Category Archives: Game Threads

For discussion of today’s game

Apr 27

Game 22, 2016

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Marlins at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, FS-F

Scott Kazmir takes his 1-1 record and his 6.63 ERA to the mound along with some bruises at the base of his left (throwing) thumb. He says he’s fine and will be “good to go.” His opposition will be Justin Nicolino, who’s just been brought up from AAA New Orleans. Down there he had a 3.60 ERA over 25 innings in four starts. He pitched 74 innings in MLB last year, going 5-4 with a 4.01 ERA. He’s replacing Jarrod Cosart on the Marlins’ roster. Cosart was optioned to work on his control at the AAA level.

Lineup when available.

Apr 26

Game 21, 2016

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Marlins at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, FS-F

Clayton Kershaw (2-0, 1.50 ERA) is matched against Tom Koehler (1-2, 4.80 ERA). Koehler’s pitched 15 innings this season, walking seven and striking out 12. Kershaw’s gone 30 innings, walking three and striking out 30.

Lineup when available.

Obviously Crawford has been reinstated from the DL. They optioned Zach Lee to OK City to make room for him.

Apr 25

Game 20, 2016

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Marlins at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, FS-F

Don Mattingly returns to Dodger Stadium with a team that’s lost 11 of its first 17 games. The Marlins are not very good right now, and they face the added burden of being in the same division as the Washington Nationals, so they’re already 7 1/2 games behind in the NL East. They do have Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez, and they have some guy named Bonds as their new hitting coach with Frank Menechino as his assistant. Fun fact: back in 2001 Bonds and Menechino swung at the lowest percentage of pitches of all major leaguers and still reached base at a combined .447 rate. One was more successful than the other: Bonds hit 73 home runs that season; Menechino’s slash line was .242/.369/.374.

They’ll send lefty Wei-Yin Chen to the hill. He’s 0-1 with a 4.91 ERA in three starts. When he was with the Orioles he faced the Dodgers in 2013 and got a win. The Dodgers will counter with the second of their two surprising starters, Ross Stripling, who has a 2.65 ERA in 17 innings but hasn’t gotten a decision yet. Stripling stumbled his last time out in Atlanta when he gave up three runs (two earned) on six hits with four strikeouts and two walks in 3 2/3 innings.

Lineup when available.

Huh. Utley gets a day off. Fine. Gonzalez gets a day off. Okay, but I didn’t know Grandal even owned a first-baseman’s mitt. Pederson and Seager also get days off, presumably because the Marlins are starting a lefty.

Apr 24

Game 19, 2016

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Dodgers at Rockies, 1:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ROOTS Sports

The Dodgers ask Alex Wood to do better at Coors Field than he has in the past. He’s made three starts and given up 15 earned runs on 21 hits in 11 innings in his career there. He’s 1-2 with a 5.06 ERA and more walks (8) than strikeouts (7) so far this season. His opponent will be Jordan Lyles, who’s 1-1 with a 6.00 ERA and 9 strikeouts with only 6 walks in his three starts this year.

In other words, this could be an all-staff game from each team, and runs may be easily come by. If they are, you can bet these two guys will be in the middle of it as long as the starters remain in the game:

Yasiel Puig is a career .571 hitter (4-for-7) against Lyles, with a home run and three RBIs.

Nolan Arenado has only faced Wood nine times, but he’s done his damage, hitting a pair of home runs and plating five while batting .333.

Lineup when available.

Apr 23

Game 18, 2016

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Dodgers at Rockies, 5:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ROOT Sports

Kenta Maeda makes his fourth start of the season, and he’s already joined some elite Dodger company after his first three games. He’s

2-0 with an 0.47 ERA through his first three starts, joining Fernando Valenzuela (0.33 in 1988), Billy Loes (0.37 in 1952), and Sandy Koufax (0.40 in 1955) as the only three Dodgers to post an ERA under 0.50 through their first three big league starts.

His opponent will be Tyler Chatwood, who’s 2-1 with a 2.79 ERA.

A tale of two Gonzalez’s: The Dodgers’ Adrian Gonzalez has 19 HRs in 77 games at Coors Field during his career, while the Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez has hit .320 (99-for-309) with 19 homers and 61 RBIs against the Dodgers in his career.

Lineup when available.

Apr 22

Game 17, 2016

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Dodgers at Rockies, 5:40PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ROOT Sports

Scott Kazmir (1-1, 6.43 ERA) tries to get his groove back after two consecutive poor starts, both against the Giants. He’s only made one career start against the Rockies. It was at Coors Field and he got the win, but that was in 2007 when Kazmir was a Devil Ray. His opponent will be Jon Gray, the third draft pick overall in 2013. He made his ML debut last year, but tonight will be his first game of this season. He’s a righthander with a fastball, changeup, slider and curve.

Lineup when available.

I got to wondering and looked it up: Utley has the third highest number of hits this young season as a leadoff guy: 16. The two guys ahead of him are Gonzalez with 22 and Puig with 17. (Seager has 14 while Pederson and Hernandez each have 13).

Apr 21

Game 16, 2016

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Dodgers at Braves, 9:10AM PT, TV: SPNLA, FSSO, MLBN (out of network only).

Clayton Kershaw (2-0, 1.64 ERA) and the Dodgers make their last appearance at Turner Field versus right-hander Matt Wisler (0-1, 4.61 ERA). Kershaw hasn’t pitched much against the Braves in his career; he’s 2-0 in six career starts against them with a 1.79 ERA. He and the Dodgers would to exit with a win, both to take this series 2-1 and to improve the franchise record at Turner, where they’re 30-41 going into this morning’s game.

The game starts at 6:10AM my time, so someone else please find the lineup and post it in the comments. I ain’t getting up at 5:30 just to do it.

Apr 20

Game 15, 2016

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

Ross Stripling (0-0, 2.03 ERA) goes for the Dodgers, while Julio Teheran (0-2, 6.35 ERA) goes for the Braves. Teheran’s start slipped a day; he was scheduled to be Tuesday’s starting pitcher but came down with a fever, so Williams Perez took his place.

The Dodgers had the best fielding percentage in the big leagues coming into the game, then they muffed three ground balls to the infield and raised their error total for the season to seven.

Puig has changed! Yet another story about Yasiel’s resurgence as player and good guy, this one from Sports Illustrated.

Lineup when available.

Apr 19

Game 14, 2016

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But first, Vin Scully reads a grocery list. Yep, someone sent the Sunday Night Baseball crew an audiotape of Vin reading just that back in the 1970s, and they played it during a tribute they offered to him during the third inning of tonight’s game.

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

Alex Wood (1-1, 4.50 ERA) goes for the Dodgers against some guy named TBD. It will probably be Julio Teheran (0-2, 6.35 ERA, 17 innings, 9 BB, 14 Ks). This will be Wood’s first appearance at Turner Field since he was traded to the Dodgers last July for Hector Olivera, Paco Rodriguez and minor-leaguer Zachary Bird. Olivera has played five games in left field for the Braves this season and Rodriguez will miss the entire year after Tommy John surgery.

Lineup when available.

Apr 17

Game 13, 2016

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Giants at Dodgers, 5:00PM PT, TV: ESPN

Two undefeated pitchers face one another this afternoon on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball: Jeff Samardzija for the Giants and Kenta Maeda for the Dodgers. The Giants’ pitcher got his first win his last time out against the Rockies, going eight innings and giving up only two runs. His ERA is 3.38. Maeda has one win to go along with a gaudy 0.00 ERA, going six shutout innings in each of his first two starts.

This being Maeda’s first season in MLB, he has no record against the Giants. Samardzija is 1-2 with a 4.91 ERA in four career appearances, including two starts, against the Dodgers.

Blog note: foul tip asked a question this morning in the previous post’s comments:

foul tip • 5 hours ago

“Link, what happened to the links on the right side of the page?”

Linkmeister Mod foul tip • 2 hours ago

“They’re there, but you have to scroll down. You notice that the post and comments are now centered rather than left-justified, too?

“WordPress is insistent that its customers upgrade to its new releases, so I did yesterday and poof! They mucked up something to do with the style. I’m hoping they’ll send out a fix real soon now.”