he does.
OKC player stats:
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&cid=238&stn=true&sid=t238
To give Package his due, Pederson is striking out a lot, three more last night. Personally, I don’t mind at all as long as he hits home runs and drives in runs at his present rate. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Joc has a minor league track record of HR’s, K’s and BB’s. I’d like to see him cut down the K’s but, if he keeps up a .450 OBP, there’s not a lot of room to complain.