Game 89, 2015

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

Taking the place of Carlos Frias, who’s been on the DL since July 1 with lower back tightness, is the Dodgers’ latest reclamation project Brandon Beachy. He’ll be making his first major league start in nearly two years. He last pitched for the Atlanta Braves in August 2013, then had Tommy John surgery (for the second time!) in March of 2014 and has been rehabbing ever since. In four years with the Braves he was 14-11 with a 3.23 ERA. None of those numbers mean a thing now.

Sports Illustrated’s current issue (July 6, 2015) has an illuminating article which cites a study showing that only 67% of pitchers who undergo Tommy John surgery fully recover. And a different statistician cites his numbers to indicate that one of every two pitchers who undergo the surgery throws fewer than 100 innings in the rest of his career.

For Beachy’s sake let’s hope he fits in the “more than 100 innings” category.

His opponent will be rookie right-hander Taylor Jungmann, who’s 3-1 with a 2.43 ERA in six big league starts.

Lineup when available.

69 thoughts on “Game 89, 2015

  1. Another day, another loss. But four days of not losing coming up… It would be nice to see Seager, Olivera, and a couple of non-reclamation-project pitchers next Friday.

    • So glad we won last night. Still have a chance to win the series tomorrow afternoon.

  2. Full disclosure – I have the game on the radio but I am watching slinky videos youtube. Earlier tonight I was listening to the Stuff You Should Know podcast and the episode was on the slinky. Some fascinating stuff, including the crazy fact that the bottom of a slinky remains motionless when you extend the whole slinky and drop it. That is, it remains motionless until the top of the slinky compresses down to where the bottom is. Anyway, it looks very cool and has kept me more entertained than the Dodger game this evening.

    And now the Giants are winning in their game to boot.

  3. We sure are swinging early and often. Guy has less than sixty pitches (they must look good).

  4. Enough with the hitting the ball over Ethier’s head and off the wall already Brewers.

    • Team ranks (seems like the right word) second to the Braves in the NL in that category.

      • Yes, I see what you did there. Takes base runners to be a contender in this fight however. So good news/bad news kinda thing.

        • Dodgers rank only 9th in baserunners in the NL, just above the league average. Braves rank second.

          • Yes, but the remark stimulated the search and brought us all greater understanding of the team’s performance.

          • I’ll split the royalties with you 75-25 – with you taking the lion’s share obviously.

    • Whether the runner should have been allowed to score on the ground rule double, since it hit off of Ethier’s knee. It’s all a wash now with the 3 run double by Gomez.

      • My mistake – apparently it was whether or not the ball hit the wall before bouncing off Ethier. That is, whether it was a ground rule double or a home run.

  5. So, I asked Jon at Dodger Insider earlier today if he knew what the heck was in SVS’s non-glove hand when he made that sprawling catch last night. Unfortunately Jon said he didn’t see it so he didn’t know. The mystery remains – unless one of you fine people figured it out.

      • I wish I had linked it like you did last night. But I mentioned that it was viewable online, but haven’t heard back on that. My guess, Jon is a busy guy and has better things to do than solve Scooby-Doo type mysteries.

  6. Further to the discussion of A-Gon and his GIDP numbers, here’s a list of the single-season records for that dubious distinction. The most in a season has been 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. Rice came close again the next year, hitting into 35 DPs. The third guy on the list at 32 surprises me, because Billy Butler was a pretty darned fast runner. Adrian has hit into 28 once and 24 twice during his career. Howie Kendrick has hit into as many as 26 once.

    • I love those lists that have the career, progressive, active and season by season records. I spend far too much time looking at that stuff. We should all be tracking Albert Pujols to see how far up the all time list he can go, Currently, he is in 9th spot with 304 GIDP, with Julio Franco in his sights at #8 with 312. He has been averaging 22 a year, so he could conceivably pass Cal Ripken’s 350 GDIP and move into first place on the list within a couple of years.