Emmet Sheehan (5-8, 5.08) vs. Eury Perez (7-11, 3.94).
With yesterday's dispiriting loss, the Dodgers are now sandwiched in between the Brewers and Braves: 2.5 games behind the Brewers for the NL one-seed, and 2.5 games ahead of the Braves (who are in the three-seed). The Brewers and Rays have already clinched playoff berths.
I think we spoiled our chances for a weekend playoff berth clinch with yesterday's loss, but I'm not that good at math so I might be wrong.
Tyler Glasnow vs Tyler Phillips.
We've got Tylers all over the place today.
Eight in a row, part of the Dodgers' punching-bag schedule in September. Do not be fooled by beating up on weak teams (Kyle Tucker, I am talking to you).
TBD vs. Ryan Gusto (1-4, 4.23).
Technically, the Marlins are still in the NL Wild Card race, even at 72-75, only 6.5 games out of the final spot. But the Fish are close to being fried, and if the Dodgers can keep up their winning ways, there's an outside chance we could clinch a playoff berth this weekend. We will see if we can start this series with gusto!
Tyler Glasnow (3-0, 2.45) vs. Sandy Alcantara (3-2, 3.05).
Rubber match against the Marlins, and it won't be an easy one; Sandy Alcantara, disastrous last year, looks like he's regained his ace form in 2026. Meanwhile, the Dodgers continue to be feast or famine offensively, with last night's debacle sporting 0-for-4s from Dalton Rushing, Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez, and Hyeseong Kim.
Hernandez' slump is the most concerning, as he's batting .235 on the year with a .701 OPS. Can a midday start help Teo get out of his funk? UPDATE 11.28a: Teoscar is sitting in place of Alex Call.
Shohei Ohtani (2-0, 0.38) vs. Janson Junk (1-2, 3.67).
I can't imagine the bullying this poor opposing pitcher had to endure as a kid. But I hope the Dodgers aren't nice to him either, as we have a mere half-game lead in the NL West thanks to a mediocre 5-5 record over our last 10 games.
Luckily, we've got a pretty good guy on the mound for us tonight.
With the Dodgers down 4-2 going into the bottom of the ninth, Andy Pages and Dalton Rushing walked; Shohei Ohtani hit a one-out ground rule double to trim the margin to a run; and then with two out, Kyle Tucker singled to center to score Rushing from third and Ohtani from second.
The Dodgers come back to win in improbable fashion, but at least Ohtani (3-for-5 with an RBI and 2 runs) is showing signs of life, and the bullpen regained form (Alex Vesia, Tanner Scott, Edgardo Henriquez, and Jake Eder (?) with scoreless innings each.
Eder gets the win. Tucker gets the heroics. The Dodgers get to stay in first place for another day.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2-2. 2.48) vs. Chris Paddack (0-4, 6.38).
Top Paddock was one of my favorite breakfast spots in Melbourne, and I used to frequent it regularly. Their coffees were exquisite and their breakfast offerings were the kind of fare that you would be proud presenting to visitors from out of town (and there were many!) who were looking to get acclimated to quality Mekbourne dining.
Anyway, I bring this all up because, I'm hoping we can Top Paddack today.
TBD Landon Knack (1-0. 7.27) vs. Valente Bellozo (0-2, 4.97)
The Marlins might be a bunch of clown(fish), but I suppose it was inevitable that they win at least one game this series. Hopefully that's all they get. But with Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman both on the IL, can we count on Max Muncy (0-for-2 yesterday, .176 BA on the year) or Michael Conforto (0-for-3 yesterday, .142 BA on the year) to pick up the slack?
I'm not taking that bait.
Tony Gonsolin (1-0, 4.50) vs. Cal Quantrill (2-3, 8.10).
Great to have Tony Gonsolin back to help support the beleaguered starting rotation! We're 4-0 against the Marlins this year, so let's keep this feasting on fish thing going!
Ben Casparius (3-0, 2.91) vs. Sandy Alcantara (2-3, 8.31).
Sany Alcantara won the Cy Young Award in 2022 and has been a solid pitcher...until this year, where something is definitely off. The Dodgers knocked him around last week (7 ER, 2.2 IP) to boost his ERA to 8.31. In that April 29 game, Jack Dreyer started for the Dodgers, and Matt Sauer got the victory after pitching five innings of one-run ball. Let's see if Ben Casparius can hold his own as well!
Gonsolin (2025 debut) vs. Quantrill (2-2, 7.83).
The Dodgers have a chance for a fish sweep! Welcome back, Catman!
TBD vs. Sandy Alcantara (2-2, 6.56).
Another bullpen game for the Dodgers, right after an extra-inning effort in which we won 7-6 (Tommy Edman with the game-winning, two-RBI walkoff single), but used five arms to get that victory. So who knows how we'll go with a series of ghost pitchers and overworked arms? Yikes.
Welcome back to first place, Dodgers!
Dustin May (1-1, 3.68) vs. Edward Cabrera (0-1, 6.14).
Welcome back, former Dodger first base coach Clayton McCullough (now the manager of the Miami Marlins). The Marlins are not doing well this year, suffering from sloppy defense... just like the Dodgers! So maybe it's a McCullough thing.
Gotta give some love to Andy Pages, who went 10-for-12 in the series against the Pirates, including a hone run, three doubles, and four RBI. This output alone lifted his batting average from .183 to .277, and his OPS from .650 to .861 (Pages is now sitting at a 146 OPS+, which is higher than Teoscar Hernandez (145), and is absolutely amazing).
And then, we have Max Muncy, who is at a 55 OPS+. Maybe we can trade him to the Marlins for Sandy Alcantara (whom we'll see tomorrow!).
We saw an unbelievable offensive performance today for Shohei Ohtani, in which he went 6-for-6 with 10 RBI, three HR, and two doubles in a 20-4 slaughter of Miami, which is already being called the greatest game ever.
Congratulations, Shohei Ohtani! We are all in awe.
photos from USA Today
Tue 9.17 3.40p: Miller vs. McCaughan Wed 9.18 3.40p: Knack vs. TBD Thu 9.19 1.40p: Flaherty vs. Cabrera
There have been four MLB expansion teams since 1993, and only the Marlins have won two World Series titles (the Diamondbacks have one, and the Rays and Rockies have none). And yet, the Miami Marlins are a shell of a team, following the unceremonious departure of GM Kim Ng (who was offered a demoted role, and chose to leave instead).
Miami's average attendance is 12K per home game--almost a quarter of what the Dodgers draw on average--29th in the majors, only ahead of the carpetbagging Athletics. But wait--Tuesday's game is Japanese Heritage Night (for the Dodgers, get it?), and Wednesday's game admits 4 people for $44. So maybe we can get to 15K fans for these games?
I mean, I know we have a 3.5-game lead in the division with 12 games to play. But if a tree falls in the forest...
The Dodgers once again spotted the Marlins some early scoring, just like last night--playing with them like a spider plays with a fly caught in a web. But even with Jazz Chisholm's first-pitch solo HR off of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers laid in wait and then sprung to life in the bottom of the first, charged by a Max Muncy grand slam that put the Dodgers up 4-1 through one.
The Dodgers again posted a four-run inning in the third, punctuated by a two-run homer by Gavin Lux (scoring Teoscar Hernandez), which was Lux's first HR since 2022 (since Lux missed all of 2023 with the ACL injury).
But it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto who was the hero tonight, coasting through eight innings of two-run ball (he gave up a solo HR to Bryan De La Cruz in the sixth), with 97 pitches, 5 H, 0 BB and 5 Ks. JP Feyereisen closed the Marlins out in the ninth. Tyler Glasnow went eight full innings against the Mets on April 21, but I think that's the only other eight-inning start for the Dodgers this year. Yamamoto has really found a groove since his auspicious start in Seoul, and with Joe Kelly on the 15-day IL now, it's appreciated!
12n game tomorrow, so let's start drinking early! And as a reminder, the GT is here.
May The Sixth Be With You!
The Dodgers, looking to bring in crowds after their showdown sweep over the Braves this past weekend, shifted Star Wars Night @ Dodger Stadium to May 6, rather than the traditional May 4. Fun was still had by all, and in particular, Dodger fans who got a chance to see Walker Buehler take the mound for the first time in two years.
Here's Buehler's introduction from the public address announcer, which was pretty cool to hear:
But then came the reality: a 25-pitch first inning that yielded two runs for the Marlins. To say he wasn't sharp was an understatement--but to be fair, Buehler AND the rest of the Dodgers didn't give up a walk, all game. Not to mention, the Dodgers hit all the necessary milestones to win the crowd some free food: stolen base (ampm free hot dog and 12 oz coke), seven strikeouts (Jack in the Box free Jumbo Jack), and six runs scored (McDonald's free 6-piece Chicken McNuggets). (I think the free CPK pizza deal ended after last season.)
More on the Dodgers food situation later.
Luckily for the Dodgers, we have Shohei Ohtani, whose first-inning HR (following a Mookie Betts leadoff walk) immediately tied the score, with none out in the first. I was fortunate to get this video (yes, that's me and SoSG AC screaming):
Freddie Freeman followed with a first-inning HR of his own, so it was 3-2. The Marlins then tied it in the second on a Nick Gordon solo HR. Then in the bottom of the second, after Gavin Lux worked a walk, James Outman came to the plate. I jokingly said to SoSG AC that Outman was going to pull an Ohtani of his own and hit a two-run HR. Which, amazingly, he did. We were both cracking up that I had called that.
The Dodgers added one more with a solo poke HR from Teoscar Hernandez, who apparently has seven of his eight HR on the year at Dodger Stadium. Solid performances from Ryan Yarbrough, Blake Treinen, and Alex Vesia gave us the 6-3 victory and our fifth win in a row (we are undefeated in May 2024 so far).
The Star Wars Night theming was pretty good, including a Dejarik board for the hat shuffle, a pre-game trivia contest, and abundant crowd shots of fellow nerds in the crowd. (Anthony Keides of the Red Hots and Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 were also at the game.)
On the downside: the Dodger Stadium food fare has really sunk to new depths of both quantity (small) and pricing (large). They got rid of the chicken sandwich place that I liked from last year (the Nashville spicy chicken sandwich was great), and instead the new Japanese place has a chicken katsu sandwich which is a total ripoff. Not only is the chicken wafer-thin like a smushed McDonald's hash brown patty (breaded of course), the small piece of white "bread" for the sandwich (and I use that liberally, as it's little more than the size of a Triscuit cracker) is pathetically microscopic:
I'm already shelling out $16.50 for a beer at the Stadium. If the food is also going to be both skimpy in portion size and exorbitant in price, I'm going to bring in my own food in the future. Very disappointing from a food front! Thankfully, I've got free food to eat today all over town.
Fix the food and GO DODGERS!
Mon 5.6 7p: Walker Buehler (0-0, -.--) vs. Roddery Muñoz (1-0, 2.45) Tue 5.7 7p: Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-1, 2.91) vs. Edward Cabrera (1-1, 6.05) Wed 5.8 12n: Gavin Stone (2-1, 4.06) vs. Ryan Weathers (2-30, 4.54)
Hot off a surprising sweep of the Braves, the Dodgers welcome back Walker Buehler tonight after a 23-month absence and a long recovery. Buehler's recent minor-league starts have been promising, but the game has changed since his last stint, wronte the LAT's Jack Harris, not to mention the advent of the pitch clock which will ratchet up the pressure even more.
I'll be at the Stadium tonight, along with SoSG AC, to watch this one.
Welcome back, Walker Buehler!
Tue Sep 5: Kershaw vs. Luzardo Wed Sep 6: Lynn vs. TBD Thu Sep 7: TBD vs. Garrett all games 3.40p first pitch
After a depressing weekend against the Braves in which Lance Lynn threw BP meatballs on Thursday (loss); then Julio Urias went back to his wobbly ways Friday (loss); followed by the Dodgers coughing up multiple chances to win before Alex Vesia crumbled in extras on Saturday (loss)--the Dodgers salvaged a psychological win by avoiding the sweep on Sunday afternoon.
Whoop dee frickin' doo. We're clearly not in the Braves' tier, despite having the second-best record in the NL and the third-best in the majors. Cap that off with Julio Urias arrested Sunday night for what would be his second offense of domestic violence--no MLB player has ever been suspended twice under the policy (enacted in 2015), and Urias had a 20-game suspension for his first incident, in which the victim dropped charges--this truly was a shitty weekend for the Dodgers.
I can try and be hopeful in that the Dodgers still have the second-best run differential in the majors, and our 14-game lead over second-place Arizona (and 15-game lead over the Giants) will allow us to coast to the end of September. Walker Buehler just had a nice rehab outing in Oklahoma City (with a fastball up at 95mph), and he could return and fill a rotation slot. And Bobby Miller, who earned the Dodgers' victory on Sunday, has already been knighted as the Dodgers' new ace by LAT columnist Bill Plaschke (which means he is probably going to be a pile of shit in the playoffs, the way Plaschke's predictions typically play out).
So maybe it isn't all bad? If you squint your eyes, realize that whatever might happen in this series is against the ~.500, playoff-missing Marlins, well yeah, sure, maybe the last weekend wasn't a total disaster. I mean, there were some survivors on the Titanic as well, right?
Fri 18 7p: Tony Gonsolin vs. Sandy Alcantara Sat 19 12n: TBD vs. TBD Sat 19 6p: Julio Urias vs. Eury Perez
The Dodgers have won 11 in a row and now it's getting ludicrously implausible. Thursday's game, a 1-0 victory, came at the hands of seven scoreless innings from a Chicago White Sox castoff (Lance Lynn, now 4-0 with the Dodgers), and the first home run in almost a year for the meek Austin Barnes (who raised his average to a still microscopic .136).
Wednesday's game, a 7-1 victory, included home runs from the light-hitting nine-hole Miguel Rojas (now bating .220 on the year, with three HR total) and Chris Taylor in the eight hole (his 13th of the year, batting .219). If we could just get Max Muncy hitting again, this would be absolutely absurd.
But here we are, having feasted on poor teams but still thriving against good ones (Milwaukee still leads the NL Central, with a two-game lead over the Reds). And here come the Marlins, tied with the Reds for the third and final Wild Card position, and throwing their reigning Cy Young award winner to start the truncated weekend series (rescheduled due to the incoming hurricane Hilary).
I highly doubt we can stretch this streak to 14 by grilling the visting Fish. But that's okay, I'd much rather save some in the tank for the playoffs! I hope we're not peaking too soon.
