Despite continued bullpen issues, the Los Angeles Dodgers are back to their consistent winning ways.
The Dodgers are 12-5 for the month of June and 10-2 over their last 12 games. They are 1.5 games out of first place in the NL West.
Los Angeles is coming off of a three-game sweep of the lowly Arizona Diamondbacks. But now their schedule gets a little tougher. To finish out the month of June, the Dodgers will take on the San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs, and NL West leading San Francisco Giants.
The last time the Dodgers and Padres played, it was the end of April, and the two teams played two series in 10 days, three in San Diego and then four in Los Angeles. The Dodgers took two of three in the first series and lost three of four at home, which coincided with their 5-15 slide. It was speculated that the team was so drained from dealing with the high energy series that it took them awhile to recover.
Of course, the Dodgers were dealing with the loss of Cody Bellinger, among others. Dustin May went down a week later. Many pieces of the bullpen were injured. But slowly, the Dodgers have worked their way back to consistently winning, and the team is almost at full strength.
The Padres have been heading in the opposite direction, as of late. In first place in the NL West the last time the two teams played, the Padres are now in third place, five games behind the Giants. The Padres are 8-11 for the month of June, although they are coming off a four-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds. Previous to that, they were swept by the Colorado Rockies in Denver.
As expected, Fernando Tatis Jr leads the team in about every offensive category. He has 22 homers and 13 stolen bases. He also has 15 errors at shortstop so far this season. Jake Cronenworth, who has become a thorn in the Dodgers’ side, is a close second behind Tatis Jr in most offensive areas. Tatis Jr had an off say on Sunday, after landing awkwardly on a diving effort on a play, but is expected to be in the Padres lineup on Monday.
Monday night’s game will see Julio Urías and Yu Darvish go head to head. The Padres had won 11 of the first 12 starts of Darvish, but have dropped the last two. He is 6-2 with a 2.57 ERA. Urías is going for what would be the NL leading to 10th win of the season.
Clayton Kershaw will be pitching on Tuesday for the Dodgers, and Wednesday will see Trevor Bauer as the Dodgers starter. The starting pitchers for the Padres for those two games have yet to be determined.
Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy, both of whom have been on the injured list, are slated to return to the team during this Padres series. Bellinger has been dealing with a hamstring issue, and Muncy has been recovering from an oblique strain. Lucky for Dodgers fans, Muncy seems to have overcome his injury quickly, as sometimes oblique injuries can take much longer.
The first two series provided a lot of fireworks, from Tatis Jr trolling Bauer after hitting a home run off of him by closing one eye while rounding the bases, to benches clearing after Dennis Santana plunked Jorge Mateo in the thigh, to Mookie Betts making an incredible game-saving catch in the outfield. This series should be just as entertaining, hopefully with the Dodgers coming out on top.
Living in Tucson I am blacked out on San Diego games go figure so I will watch the series a day late.
One question I have is the real state of Tatis’s shoulder. Also as Andy states, he has 15 errors and has missed a few games so not exactly a vacuum at SS. I am sure Boras will use that stat to discount Seager’s defensive liabilities negotiating for Seager’s next contract.
The Padres have been unlucky with their IL list also. Glad to see Machado has not fulfilled his hype and contract.
Dodger should win this series on the strength of the pitching staff.
If you go to bilasport.com, it shows all games regardless of where you live. I watched the Phillies series that way
Thanks!!! I will give it a try….
When two really good teams like this face off, it doesn’t matter much who is hot and who is cold. The series takes on a life of its own. I’ll be very happy if we can take 2 of 3.
I heard this morning that the Pads will be using Snell and Musgrove in games 2 and 3 but they haven’t confirmed that yet.
It will be interesting to see if Julio can continue his hot hitting tonight. He’s had an RBI for every 3.9 plate appearances. That ratio is better than every one of our position players. I realize that RBIs are somewhat a matter of luck because you need guys on base in order to knock them in, but Urias has become a real threat, and in a league where pitchers hit, that can be a real advantage.
They just said on MLB Network that the Dodgers are the underdog for the first time since 2019
I heard that also. What an incredible stat.
Of course Dodger fans might see that and throw enough money at L.A. that by game time they’ll be favored.
I’ll throw money at it. I can’t lose because it’s going to land on the floor in front of the tv and I’ll just go pick it up.
It actually is a remarkable stat. I would think we are the only team that can say that.
Speaking of remarkable stats, they’ve kept track of the velocity of hit balls since 2015. In every year from 2015-2020, Giancarlo Stanton had the hardest hit ball of that season, more remarkable because he only played a total of 45 games during the last 3 seasons.
This year? He has the 5 hardest hit balls. What a shame that he can’t ever stay healthy.
Darvish has been very good for them and they are at home so I think that is justified. I like Urias he understands how to compete!
Uceta sent to OKC, Reks called up
Reks has been hitting at OKC. Does that mean Bellinger is not going to be in the lineup?
Yep
Belli is due back Wednesday and Max tomorrow I think. I could have it reversed
That’s the way I heard it Andy. It would seem that Reks might just be here for one night.
I believe Snell goes tomorrow (lefty) so Reks wouldn’t start anyway and that means that Burns and Souza won’t be sent anywhere before tomorrow’s game.
They’re back to 13 pitchers so won’t send a pitcher out unless they replace him with another pitcher.
Beaty and ZMac are hitting well enough that they aren’t going to be optioned, so I think it’ll be one and done for Reks, at least this time around. Now watch him get 4 hits tonight.
I’m betting against him getting 4 at bats tonight.
Attention: Dennis Schlossman (everyone else can ignore this)
The Blue Jays have signed old friend John Axford to a minor league contract after watching him hit 98 on the gun for Team Canada.
Canadian gun. It measures km/hr.
Matt Guerrier and Vicente Padilla have been sighted in the Montreal area. Together. That must mean something. BTW, 98 KPH = about 61 MPH.
I think Axford is one of those guys who will still be breaking 90 mph when he’s 60 years old.
Isn’t he the guy who puts out Oscar picks every year too?
What a glorious combination of skills.
Now, if he could only predict where his pitches were going.
Well that sucked. 3 hits and 16 strikeouts.
Another one to put in the rear view.
Look at the bright side Scoop. You won your bet about Reks not getting 4 at bats last night.
We must focus on the positive. For example, if we lose the next two in SD, we’ll still be ahead of them in the standings.
The Giants are playing way over their heads. They will fall back to earth at some point. If not this year, then next.
On a more negative note, the Padres are not playing over their heads. They are a very good team.
If I showed up looking like Tatis does from the shoulders down in the photo above, my friends would ask “What happened to you? Did you have an accident?”
I look like kinda like Tatis now. Rigo Tatis. He’s a maintenance guy in the neighborhood. He’s a little shorter, I’m a little thinner. That Tatis above looks like he’s modeling on a runway. He also makes Mookie look 15.
Forgettable game. Nice to see Mookie smoke one though. Max will be starting at 2nd tonight with Pujols at first against Snell, who’s ERA is over 5 and has not pitched all that great this year. Kersh needs to be on his game. Urias has looked very pedestrian his last two outings. He has pitched more than he ever has before, so maybe a little fatigue factor there. My belief now is that they are going to target a starter, since Gonsolin has not been himself and obviously has something wrong with his shoulder, and a reliever if they move Price into the rotation, which could be happening sooner than later. The offense will get better when the big guns are back.
Re: Urias. Last week I did the math to project number of innings pitched over 162 games. The LA Big 4 at present rate of innings pitched projected from 199 to 214 innings, Urias 203. The most he has ever pitched at ML level was 80 in 2019. He is the one I most worry about flaming out before October.
I agree that they need to target a starter. During ST I thought the idea was to have Price and Nelson as backup starters if needed. Nelson has developed into a very effective late game bullpen piece so I understand leaving him there, but I have no clue what they’re doing with Price. He has been inconsistent in relief so why not stretch him out as a long man or emergency starter. Between Gonsolin and Urias, that’s exactly what we need now and they still have Price going an inning or two at a time.
Based on Julio’s last few starts it seems like he might need a breather and maybe skipping a couple of starts would do him good. But we can’t do that if we don’t have other starters available and bringing up guys from the minors, most of whom didn’t even have a season last year, and heading into a tough part of our schedule, just doesn’t make much sense to me. That said, I have no idea who is available from other teams. That’s what I pay Andrew the big bucks for.
I agree Bear. We are going to need to score a lot against the better teams.
Julio has given up 7 home runs in his last 6 games. 6 earned last night is the second time he’s done that in his last 5 games. 6 BB in his last 9.2 IP. He may need a day off. We’re getting to that stretch where every starter is going to need a day off. What’s the plan? One thing is for sure, we gotta hit.
Kersh does not have great numbers against this Padre lineup. Dodgers numbers against Snell in limited action are pretty bad. Smith owns him though. Hitting .600 against him.
It’ll be interesting to see if Doc insists on playing Barnes or if he plays Smith tonight since he owns Snell and hit a homer last night. Previous actions indicate Mr. Roberts will ignore all of that and play Barnes. We shall see. We do have one instance recently where Smith caught CK. This would be the time to repeat that.
I totally agree. Let Barnsie play against weaker pitchers where he might have a shot, although he got a critical single off of Snell in the World Series. Of course the Rays manager then made the biggest bonehead move of the series and took him out.