MidValleySports.Com

By Those Deferred BenchWarmers

The Dodgers won another series over the weekend, beating the Nationals twice in three games. Clayton Kershaw led the pitching staff and Max Muncy led the offense as the Dodgers finished the homestand 7-3. Interestingly, two of the Dodger losses came with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound.

The Weekend in Review
Headline for the Weekend: Dodgers Wrap Up Homestand By Taking Care of Business

Results: Kershaw Day started the weekend, as the Dodgers jumped out to a 6-2 lead before watching it slowly shrink. They couldn’t duplicate that success on Saturday, as they cut the Nats lead to 3-2 before surrendering two runs in back-to-back innings. Max Muncy broke open Sunday’s game, as he slammed the Dodgers to a 4-3 lead in the sixth. Ohtani hit a bases loaded triple in the 7th, scored on a Betts single, and then Muncy opened the floodgates with another homer. 

Pitching Analysis: Clayton Kershaw again looked strong, striking out 4 in five innings. He allowed only 5 hits, with two of them being solo home runs. Shohei Ohtani is still ramping up, but he was able to get his first two strikeouts as a pitcher on the Dodgers. 

Other notes: Michael Kopech worked another scoreless inning, Tanner Scott gave up a solo homerun but notched his 15th save, Anthony Banda continued to round into form, and Lou Trivino and Jack Dryer both had solid bounce-back games in game three. Unfortunately, the Kiké Hernandez experience yielded another instance where he could not finish a game, and Ben Casparious pitched fine (5 innings, 5 hits, 3 ER), but it’s important that the Dodgers solidify a role for him, and soon. 
  
Hitting Analysis: Game 1 was classic Dodger offensive showing, as the Dodgers scored all six of their runs with two outs. They came in different ways as well: In the third, it was Betts beating out a double play ball, then scoring two batters later on an errant flip at second. Andy Pages followed that with a timely single to make it 3-1. In the fourth, Miguel Rojas doubled to turn the line-up over to Ohtani, advanced to third on a passed ball, then scored on Ohtani’s seeing-eye single to right. It was Rojas again in the sixth, taking MacKenzie Gore’s 100th pitch deep on a 2-0 count. 

Game three started like game 2 for the offense – very quietly. In the first five innings, the Dodgers had 10 strikeouts and 0 runs. Over the final 3 innings of batting, however, they struck out once (in the 8th) and scored 13 times. Dalton Rushing led off the 6th with a ground rule double and, after Freddie Freeman was hit with an 0-2 pitch, Max Muncy hit a grand slam to flip the game on its head. The seventh included an Ohtani bases-clearing triple, a Betts RBI single, and, after a bloop single by Freddie Freeman, another home run from Max Muncy. Ohtani hit a two run homer to cap off the Dodger scoring in the 8th.

Baserunning Analysis: Bringing this section back real quick to talk about the 3rd inning of game 1. During the Pandemic Season/Mookie Betts’ first season in LA, a favorite tweet of ours was something to the effect of “Best. Baserunner. In. The. League.” about Betts. He showed that Friday night by barely beating out a double play (thanks to a challenge) and then scoring from second on a ground ball and errant flip from short. Although his bat isn’t where people want it, Betts will always find a way to impact the game (and, for the record, we’re not worried about his bat). 

Takeaway for the Weekend: The Dodgers appear to be rounding into form, but do need Betts and Freeman to pick it up a bit. And for, the heck of it, we need Conforto to pick it up a bit, too! 

Burning Question (And Attempted Answer): Are Mookie Betts “struggles” a result of him playing SS? There’s been a bit of a discourse surrounding this, although Betts and Roberts both deny it. Betts is on pace for 18 HRs and 77 RBI, which is roughly equivalent to his production last year (albeit with a worse OPS and BA). The official Deferred Bench Warmers Stance is: It is not the main issue, it’s simply a combination of things, including the illness that delayed impacted him for the first month-plus of the season, the position change, and just general slumping. We expect Betts to tread water for a while, pick it up heading into the All Star Break, and really take off in August and September. 

Next Series’ Preview
Matchups: The Dodgers travel to Coors Field to take on the last place (and worst in MLB) Colorado Rockies. 

Analysis: The Rockies have made strong strides of late, as they are a respectable 9-11 in the month of June, and have won 5 of 8 (including a four game win streak). 

In June, they’ve scored the fifth most runs (Dodgers are 3rd, 7 runs ahead), hit the fifth most home runs (29, tied with the Dodgers), 4th in hits (4 ahead of the Dodgers), and lead the Majors in triples (10; the Dodgers are tied for third with 5). They are 2-7 at home in June, however, and led the majors in strikeouts while batting in June with 196 (the Dodgers have the 7th most with 172). The Rockies are 8-29 at home overall. 

What to Look For: Clayton Kershaw is 8 strikeouts away from 3000, and he takes the mound Thursday. The Rockies have given up the most runs in baseball, and the Dodgers have scored the most. There should be plenty of fireworks at Coors Field this week.