Well, that was a fun weekend series, wasn’t it? The first three games of the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres NL West showdown brought a little bit of everything – great pitching, extra innings, benches clearing, and everything in between.
Yesterday, Dennis covered five things that we learned from the first of initial series between the two best teams in baseball. As we know, the Dodgers won two of three, not having Cody Bellinger and having two rookies roam the outfield with Mookie Betts. The Padres were also not playing at full strength because while Fernando Tatis Jr.had returned to the lineup, he was not at 100 percent, with as many strikeouts and errors that he had.
While the Dodgers are overall the better team, the Padres will make every game a playoff-like game and will get the better of the Dodgers and may even take a series or two down the line. However, at this point, the Dodgers are still in first while the Padres are in third in the division, three and a half games out of first, percentage points behind the surprising San Francisco Giants.
The Dodgers now play in a quick, two-game series in Seattle before they head back home to face the Padres four more times starting Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
The Mariners are the owners of a 10-6 record and are quietly in first place in the AL West. While they currently enjoy a half game lead on the Los Angeles Angels, and a game on the Houston Astros, Seattle has a -3 run differential, the only first place team with a negative number. They’ve won seven of their last 10, and just took two of three from the Astros.
Mitch Haniger is leading Seattle offensively, with a .338 batting average, four homers and .988 OPS. Kyle Seager, brother of Corey Seager, had started off hot—at one point, both men were hitting .347. Kyle has since cooled off, much like his younger brother.
The pitching matchups for the short series will see Dustin May taking on Justus Sheffield. The Mariners’ left hander has pitched in two games so far this season, going 0-1 with 10 strikeouts through 11 innings. He does not walk many batters, only two in each game so far.
In Tuesday’s matinee, Julio Urías will get his fourth start of the season, going up against Marco Gonzalez of the Mariners. Gonzalez was Seattle’s Opening Day starter. The lefty has a 1-1 record with a 8.22 ERA. He has 13 strikeouts over 15.1 innings of work, with his last outing being his best so far.
This short series has a possibility of being overlooked by the Dodgers, being sandwiched between two high energy series with their new division rivals, and the back and forth of the travel all the way up the coast. Hopefully they will play like the team that they are and keep their series win streak going.
Hello, Planning Committee Members. I have a few questions perhaps you can answer.
This year teams may carry up to 5 players as a taxi squad for road games. After the road trip the players return to the Alternate Site.
Is it every announced who are the Dodger taxi squad players taken for each road trip?
The reason I ask is that on a long trip a lot of game conditioning and playing are being lost by those players who could be training at the Alternate Site.
I was hoping a site administrator would have answered your question by now Waldo, but I can see nothing has been offered. I can’t help much but what I read was those players picked up for travel can use the facilities wherever they are to keep sharp in case they are activated. Wherever they go they can strut their stuff, work out in state of the art weight rooms and run around on the most expensive grass in North America. It’s only for a few days so not much if anything will be lost.
The Dodgers are chasing like I’ve never seen before. Is it because the umps have a strike zone the size of a Hummer? Whatever it is it needs to be addressed.
“the most expensive grass in N.A.” = good one. I asked the question because there could be also some interesting organizational strategy about who is carried on the taxi squad versus who is left at the alternate site.
I’m sure you’re right about that. I’d just be guessing at the algorithms used to determine what players go on each trip.
Hello, circling back. It is announced before the road series which players are on the taxi squad. For this trip it it Uceta, Ruiz, White, and Vesia. I saw this on Twitter, don’t know where the Dodgers actually announce it though
Thanks for remembering, Andy. I was most curious about who is the taxi squad catcher. It seems to me, perhaps naively, that it would be better for the young catchers, like Ruiz, to be spending those days back at the alternate side getting reps there, rather than being parked in the stands watching the parent team play. Given the problems the team has had stopping basestealers, I would want the young MiL catchers getting on-field reps to improve pop time and throwing accuracy. But then I know the Dodger’s brain trust has more knowledge about these matters than any of us.
Quite a victory today. We get two hits and one run and win the game.
I’m not sure that Kenley knows where his pitches are going, but other than that, he really looks like the old Kenley. Speed gun had him up to 97 a couple of times. I’m not sure he’s ever registered that high. And the movement on his pitches was old time Kenley. Really impressive to watch.