Game 95, 2015

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Dodgers at Braves, 4:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, SportsSouth

Brett Anderson is 5-5 with a 3.17 ERA and he’s making his 19th start of the season for the Dodgers. He hasn’t made that many in a year since he made exactly that number for the As five years ago. He’s been on a pretty good run in his last six starts: he’s allowed three runs or fewer in each of them.

Anderson’s opponent will be fellow lefty Alex Wood, who’s 6-6 with a 3.76 ERA and coming off a horrible last start. He gave up seven earned runs and ten hits in 5 2/3 innings against the Rockies. This is Wood’s third year in the big leagues, all with the Braves. Lifetime he’s 20-20 with a 3.15 ERA.

Carl Crawford comes off the DL today and will be a fourth or fifth outfielder, and he says he’s okay with that.

Lineup when available.

Barnes starts at catcher for the second day in a row. Grandal’s jaw must still be hurting.

83 thoughts on “Game 95, 2015”

  1. Great move, FO. Now that you have another injured pitcher, the price on all the pitchers you might have traded for just jumped 25%.

  2. Anderson in walking boot to have MRI today. “It’s one of the few parts of my body I haven’t hurt before, ever, so I don’t really know if it’s anything major,” Get on the phone, Ned! Oh, wait…

  3. My goodness Link another early one for you tomorrow. Are you working on the post now to have it ready for the morning?

    • I’m about to start, yep. Fortunately WordPress has a schedule function so I can write it up and tell it to post at a designated time.

      • Hendley on the East Coast waiting. Plowing through Molly’s book. A tidbit, Hanley was named Hamlet, but the recorder spelled the name wrong in the DR.

  4. In many respects, somewhat of a desultory season despite our being in first place.

    • September was our big month last year. Hopefully these guys can pull it together.

    • First place but slightly wobbly. It does happen. I guess for all that, all the Dodgers need is another stretch where they win say 14 out of 20 – and then go back to .500 baseball again.

    • Looking for any edge at this point. Alberto a little bit better against righties.

  11. RE: Car repair
    There’s a link in the update to this post to a video of the nice noisy struts and mounts, along with the worn tires. Trust me, when you hear this, you’ll agree something was really wrong.

    I bought the car not from a lot but from a neighbor of my sister’s. He’s the guy who gave me the wrong dope about the tires.

    • Does indeed appear you had/have issues. Yes, bad struts will wear out tires pretty quick.

  14. Maybe CC will be a small extra spark for the Dodgers soon. Not that hitting has been a big problem, but lots of station to station running.

      • He seemed to be walking normally, but the pressure of pitching on it is a different matter entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if he misses a start, but the first report said there’s no tear.

  21. Wow, the third view seems to show his fingers still in the air. (but it’s a little fuzzy)

  23. Bah! What’s worse than the Dodgers losing on the road and their pitcher getting hurt?

    Getting an estimate for $1850 to replace the front struts and three tires on your Mini. That makes about $4400 I’ve had to spend on this thing in the two years since I bought it for $6000. I’ve only put about 5K miles on it in those two years, too.

    • How does one get to a situation where three tires need to be replaced? (maybe I don’t want to ask)

      • One had one replaced in January and was feeling poor after Christmas bills and didn’t replace the others at the time. I was told when I bought the car they were newly-installed Run Flat tires, which turned out to be untrue. They were ordinary radials. I was also told there was no spare because they were run Flat tires, which was also untrue. The spare is hidden under the chassis of the car.

        They want to do the rear struts now too, but that would add $600 more to the bill.

        The guy just called and said they don’t have the same model tire as the one they put on in January so he’ll put four that match on for the price of three.

          • I had a mechanic tell me years ago that I needed new struts on a station wagon. I took the vehicle to another mechanic, who said I didn’t need them. Can you take the mini to another mechanic for a second opinion? Never replaced them and didn’t have a problem with that.

          • If a car really needs struts, it will let you know. Shimmying over bumps, riding rough. Almost never much of a safety issue no matter what someone may say, because they will get to riding so badly people will replace them first.

            A good test is to push down hard and sharply on corners of the car a few times, then turn loose. A bounce or 1 1/2, you’re fine. Several bounces, they need attention. Repeat 3-4 times to get consistent results.

            But it’s a simple repair. Any mechanic worthy of the name can do it in no time with the right equipment, which almost all shops will have.

            Such a quick and easy job for most vehicles that disreputable shops often push unneeded jobs because of ripoff pricing.

  24. These Braves are annoying me. What with their scoring runs and everything.

  25. Markakis got his first homer of the year last night, his first triple of the year tonight.

    • happy we are even, would have been happier if Joc had hit even a bloop single last time around

        • Joc’s batting average by month:
          April — .298
          May — .236
          June — .222
          July — .161 (before tonight)

          • Believe that OPS+ gives a better picture of his contribution with the bat
            April – 199
            May – 139
            June -145
            July – 31

          • Sure, but OPS+ shows that he was contributing 40-45% higher than league average in May-June, so the big problem has been July, where he was been contributing only one-third as much as the average hitter.

        • Does moving the runner over to third count? (more productive than a K at least)

  32. Without Hernandez’ error, would we have gotten a DP on the first grounder that scored a run?

  38. How much do the Dodgers weigh BA? Not much.

    Said Schebler: “They don’t look at average.”

    Said fellow Triple-A callup Kiké Hernandez, who has stuck in the majors: “They definitely don’t.”

    “Players are going to get bent out of shape about numbers,” Kapler said this week. “It’s inevitable. It’s always going to be that way. We just want them to get bent out of shape about the right ones.”

    The things the Dodgers look at, the ‘real predictors,’ are exit velocities, weighted Runs Created (wRC+), weighted on-base average (wOBA), strikeout-walk ratios, first-pitch strike percentage, 1-1 count strike percentage, swing percentage on strikes and chase rate on balls.

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/kapler-665814-dodgers-schebler.html

    • But most fans aren’t familiar with all those metrics, or if they are they rarely know how they’re calculated, so fans fall back on the familiar ones they’ve known all their lives to judge. So we shudder when AJ comes up, and we think Jimmy Rollins is washed up, and we complain about Joc’s strikeouts and low BA.

      • The players aren’t familiar with them either, with some exceptions. Changing the thinking is a work in progress.

  39. Won’t make us forget Ryu, but Anderson has moved up admirably from 5th to 3rd starter.