Today is the last off day for the Los Angeles Dodgers before they begin what could be five straight games in a row, as they take on the San Diego Padres in the NLDS.
The Dodgers last played on Thursday, when they won a best-of-three series in two games against the Milwaukee Brewers. They have since traveled from Los Angeles to Arlington Texas, where the best-of-five series will be played against the team to the south.
The format for the NLDS and NLCS are both having all games without a break in between, seemingly giving the team with the deeper pitching rotation the edge. As of this writing, it is still uncertain whether the Padres will be without two of their starters, Dinelson Lamet and Mike Clevinger. Both pitchers have been sidelined by injuries for the past two weeks or so, and were hoping to make it back in time for the NLDS.
Padres manager Jayce Tingler told reporters today that he was encouraged with what he was seeing, but still could not say when either pitcher would return to the rotation. “Both guys had very good days yesterday. Seems like I’ve said that five, six, seven days ago, so I’m a little bit hesitant, you know, we’ll have a good day and then a half step back”.
If either or both do end up returning to the rotation, one would imagine it wouldn’t be until later in the series. As of now, the Padres have not named their Game One starter. The Pads are coming off of a winner-take-all game against the St Louis Cardinals, where nine of their pitchers combined for a nine inning shutout.
Zach Davies and Chris Paddack did not pitch well in the Wild Card series. Davies pitched 2.0 innings, allowing four earned runs including a homer. Paddack pitched 2.1 innings, giving up six runs on eight hits with a homer.
Regardless, the Dodgers should be able to handle any pitching the Padres throw at them. Dodgers fans are weary, after having watched their offense go cold in several of the last postseasons.
The Padres offense is what worries me most, however. They are young, talented, and hell bent on taking the Dodgers down. They feed off of one another and could put up some serious run, quickly. Dodger pitching will have to just stick to what they’ve done all season, and hope that Walker Buehler’s blister doesn’t get any worse.
Buehler today told reporters that his blister was “good, same as it has been”. He went on to say “I expect to be myself regardless of it. That’s kind of how I operate”. Manager Dave Roberts said that there is no “hard number” of pitches or innings in Buehler’s start tomorrow.
Walker went four innings in his last outing in the Wild Card series, and five or six in tomorrow’s game would be a huge boon to the Dodgers bullpen. If the Dodgers could then get some solid length from Clayton Kershaw like he’s been giving, they will be in great shape for the series.
After workouts today, both Justin Turner and Mookie Betts addressed the team. No doubt they were discussing what it will take to get through the next three series, and how they will handle things. Betts told reporters that after they lost the first game to the Padres in their last regular season series, they talked amongst themselves and then came out and played their style of ball.
If the Dodgers can do that, they will be moving on to the NLCS. This team has everything they need to get to the World Series, they just need to play as they have all season, remembering their style of baseball.
Game times and stations for the NLDS –
Tuesday – 6:38 PT on FS1
Wednesday- 6:08 PT on FS1
Thursday – 6:08 PT on MLBN
Friday* – 6:08 PT on FS1
Saturday* – 5:08 PT on FS1
*if necessary
Well I have FS 1. But not MLB.N….
The article devotes a couple of paragraphs to Buehler and his blister. If I’m not mistaken, in the photo above, he is shown picking at it. That whole blister situation is not encouraging.
Excellent observation Waldo. I didn’t see it until you mentioned it. And a close up shows it is one ugly finger.
He needs to throw strikes early and often. He probably won’t throw more than 75 pitches and on a good night that is 5 innings. And as Moura mentioned “the Padres’ lineup is far, far superior to the Brewers’” That’s two far’s when one would have gotten the point across. The Padres are the Dodgers’ Heat. Yeah, the Dodgers are better, but better watch out.
Dodgers leave Rios and Ruiz off of the roster and add Lux and Floro. I totally disagree with that move. Lux hasn’t seen live pitching in over a week. That also means Gore is still on the roster and he could not hit my grandmother, and she is dead. I know, he is there as a possible pinch runner. But his speed does nothing unless he is in scoring position since he has not stole a base all year. Rios hit’s lefty’s pretty good, and leaving him off of the roster is stupid. Yeah I said stupid. Padres have not yet announced their starter or thier roster which was supposed to be submitted by 10 am EST.
Clevinger starting game 1, no Lamet on the DS roster
I agree with you Bear that it makes little sense to have Gore on the roster just to pinch run when you are giving up Rios’ potential ability to play third if JT is hurt or to pinch hit.
As far as Rios’ ability to hit lefties, although it’s a small sample size he’s done way better against them this year than against righties. Only problem is that most all the SD starters are right handed. That said, his numbers are still way better than Lux against both sides.
Maybe Doc will give us an explanation before the game starts today. Of course, we’ll probably disagree with him anyway.
We may get past the Padres, but I just don’t see us winning three more series without more of a contribution from Muncy and Bellinger than we’ve seen so far. I don’t expect Buehler’s finger to hold up for three more series and that will leave us CK plus three very young guys to start our games against some very high-powered lineups.
I have thought about how the pitching staff has been constructed. I have faith in Gonsolin more than Urias or May. As for Buehler, they may as well get what they can from him and cross their fingers. I did not agree with the fact that they did not at least try to get another starter at the deadline. But it is too late to worry about that now. Muncy and Belli have to produce. Seager, Betts, Smith, Pollock have to continue doing what they have been doing all year, and Taylor the same. If they get ANYTHING from Pederson it will be a bonus. I am confident of one thing. The pitchers they have right now have handled the biggest threats on the Padres pretty well. Machado hit only .237 against them with 2 homers and 6 RBI’s. Tatis is at .204 with 2 and 4 Ribbies. Myers has hit .333 against them with 3 homers, but all of them were solo shots. As a team, the Padres hit .224 against LA. They did hit 15 homers. By Comparison, LA hit .227 against the Pads with 15 homers. They outscored them by 10 runs. It is going to be a close series.
One other concern might be that SD hit .311 in their games at Arlington. And the Dodgers hit .250. I think that SD’s BA there is bloated because of the pitching they faced. The Dodgers hit 5 homers there, so did the Padres. Difference is, Pads scored 20 runs in 2 games. Dodgers scored 16 in 3 games. But all in all, I think the stadium even’s the playing field a lot since homers are hard to hit there.