Game 31, 2015

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

The Marlins’ second baseman this season is the guy who was the Dodgers’ second baseman last year, and he’s off to a super start. Dee Gordon is hitting .439 with an OBP of .462 as the leadoff guy for the Miami team. About the only thing he’s not doing well is base stealing — he’s swiped twelve but been caught six times.

The Marlins send out right-hander Tom Koehler, who’s 2-3 with a 5.18 ERA. He’s 1-1 with a 3.38 ERA in two starts against the Dodgers in the past. He’ll face Zack Greinke, who’s the best starter the Dodgers have right now, with a 5-0 record and a 1.56 ERA and a ten-game winning streak going back to August of last season. He’s 3-0 with a 3.97 ERA in his career against the Marlins.

Lineup when available.

100 thoughts on “Game 31, 2015

  1. FREE SVS!!!!! For his own good he needs to be traded. Or we can thrown in enough money for someone to take Crawford…

    • I was thinking the same thing. SVS should have the opportunity to be a regular, and I don’t see that happening with the Dodgers. Perhaps we could package him and get a No. 3 or No. 4 starter.

    • SVS has significant trade value, and the Dodgers have the depth to be able to deal him. But no team that wants him will want Crawford – it will be a team that wants younger, cost-controlled players without Crawford’s salary and injury issues.

      • Heavens!! I didn’t mean package him with Crawford in a trade, I meant boot Crawford out so SVS can play a lot more.

        • Just read the Angels need left-handed bats. Send them Crawford and a barrel of money, he can play DH there, which is really only position he can play…

        • There may be, unless it’s reserved for the blog administrator. When I click “Edit” below the offending post, then hover over the down-arrow on the right I see several options, including delete. I’m not sure whether the post “owner” has those options or not.

  2. Watching that reception at home plate for SVS I couldn’t help think of Nick Punto aka Shredder. Scott got to keep his shirt, which he wouldn’t have done last year.

    • “Internet down in the desert”

      Sounds like a good working title for a new book or screenplay. ;-])

  3. wow, just came back after class and read the play by play, that was a roller coaster ride

  4. Still early, but this Dodger team can be special.

    Doing this basically without Kershaw and for sure without Jansen. Or Puig, lately. And despite losing 2 other starting pitchers, one of whom for sure won’t be back this year.

    Whoooda thunk this? Whatever, enjoy it while it lasts.

    Which could be all year…

    • Cishek couldn’t hold a one-run lead in the 9th inning in San Francisco yesterday and gave up two runs.

  5. Ethier has been seeing the ball really well and has had some loud outs. My money is on him to do something big this inning.

  6. This had a feel of last year: scraping to get a lead, then the bullpen blowing the save.
    Let’s hope the bottom of the 9th brings the feel from THIS year: comeback spirit for a walk-off win!

    • Numbers don’t really suggest that as our MO last year. If we had the lead by the 3rd, we generally won (90%). We never were really able to scrap for wins once we got behind, however, with 20% chance of winning if we were behind by the 3rd. By the 7th, this dropped to less than 4%.

      • I know the #s show it Bob, but that’s the feeling I had last year — that team could not come up with the clutch hits, especially in later innings (and the #s DO prove that).

        The bottom of the 9th proved — once again — this is a different team.

  7. Not Garcia’s night. It would be nice to keep the deficit at 1 run to give the Dodgers the best possible chance to come back.

  8. DM follows a good move bringing Yimi in with leaving him in too long. Should have been outta there after the HR.

    He’s been great. But nobody wins every time out.

  9. I didn’t follow most of the game, but the boxscore indicates the batters didn’t bring their hitting shoes, so any more of a deficit could be disastrous.

    • Wonder if Garcia — and Zack — had a letdown after getting Stanton.

      • Perhaps. But Stanton has been in a slump so that would be unfortunate if that was the case.

  10. Krucial K!
    What a letdown if he would’ve walked after all that . . . plus being the first batter for the inning.

  11. SVS trying to singlehandedly win the game for Greinke and the Dodgers.
    Joc is trying too – but his results on the base paths are not good.

  12. All right, Blue, time for another late-inning explosion to turn a tight game into a laugher . . . please?

  13. Home run, single, single is much better than single, single, home run.

  14. A home run from Stanton would not have been unexpected, but Ozuna’s was.

  15. Hechavarria is a very unusual name. Or an unusual spelling of a not so unusual name.

    • Not an odd name is Basque country, but I’ve never seen it spelled this way anywhere else.

      • Must be an old spelling that died out in Spain but survived in Cuba and is now found in South Florida.

  16. Rookie mistake by Joc cost Dodgers a run. Ah well, I guess the best time to make a rookie mistake is when you are actually a rookie.

  17. Sounds like Ethier just missed one and hit a long foul ball last inning. Dodgers record pretty good when they score first however, so that’s encouraging.

  18. SVS getting more playing time against righties and actually hitting them well. Only 15 PAs this season so far against lefties and actually doing less well (SSS).

  19. This is my 14th season of umpiring youth baseball in Monterey County — from the little guys in Mustang (8-9-10) through Colt (ages 15-17). The strike zone is a lot more generous for the pitchers with the younger players. At the upper level, where big, older teens may be throwing the ball in the 70s and 80s, it is a much tighter zone. After a game I tend to revisit any ball/strike call that has troubled me. I am bothered if I think I made a mistake. But tomorrow is another game. I take a little solace in the fact that the MLB umpires miss calls. Umpiring the bases is easier; there are fewer borderline decisions to make. But the balk ruling can be difficult, particularly with the younger kids. When I attend games as a fan, I try my hardest not to yell at an umpire’s call, but I don’t always succeed.

    • mlb umps have the advantage (?) that their calls are captured so that they and their supervisors can easier learn from mistakes.

      • I wonder how the MLB umps truly feel about the review process. Imagine having a job where every decision you make is subject to potentially public scrutiny. It is a lot easier to have your boss call you in his or her office to discuss something. As both a worker and a boss in print journalism over the years, I never found it pleasant to be involved as the one in charge or the recipient. When I was the city editor of a small paper years ago, one of our reporters was very good, but he should have been great. He was also a big baseball (and Dodgers) fan. I called him once and told him that while he was hitting about .290, which was quite good, he should be hitting about .330. He picked up his game from then on.

  20. Anyone know if all the special assistant GMs for different things that Colletti had got zapped when the new FO took over? I’d think so, and pretty quickly.

  21. If Joc doesn’t cut down on the K’s, his upside could be Josh Hamilton without the drug problems. I could probably live with that.

  22. Still surprised how low Dee’s OBP is, relative to his BA — still not taking walks.
    Can you imagine if he had Joc’s eye/patience?
    I hope he continues to have a great year — except against the Blue.

    • To re-coin an old saying, “a hit is as good as a walk”. The other day he went 3-5 and saw all of nine pitches. I am guessing that he thinks that pitchers will pound the zone on him so he is jumping on early pitches. We’ll see how both sides adjust.