7/7, 7p: Hyun-Jin Ryu (0-0, -.--) vs. Drew Pomeranz (7-7, 2.65).
PADRES 6, DODGERS 0
7/8, 7p: Scott Kazmir (7-3, 4.37) vs. Andrew Cashner (3-6, 4.42).
DODGERS 10, PADRES 6. Grandal: 5-for-5, 3 HR, 6 RBI
7/9, 4p: Brandon McCarthy (1-0, 0.00) vs. Luis Perdomo (3-3, 7.93).
DODGERS 4, PADRES 3
7/10, 1p: Kenta Maeda (7-6, 3.07) vs. Christian Friedrich (4-4, 4.42).
DODGERS 3, PADRES 1. Maeda: 7.0 IP, 13K
Former Dodger and current Met Juan Uribe unfortunately won't be with the Mets for the NLDS, as he continues to recover from injury. And I say unfortunate, just thinking about Uribe himself; it's probably better that we aren't facing him, given he batted .357 with 3 RBI against us this year.
Uribe, who originally injured his chest while diving for a groundball a few weeks ago, is expected to remain in New York to receive physical therapy while the Mets open the NLDS with Games 1 and 2 in Los Angeles this weekend.Mets general manager Sandy Alderson confirmed Tuesday that Uribe, who was acquired by New York a week before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, will not be available to play in the NLDS, which begins Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with whom Uribe began the season.
photo: Corey Sipkin / NY Daily News
Clayton Kershaw (16-7, 2.16) vs. Frank Garces (0-0, 5.00).
Welcome to Game #162! Over their first 161 games the Dodgers have won their division and secured home-field advantage against the Mets in the NLDS, so the only regular-season points of suspense today are:
Buckle in and enjoy, because this is your only Dodger baseball for the next five days!
Coming off a sweep in San Francisco, Zack Greinke took the hill in San Diego and shut the Padres down over seven strong innings. A second-inning single from Juan Uribe (his first of the year; we can't lose this guy from our team!) was enough to have the Dodgers coast to victory. But Carl Crawford added a solo HR in the seventh (hope Crawford can deliver for us this year!), and Joc Pederson added a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning (hope Pederson can realize his potential this year!).
The only concern for us Dodger fans is Yasiel Puig, HBP on the knee in the second inning, and then reaggravating his hamstring injury in the sixth (when he exited). Hold your breath! Division lead is at 0.5 games, as Colorado also won (and leapt into second place, a half-game ahead of San Diego).
photo: AP
Video by SoSG Alex Cora! Remember, tonight's Game Thread is here.
Zack Greinke (5-1, 1.48) vs. Alex Wood (2-2, 3.83).
Sexyzack hasn't gotten a decision in his past three starts, although the Dodgers have won two of them (versus the Marlins and Padres). The Dodgers have already secured the series win against the Braves and—
WHO AM I KIDDING I CAN'T PRETEND IT ISN'T KILLING US THAT THE DODGERS TRADED JUAN URIBE GOODBYE PAPI WE LOVE YOU WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE
FEELS LIKE
UPDATE: ALL OF THE FEELS
Juan Uribe has a message for you, Dodger fans. pic.twitter.com/a7xuNPX2BM
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 27, 2015
Alex Guerrero had his first major league HR on Sunday, and then was the walk-off winner Monday. And now, according to Mark Saxon, third base is a "muddled picture":
The Dodgers love Uribe's leadership. They rely on his stabilizing defense for the left side of their infield. They felt like his bat down low in the lineup was a key to their offensive continuity last season.
But there's no hiding the fact that he's getting up there -- he recently celebrated his 36th birthday -- and a rough spring was followed by a sluggish start to the season, both offensively and defensively. His hamstrings were a constant nuisance in 2014 and already they're starting to give him problems this season.
So, while Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said Uribe will be back in the starting lineup on Tuesday, he sounded far from staunch in his description of Uribe's grasp on the everyday third-base job. Justin Turner batted .340 last year and was second to Yasiel Puig in wins above replacement among Dodgers position players and now Guerrero is starting to put some heat on Uribe, too.Guerrero -- perhaps the most mysterious player on the Dodgers' 25-man roster -- showed the Dodgers he can do something else they didn't know he could do: get a bucket of sugary red liquid dumped on his head. Guerrero came up with a clutch, two-out single to drive in Andre Ethier with the winning run in the Dodgers' comeback 6-5 win over the Seattle Mariners in 10 innings and Yasiel Puig gave him the requisite dowsing as he did his postgame interview.
Criminy, we've already got outfield controversy that has spanned over two seasons. Let's calm down on a two-game Guerrero spike (especially if Uribe's hammies are indeed in need of rest), and let this play out...at least into week three of the season.
Adrian Gonzalez hit three HR tonight, going 4-for-4 with 4 RBI. As per MLB.com, Gonzalez becomes the first player in MLB history to hit five home runs in the first three games of the season. He is batting .769 this year, with a 2.077 slugging average and a 2.846 OPS. Adrian Gonzalez is on pace to hit 270 home runs this season.
All three of A-Gon's HRs went to right field over Padres RF Matt Kemp, and the second one was definitely catchable (bouncing off the top of the wall).
Meanwhile, #3 starter Brandon McCarthy has as many Ks (9) as Clayton Kershaw, and over twice as many as #2 Zack Greinke. His line wasn't great tonight: 5.0 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 9 Ks and 2 HR), but it was effective enough. And, unlike last night, Mattingly's relief choices fared better: Paco Rodriguez rescued a struggling McCarthy to strike out Clint Barmes; Pedro Baez went a clean 1.2 innings; J.P. Howell had a one-hit eighth inning, and Joel Peralta punctuated his one-hit ninth with a Kemp strikeout (Kemp was 5-for-13 in the series).
Yasiel Puig went 0-for-5 with 5 LOB and is batting .083. He did get an RBI on a botched double play that ended up being a double play either when Jimmy Rollins forgot to run to third, or Puig ran too far around first, or whatever. Juan Uribe went 1-for-3 and is batting .111.
Dodgers get a much-needed day of rest before meeting Arizona in the desert on Friday. But what will we do without baseball Thursday? ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Except for the fact that coasting to a division title didn't yield postseason results; yeah, I'm excited that ESPN.com's David Schoenfield ranks the Dodgers second out of all 30 MLB teams (only to the Nationals):
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
Big offseason moves: Hired Andrew Friedman as president of baseball operations and Farhan Zaidi as general manager; traded OF Matt Kemp and C Tim Federowicz to the Padres for C Yasmani Grandal, RHP Joe Wieland and RHP Zach Eflin; lost SS Hanley Ramirez to free agency; signed RHP Brandon McCarthy and LHP Brett Anderson; traded 2B Dee Gordon, RHP Dan Haren and SS Miguel Rojas to the Marlins for LHP Andrew Heaney, RHP Chris Hatcher, 2B Enrique Hernandez and C Austin Barnes; traded Heaney to the Angels for 2B Howie Kendrick; acquired SS Jimmy Rollins from the Phillies; acquired RHP Joel Peralta and LHP Adam Liberatore from the Rays for RHPs Juan Dominguez and Greg Harris.
Most intriguing player: Yasiel Puig, Year 3. Is this the year he remains consistent, cleans up the mistakes, keeps the power going and becomes an MVP candidate? Or does he settle in as a very good player? Either way, we'll all be watching.
Due for a better year: Clayton Kershaw ... in the postseason. Hard to top 21-3, 1.77 with Cy Young and MVP trophies. In just 27 starts.
Due for a worse year: Juan Uribe hit .300 for the first time since he was a rookie with the Rockies in 2001 and posted a career-high .337 OBP.
I'm just the messenger: The Dodgers spent a lot of money to bring in McCarthy and Anderson as their fourth and fifth starters. They're convinced McCarthy is capable of another 30-start, 200-inning season even though that was the first time he has reached either mark in his career (previous highs: 25 starts, 170 innings). Anderson is still a talented lefty when he gets out on the mound, but he has made only 32 starts the past four seasons. There isn't a lot of depth here. Joe Wieland and Juan Nicasio could be next in line. Erik Bedard has been invited to spring training. If Kershaw or Zack Greinke suffer a long-term injury, the rotation could have issues.
The final word: It's not often you see a 94-win team get such a big makeover, but the new regime is rebuilding on the fly. The Dodgers had to clear space in the outfield for rookie center fielder Joc Pederson and they had to get better defensively up the middle. They'll have a new middle infield -- a much better defensive one with Rollins and Kendrick. In fact, all of the Dodgers' moves were done in part to improve the defense, including catcher, where Grandal is rated as a good framer. A better pitcher than analyst, Greinke didn't give rave reviews to the moves. This is a good team, one that should coast to a division title.
Prediction: 93-69
I'll take it.
(Giants ranked 11th, well out of the top 10, with Joe Panik predicted to be much worse. Padres ranked 16th, Rockies 26th, and the Diamondbacks a woeful 30th.)
There is no god. Because even the most psychotically perverse deity would not have allowed what befell Clayton Kershaw in the seventh inning in Game 4. Stoked by a lead again (2-0), and cruising to a one-hitter over the Cardinals, Kershaw inexplicably gave up a three-run HR to unlikely rotund hero Matt Adams. This time, unlike in Game 1, Kershaw wasn't just trying to overpower the Cardinals with fastballs. But this time, it was a hanging curveball which unraveled the Dodgers, and ultimately eliminated us from the 2014 postseason.
Brutal.
How inexplicable was this? So crazy, that ESPN's statistics department couldn't even add correctly:
Kershaw, obviously crestfallen and befuddled, admirably faced stupid questions from an insipid St. Louis press corps, and soldiered through post-game interviews with class and dignity that I suppose could only be expected from The Best Pitcher In Baseball:
"The season ended and I'm a big part of the reason why," Kershaw said. "It doesn't matter how I pitched. It's bad deja vu all over again. I felt we had a really good chance to win. I'm thankful we got here and hope to be back."
Looking at the photos of Kershaw walking off the mound in the seventh inning, my heart aches. He doesn't deserve this. And we Dodger fans don't deserve this either, what with the NL West-winning Dodgers going home, while the second-place retread Giants advancing to the NLCS, in a series where I don't want either team to win (in fact, I hope it goes seven games of 99 innings each, all of which with microscopic television ratings).
Manager Don Mattingly? Yeah, he deserves the vitriol, again doing a fine job managing the team through six innings, but finding himself at a loss beyond that. Mattingly also spent the morning getting crucified on Twitter for benching Yasiel Puig in favor of Andre Ethier (who went 0-for-2 with two walks, but was picked off third base to end the sixth inning in Puigian fashion, failing to dive back to the bag after considering coming home on a shallow passed ball). Ethier's performance was not worth the substitution. And Mattingly did end up putting Puig in later in Game 4, as a pinch runner of all things, which also makes no sense.
Dan Haren never entered the NLDS, even in relief. Not sure why we were saving him.
Ned Colletti sure as heck should be under consideration for blame, being allowed to play with the highest payroll in baseball, but neglecting to fortify a bullpen beyond a closer.
And there are fingers to be pointed at some of the members of the team. Hanley Ramirez, if he had any defensive skills, could have leapt for that second single that preceded the Adams HR. It would have been a double play had he caught it. Dee Gordon and Juan Uribe, both of whom were impressive this regular season, neglected to show up at the plate for most of this series.
But Kershaw, at the center of the storm? I've lost faith in everything at this point. But not him.
We'll get 'em next year, Clayton. We just have to clean some house around you first.
Now please excuse me, as I go get my Orioles and Royals gear on.
At this stage, it's getting ridiculous. Mattingly leaves Clayton Kershaw in for Game 1, when the Cardinals are teeing off his fastball and Kershaw doesn't seem to want to throw anything else, even shaking Mattingly off the mound in the process. Wrong answer. And then in Game 1, he signals for Pedro Baez, who had entered a game with baserunners in only three of his 20 2014 appearances. Also, wrong answer. Then, for Game 2, Mattingly pulls Zack Greinke after seven shutout innings in Game 2, going to J.P. Howell. Wrong answer.
And tonight, Mattingly has Hyun-Jin Ryu plugging along through six solid innings and a 1-1 game, going this time to Scott Elbert, who had struck out both batters he faced in Game 1. Sure thing, right? Nope, wrong answer again; Elbert gives up a leadoff double to Yadier Molina, and then a home run to biblical scholar Kolten Wong, to put the Cards up 3-1 and put the Dodgers down 2-1 in the series. Arguably, Elbert was the wisest choice yet, given Ryu was at 94 pitches coming back from shoulder issues; Scott Van Slyke pinch-hit in the top of the seventh for Ryu, with none on and two out, and grounded to short. But in Mattingly's hands, in this NLDS, the Elbert decision could only go incredibly awry. Which it did.
Sure, we had a chance in the ninth inning with consecutive singles and one out off of Trevor Rosenthal. Cardinals manager Mike Metheny calmly came out when Rosenthal was down 2-0 in the count to Juan Uribe, delayed the game while calling for the grounds crew to apply a drying agent ("drying agent"? sort of like Lana Kane in Archer?) to the mound, and allowed his closer to catch his breath. Rosenthal then got Uribe and A.J. Ellis to fly out to right field, and end the game.
Mattingly has made regrettable pitching decisions in each of the three NLDS games. Metheny, on the other hand, has seemed to slow the game down when his team looks unwieldy. This contrast cannot be underlined more, as it's swinging the series.
You look up and down the two lineups, and with the exception of Matt Carpenter's torrid run and Juan Uribe's lack of jazz hands this series, we should be ahead in this series, not down 2-1. I'd like to think that, with Kershaw starting Game 4 and Greinke starting a possible Game 5, we have a shot at winning this series in five games.
That is, if baseball games were six innings long. At a full nine innings? We're bound to choose the wrong answer, again. That was easy.
Hyun-Jin Ryu (14-7, 3.38) vs. John Lackey (14-10, 3.82).
The series shifts to Busch Stadium, home of those Best Fans in Baseball. The Dodgers turn to Ryu, coming off of three weeks of rest for an irritated shoulder. Mattingly has said that Dan Haren is waiting in the wings should Ryu falter early, which would almost certainly trigger Kershaw on three days' rest for Game 4. So in other words: I just want to tell you good luck, Hyun-Jin. We're all counting on you.
Offensively, well, just look at the picture above. The Dodgers have piled on 24 hits in two games so far, A.J. is 5 for 8, and only Uribe has yet to contribute at the plate. And as we noted earlier, this Dodger team is a bunch of road warriors, for whatever reason. I know regular-season success hasn't been much of a postseason predictor (hello, Angels), so it's time for the Dodgers to change the narrative. I don't know exactly what that means, but it feels like it needed to be said. GO BLUE!
While Don Mattingly and Rick Honeycutt played hooky, substitute manager Juan Uribe and substitute pitching coach Clayton Kershaw managed the Dodgers to a double-up victory over the Rockies in the last game of the 2014 season. Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Roger Bernadina all had homeruns today, but none of them had the Uribe "jazz-hands" follow-through, which I'm sure provided post-game sessions with the film crew as Uribe explained the mechanics of a violent bat swing and subsequent bat flip. Zack Greinke went five innings, allowing one run and five hits, which put him 5-0 with a 2.34 ERA over his last eight starts. Save it for the postseason, Zack!
Dee Gordon became the first Dodger to lead the league in stolen bases (64) since Davey Lopes in 1976 and the first to lead the league in triples since Brett Butler tied for the lead in the strike-shortened 1994 season.
Adrian Gonzalez became the first Dodger to lead MLB in RBIs (116) since Matt Kemp in 2011.
Yasiel Puig led the league with 15 outfield assists, the most since Kemp tied for the league lead with 16 in 2008.
The Dodgers offense led the league in on-base percentage (.333) for the first time in Los Angeles history, led the league in team stolen bases (138) for the first time since 1970 and was shut out five times, the lowest total since five in strike-shortened 1981.
The pitching staff set a franchise record with a league-leading 1,373 strikeouts.Kershaw became the first pitcher ever to win four consecutive ERA titles (1.77) and also led the league with 21 wins (as he did in 2011), an .875 winning percentage, six complete games and a ratio of 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. He missed a strikeout title and second pitching Triple Crown by three strikeouts. He is the first MLB pitcher to win 21 games in as few as 27 starts since at least 1901.
What a year. Gotta keep pitching.
With the Dodgers' third straight win, coupled with the Giants' 4-1 loss to the Padres, the Dodgers clinched the NL West by even more than last game. In fact, one might call the team's six-run sixth inning the most clinchiness move of all, what with 11 batters coming to the plate and incredibly opportunistic baserunning by Scott Van Slyke (who took second on his RBI single on a throwing error, as well as came around to score a second run (on the same play) on a bloop Justin Turner infield single) and station-to-station, smart play by Juan Uribe and Darwin Barney. How much more clinchy this team can get in its last two regular-season games, I don't know.
(But I do think now would be a good time to rest more starters than Matt Kemp and A.J. Ellis, right? Think about it, Donnie.)
In other news, St. Louis needed a comeback, extra-inning victory to keep ahead of Pittsburgh in the NL Central. The disaster scenario we want to avoid is Pittsburgh and St. Louis finishing with identical records, as this would make the two teams square off in a one-game playoff before the loser meets Madison Bumgarner and the Giants (strategically, the Cards and Pirates might not throw their respective #1 starters, but who knows). A St. Louis win + Pittsburgh loss tomorrow would settle things (and, force the Giants to play at Pittsburgh, where the Pirates are 51-30; if St. Louis wins, San Francisco has the head-to-head advantage so the game would be at Phone Park).
