Dodgers at Rockies, 5:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA
The Dodgers, whose magic number is down to three, send Mike Bolsinger out to see if he can recover the form he showed before being sent down to AAA in the wake of the Latos-Wood acquisitions in July. He had a 2.83 ERA to that point, but he’s had a 6.23 ERA in his three starts since returning. Overall he’s 6-4 with a 3.26 ERA in 2015. He’ll face right-hander David Hale, who’s 4-5 with a 6.32 ERA. Hale spent the year starting until September; he’s only made four appearances this month, all in relief.
Lineup when available.
Tonight's #Dodgers lineup:
Utley 3B
Rollins SS
Gonzalez 1B
Kendrick 2B
Ethier RF
Crawford LF
Grandal C
Pederson CF
Bolsinger P
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 25, 2015
The Matt Harvey dilemma: https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/647800093249269761
Apologies for hoping for losses for next two Dodger games and wins for Giants, but I want at least one of the games up there to mean something. It would be just so much better to clinch there than to keep “backing-into-it”.
No, you want to be able to stroll into The Phone Booth as division champions, and put out the scrubs to play v. BadGums on Tuesday night.
20-10 (.667) in our last 30 games is hardly “backing into it”, but I share your desire to beat the giants in Phone Booth for the Division championship.
I also agree with wanting the Dodgers to earn it vs. backing into it (and let’s face it, if their division wasn’t the West, they wouldn’t be best).
But if they do it in CO, that works for me.
Where you’re eight games ahead of your nearest competition, and blew them away with a sweep to take command of the division, you’re hardly “backing into it.”
If what Audit means is going 2-6 in recent games and whittling the magic # only because the team behind you loses, then I agree that it’s “backing in.”
Except that it’s not. 87 > 79
If they ended up 161-1, I’d be unhappy they lost that game. Which probably helps explain why I’m a bachelor…
You and Bobby V are tough to please. Don’t agree, but also don’t begrudge you guys for wanting more.
Not so much tough to please as calling it as I see it.
I think the record is an accurate reflection: the Dodgers have at least three other teams in the NL who are better than them.
Yes, LA has Kersh and Zack, but if either of them is beat right away — especially in the best 3/5 LDS — that advantage disappears immediately. And they can easily be beat if they give up just one run — we all know how ineffective this Dodger offense can be, even when they’re not hitting against “quality” pitchers on “quality” teams (not just this year — recall the first two games vs. Cards two years ago).
All that being said, they’re my team and I’m rooting for them — Go, Blue!
You don’t need to cherry pick games, I think we all know that scoring runs won’t be easy. If I used the first two games of the series last year against the Cards, I would come up with 6 runs scored by us per game, but it brings me no comfort.
With all due respect, because I know you over the years blogging together as a loyal and fierce Dodger fan, but you see what you want to see. For months you kept harking back to the first 37 games and using that as a measure. Our winning percentage in that period was ..648. Over the past 30 games we have gone .667, yet now you are looking at the last eight games and questioning the team. The team has its uncertainties and a tendency for the offense to go to sleep, but give them their due.
You can parse down the data to fit your mood, but we are at .667 winning percentage in last 30 games. I suppose we could have split the past 8 games and been at .733, but you are asking for the moon in baseball terrms.
Hoping for losses for your team is a strange outlook, isn’t it?
NPUT @ 12:15PM PT.
Tomorrow afternoon at 1:05PM in Oakland one-time heroes of the Oakland pitching staff (with Mark Mulder) Barry Zito and Tim Hudson will start the Athletics-Giants game against one another.
The odds are against it, but it would be fun to have a good 1-1 game when they each got relieved.
So shoot me, I’m sentimental.
No, I’d like Zito to gno-hit the Gnats but, given his recent lack of work he’s not likely to go more than a few innings.
SF loses. Magic number down to 2.
So that’s something. Not sad I missed tonight’s game.
Me neither.
Meaning I’m not sad I missed tonight’s game and NOT I’m not sad YOU missed tonight’s game.
As lead the Jints 3-2 in the fifth inning up north.
So the magic number may drop yet this evening.
Bah. You should beat the last-place team, Dodgers.
And still we hope last place Oakland beats SF.
Unfortunately, that makes it 2-3 against weaker teams, 0-3 against “better” teams recently.
But as the “house men” will point out, this is a great team, leading its Division, going to win maybe 90 games, Mattingly should be “Manager Of The Year”, etc, etc. I don’t know about you but I find it impossible to be proud of them. They should have done so much better…
Meh. We lost our number 3 and 4 starters, which probably kept us from being a “great” team this year. Still, we have managed to be the third best team in the NL in ERA+ to go along with being the top hitting team in OPS+. As regards our “coasting” vets, which you complained about recently, Agon is having his best season since 2011 and Dre since 2010. With Bochy as manager, maybe we would have won a couple more. In a short series with Clayton and Zach on the mound I like our chances. Our offense should benefit from Seager being around and hopefully Puig on the mend. Pretty proud of these guys.
Most everyone at this site–even if they don’t despise DM and the FO–thinks this is a team good enough to win it all if breaks go their way, which is one thing it takes to win a WS these days. Doubt anyone thinks they’re “great.”
Also, most everyone here has pointed out DM’s shortcomings. No one is under the illusion he’s a great manager, tho he is a good handler of players.
If you can’t be at least halfway happy with a first-place team, why bother?
Since we are looking at SSS, when we face the better teams in the PO, we have Clayton and Zach. Against the other four team likely to make the playoffs, Clayton has an ERA of 0.481 in 52 innings, Zach at 0.512 in 27.2 innings.
Peralta looked smooth that inning.
Jo-el still rolling this inning. Or is it Joe-l?
Rats. Two ground balls to first.
not like that 🙁
Just wrapped up clean up from company. Welcome back to the fight Dodgers.
I don’t want to be greedy, I think we need more here while we have the men on base
Absolutely.
I don’t think there’s any greed left in the world this week after that ex-hedge fund guy raised that infection drug’s price from $13.50/pill to $750/pill.
It saddened me greatly when I saw that on the news. People’s lives are being traded for someone’s pocket book.
Isn’t Free Enterprise a great system?
The Mets won, so they may creep closer to the home-field advantage unless the Dodgers turn this around.
Seager has heavy legs, perhaps from fatigue.
Some good news in that story: Mattingly said Enrique Hernandez was scheduled for a heavy workload day in Arizona on Friday. Barring a setback, Mattingly said he expected that to be the final test for his hamstring and he would rejoin the club.
No longer an interesting game in KC.
I’m not concerned about the pitching here. Bolsinger will not make the post-season roster. The inconsistent offense, though, is cause for concern, especially when elite pitching.
Of course the tricky thing about not being worried about the pitching (and I’m guessing you mean starting not relief) and only about the offense is how do you know when it is okay? 4 runs? 6 runs? 9 hits? 12 hits?
Gameday broke?
Four starts in September for Bolsinger: 5 IP, 3.2 IP, 4.1 IP, 4 IP.
An “interesting” game in KC by Cleveland’s Carrasco.
Foo. Uncertain Bolsinger has shown up for this game.
Not the greatest, but there is a difference between “runs” and “earned runs”.
Yes, but he’s shown no command at all. The lack of earned runs does not mean he’s pitched well.
Well, that’s the last time I try to defend him.
According to either ESPN or MLB, since coming back from OKC he’s had trouble with his curve ball, which has been his out pitch. Even when it’s working, curves in Coors are iffy.
That wasn’t an error? Oops, slow scoreboard on Gameday.
Gameday has the Dodgers with two.
Yep, took them a while.
Howie was having a fantastic August before he went down. A little slow coming back, but only around 20 PA so far.
Just walked in from the grocery store in time to see Kendrick bounce into an inning-ending double play after having men on 2nd and 3rd with none out. Grrrr.
If this game meant anything, I would be more upset.
It’s meaningful if you care about home field advantage against the Mets. Maybe having Wood start in LA is not a bad idea.
It’s not totally meaningless, but Mattingly will not start Kershaw in the last game of the season simply to gain home field advantage. It’s part of the corruption of the wild card system.
I agree (then he wouldn’t have him to start first game of the playoffs), but don’t follow the rest.
I have thought about this as well.
Horrendous baserunning by veteran Crawford.
Noticing for the first time that Ballslinger is using a cutter now, and a lot.
Errors are a crime in Coors, when hits come so easily
Let’s see if Dre can get back on track.
Steiner calls his weak fly ball to right “well-hit.”
Fooling Steiner is the first step in getting back on track.
I could fool Steiner, who can’t distinguish a dinger from a foul straight back.
I will miss most if not all of tonight’s game (and commenting on the thread). Having company over who will be here until at least 9 or 10.
I can only watch/listen to the first two hours. Hopefully we score early. And often!
Link, the start time is 5:10, PST, I believe.
You’re right. I misread 8:10PM as MDT rather than EDT.
Wir haben ein Lineup: https://twitter.com/DodgersNation/status/647512223594639361
I am so tired of this line up. Can’t we change it!?
So, Link, are you unable to watch any of these games in Hawai’i?
I see ’em all. The biggest cable provider in Hawai’i is Oceanic, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and they added SPNLA to their lineup the moment it was created. I also get the Fox Sports San Diego channel as well as Prime Ticket and the Fox Sports West channel, so I can see most if not all of the Angels’ games too.
Of course, our cable bill is $200/month.
Sometimes you’ve asked about a play that suggested you hadn’t seen it.
Home games come on at 4:10PM my time. I switch to news at 5:00PM and stay there till 7:30PM when The News Hour is over.
Wow – you really track the news! I guess I get stuck in the candy store (sports) a bit too much, while you are in the grocery store (news).
Well, 1/2 hour local, 1 hour national on two different networks and then the long form on PBS. I’m cooking and eating for two. I serve up right around 6:00PM our time.
Dinner made ready at 6 each night! You’re a good man.
Mom’s lunch is around 11:30AM. Any longer between that and dinner and she’d be cranky. 😉
It sounds as if you’re a real news junkie. I can’t stand to watch TV news of any kind, though I regularly listen to NPR.
It’s how I learn what’s happening on Oahu and elsewhere in the state. Or outside it when there are storms heading our way.
What news? The same things have happened regularly since radio and television were invented. After the first time they are not news. It even makes more sense to watch the weather…
We have no cable, and no cable bill. Occasionally, when I’m in the kitchen, I’ll take the iPad with me and watch the game(s) on that.