The Los Angeles Dodgers are tops in baseball, 40-games over .500 and running away with a stacked NL West. In a battle of first versus worst, the Dodgers will host the San Francisco Giants over the weekend and try and get back over .500 against them this year. Of all the teams to struggle against, L.A. has struggled to find its way against the league’s worst team.
This series will be contested from Friday, July 28, 2017 through Sunday, July 30, 2017 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Saturday's game is being shown live on Fox Sports 1 with Sunday’s clash airing on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.
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Pitching Matchups
The Dodgers have Clayton Kershaw on the DL, but they’ll still run out three straight left-handers against the Giants turning to Alex Wood, Rich Hill and Huyn-Jin Ryu. The Giants will get lefty-happy, too, turning to Matt Moore and Ty Blach before finally sending a right-hander to the bump in the person of Matt Cain on Sunday.
For Friday’s matchup, Wood will try and bounce back from his first bad start of the year. The southpaw recorded his first loss as the Braves knocked him around for nine runs in 4.2 innings.
Even with the blow up, Wood is still 11-1 with a 2.17 ERA and a 0.974 WHIP. He’s been that good.
In his last start against the Giants, Wood had a rather mediocre performance, allowing four earned runs in five innings. He still got the win in that start. Interestingly, the game before he went six scoreless, allowing one run against the same San Francisco team. He won that game, too.
While Wood will look to bounce back from a rough start, Moore is looking to bounce back from a rough season. He allowed four runs in six innings in his last start and hasn’t allowed fewer than four in three straight games.
He’s 3-10 on the year and the Giants are 6-14 in his starts. He’s pitching to an elevated 5.82 ERA and 1.617 WHIP, allowing 11.2 hits per nine innings including 17 homers in 111.1 innings.
Moore will make this start on the road where he’s been a complete disaster. He’s 1-4 with a 7.61 ERA and 1.933 WHIP away from AT&T Park.
Blach starts Saturday and has been the anti-Moore. He doesn’t have nearly as good of stuff. He’s striking out 3.1 fewer batters per nine innings. Despite the peripherals, he’s avoided the longball while giving the Giants some quality innings. He’s 6-6, which is excellent on this team, and has a 4.50 ERA in 106 innings.
That matches up better than Moore, but is still not great. Blach matches up with Rich Hill who is pitching well right now. The veteran curveball specialist is 7-4 with a 3.48 ERA. He’s not one to go deep in the game, but will give you five or six solid frames. He’s allowed just four total runs in 25.1 innings over four starts in July. He’s 3-0 in those starts. The Dodgers have won eight of his last 10 starts. He went five innings in his last appearances against the Giants, allowing one run.
The Dodgers will hope to be in pursuit of a sweep on Sunday with Ryu pitching against Cain.
Ryu is one of six Dodgers’ starters with at least 14 starts. He’s just 3-6, but while his 4.17 ERA is worst amongst Dodgers’ starters, it would be tops in San Francisco outside of Madison Bumgarner’s seven starts.
Ryu is the weakest link in the Dodgers’ rotation, but he still qualifies as a quality mid-rotation arm on most teams.
He’s certainly better than Cain who is 3-9 with a 5.45 ERA. Each time the Giants are ready to remove Cain from the rotation, someone gets hurt to lure him back in. At this point, he’s a starter after necessity for innings than anything he’s shown on the mound.
Betting Trends
Eduardo Nunez is gone and is now in Boston as the Red Sox’s old third-baseman is in the Giants’ system. We figure to see a return of the Panda in San Francisco before the season is out.
As of now, the trade of Nunez merely means that the only .300 hitter on the team not named Buster Posey is now gone.
The Giants’ offense is terrible. Hunter Pence is a shell of his former self with a .634 OPS. Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik are having down years. Without Nunez, Brandon Belt becomes the team’s second best hitter. He may have been that anyway given his team leading 16 homers, but he’s batting just .238.
Posey and Belt are the only two Giants with above average OPS+ numbers. They’re also the only two with at least nine homers. That’s particularly telling this year in the year of the home run.
The Giants offense has scored the third fewest runs in baseball. They’re a bit better in July, but still rank in the bottom third of the league.
The Dodgers, on the other hand, have only been outscored by Washington and Colorado in the NL. They’re first in all of baseball in team ERA at 3.12. By comparison the Giants aree ranked No. 21, giving up more than a run and a half more per game than L.A.
Despite the superior numbers, San Francisco has gotten up to play the rival Dodgers this year. They’re 6-4 against the boys in blue.
Players to Watch
Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager and Justin Turner have been the talk of the offense. Surprisingly, Turner’s having the best season of the three even with Bellinger’s 28 bombs and Seager’s team leading 101 hits.
Turner is batting .362 to lead the NL and has a .456 OBP and .556 slugging percentage. He’s continued to improve since the Dodgers plucked him off the scrap heap. The next reclamation project turned star may be Chris Taylor. Like Turner when he first got to Los Angeles, Taylor is a man without a position, seeing time in the outfield and infield. He’s got the third best OPS on the team at .929 and is hitting .320.
On the mound, keep an eye on Pedro Baez. The Dodgers are looking for someone to setup Kenley Jansen on the trade market, but don’t overlook Baez. The right-hander has been an excellent set up man with a 1.48 ERA. Between he and Jansen, the game is over after seven.
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