The Los Angeles Dodgers are back at it against the San Diego Padres this weekend. They’ll head to San Diego this weekend after the two team last squared off in an opening week four game set. San Diego has shown some flashes here and there of the future, but for now, the Dodgers will embrace this series as a chance to finally set the sails more firmly in the right direction.
This series will be contested from Friday, May 5, 2017 through Sunday, May 7, 2017 at Petco Park in San Diego.
Bet on MLB odds at BookMaker.eu every day of the season.
Pitching Matchups
The series kicks off on Friday with the Dodgers looking for a second straight strong start from Kenta Maeda and the Padres hoping that Jhoulys Chacin can be much better than he was the last time he faced the Dodgers.
Maeda’s numbers don’t look good. He’s got a 6.58 ERA after a very strong rookie campaign a season ago.
While the right-hander definitely showed his stuff could play in the majors with his performance last year, he struggled in four starts until deploying a cut fastball in his last outing. With the cutter in toe, Maeda held the Phillies to two runs in seven innings. That was the first time he lasted more than five innings this year and the first time he allowed fewer than the three runs he gave up to the Padres in his first start of the year.
As for Chacin, he’s 3-3 with a 5.82 ERA and 1.382 WHIP in 34 innings. His FIP indicates a bit of bad luck, but he’s had some bad outings, too, including his Opening Day start against the Dodgers.
In that game, Chacin allowed nine runs and was unable to get out of the fourth, giving up eight hits, two walks and two homers. He followed that up immediately with a scoreless 6.2 innings, showing just how unpredictable he can be.
Saturday’s matchup is another intriguing one as Brandon McCarthy has struggled against left-handers so far this year, but has been pretty good overall and Clayton Richard really shutdown the Dodgers earlier this year, and has a league leading groundball rate.
Despite what it looked like in Los Angeles Richard has been hittable this year. The grounders have helped him remain competitive, but his strike out rate is very low. McCarthy is 3-0 with a 3.10 ERA on the year with much better strikeout rates.
Sunday’s game should be credited to Los Angeles now. The Dodgers will send Clayton Kershaw to the mound. Granted, he did give up homers to Hunter Pence and Buster Posey and lost his second game of the year last time out, but his issues with the slider to right-handers doesn’t figure to be a lingering issue. Even if it is, there are only a few Padres that can take advantage of that right now.
Even with the loss, Kershaw is still 4-2 and has a 2.61 ERA and 0.871 WHIP with a 14.67 strikeout to walk ratio.
The unfortunate soul to pitch against Kershaw is Trevor Cahill. He’s 2-2 with a 3.60 ERA and 1.167 WHIP in 30 innings over five starts. He’s been pretty solid in his transition back to the rotation, but solid isn’t good enough against Kershaw.
Betting Trends
Don’t look now, but the Dodgers aren’t the worst team in baseball against left-handed pitching anymore.
Richard dominated Los Angeles in the second game of the season leading to odes of it being the same old, same old against southpaws.
Now, L.A. has Franklin Gutierrez back off the disabled list and swinging the bat pretty well with a .294 average and .922 OPS in his eight games. Cody Bellinger has also been very good since his promotion, helping against the lefties. He’s batting .303 in nine games with a couple homers.
Then, factoring Justin Turner, Yasiel Puig and Enrique Hernandez providing some solid right-handed bats to break up the lefties.
Of course with Adrian Gonzalez and Corey Seager from the left-side, the Dodgers are still more reliable against right-handers, but this is no longer a team that’s defenseless against the southpaw.
Positional Comparison
In pretty much every facet of the game the Dodgers are the stronger team. They’re rotation is better, the bullpen has allowed an ERA 1.5 runs lower than San Diego, and the offense—obviously—is much better, too.
Over the last seven days, the Padres have scored just two fewer runs than the Dodgers despite one less game, yet the Dodgers have the better average .255 to .230. They’re also better in terms of OBP and OPS, but San Diego’s been able to do more with less in the run generation.
Overall, the Padres have scored 28 fewer runs on the year. That’s no surprise given the Padres only batters with an OPS+ above 94 right now are Wil Myers and Yangervis Solarte, the rest have been below average performers.
Myers is the big story. He’s batting .314 with a .923 OPS and has seven homers and 22 RBIs. He’s one of only four players with double-digit RBIs.
BookMaker offers play-by-play betting odds for live sporting events every day! The user-friendly wagering interface on your smartphone provides an easy way to place bets on the go.
Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook!
