What Was That

The first of this four game deal with the Diamondbacks started out nice and zesty.  They hung three runs in the first and another in the second.  Jumping out early like that made it look like it was going to be non-stop spanky spank but then the bats just went cold.  There was a run in the 5th and a run on the 6th but in the end there is nothing to complain about because they won 6-3.  

Good deal.

The next game was a fiasco.  It started out nice.  Tony Gonsolin looked like a pro and Mookie Betts finally put one in the seats.  Mookie gunned Ketel Marte down at third with a throw that made Yasiel Puig look like Johnny Damon.  It was nice to see him start doing the things that made Freidman give him all that money.

On to the fiasco.  Why on earth would Dave Roberts walk a guy hitting .133 to load the bases for a guy hitting .308?  Walking a lefty to get the right handed matchup is normal baseball but the Dodgers would have had better luck if they just asked Blake Treinen to pitch to Eduardo Escobar lefthanded.

Cody Bellinger still looks awful.  He is hitting .139.  He has only struckout 6 times but he is missing on good pitches.  He came up with the tying run in scoring position and popped up on one pitch to end the game.  It's probably time to move Cody Bellinger back in the lineup.  Have him switch spots with Corey Seager.  That guy is going to get a bill for breaking empty seats with how hard he is hitting the ball.  I think if he hit one off of your cardboard cutouts you would feel while you were sitting on the couch.

Speaking of cardboard cutouts, AJ Pollock looked at a couple of strikes and then swung and missed.  The next time he looked at a strike and fouled a couple off and looked at strike three.  He hit .467 over the previous five games so it was tough to watch him go backward.

Anyway

Tough loss

We'll have to settle for 57-3

Houston Asterisks

Who would have thought that Joe Kelly would be the guy that would start throwing at Houston Astros.  He was still in Boston in 2017.  Of course that Boston team lost to the Astros in the 2017 playoffs so maybe he's still sore about that.  Either way an 8 game suspension is preposterous.  

Of course the nice thing is that The Dodgers swept the adorable little two game mini-series.  They did with an offense that has not come together.  They are leaving a ton of tunner out there and they are looking at a lot of strikes.  It feels like they haven't been able to rinse all the of Turner Ward off of them.  Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger are hitting a combined .196 with only 5 RBIs.  On the bright side they have only struckout a combined 8 times so they are going to figure it out.  It's just that the 60 game season makes it all so urgent.   

It should also be in here that AJ Pollock deserves an apology for that cardboard cutout joke.  He's only had 12 ABs but he's hitting .500 and some of those have been absolute rockets.

So right now they are 4-2 and that has been mainly around starting pitchers have a very decent 2.96 ERA and a bullpen with an outstanding 1.14 ERA.

Once the offense really gets going they will probably go 58-2 for the season.

Right?

Evaporated Optimism

Splitting a 4 Game series with the Giants just didn't seem like a thing that could happen.  It really doesn't matter that the Giants always look like Disney child actors that outgrew their TV shows.  It mattered that they really looked like a bad baseball team in the first two games.

Julio Urias didn't look too sharp.  Overall it was a good outing.  He gave up only one earned run in 5 innings.  If he wants to do that every fifth day I'm sure the almighty Friedman won't be looking for a replacement.  He walked three.  He threw 78 pitched and 51 of them were strikes.  I don't know, maybe it was just that the walks ended up really hurting and maybe it was that a lot of the pitches were nowhere near the zone.  Who knows.

The other alarming detail is that The Dodgers sure did look at a lot of first pitch strikes.  That was new. 

Also

What is going with the #11?  Who remembers the agony of watching a Logan Forsythe plate appearance?  Who remembers the unwashed grouch that Josh Reddick was in his short time with The Dodgers?  How many letters did they waste putting Erisbel Arruebarrena's name on the back of a #11 jersey.  Manny Mota must have run out of middle fingers to give these guys.

Now AJ Pollock goes up there, looks at the ball and refuses to swing.  I thought they sent a cardboard cutout to take his place in the batting order. 

Well he drove and exquisite double into the gap to leadoff the 9th but a popout, a flyout and a strikeout later left things at 3-1 and the Dodgers with a 2-2 split in their opening series.

So they aren't going to win all 60 but they can still go 58-2 and that would be just fine.

This Weird Dodger Season

The nation should be appropriately electrified by the return of Major League Baseball.  There are a lot of weird details attached to the season but most of the good things to do are closed so getting excited about it is easy.

We are only two games in and it should be noted that the Giants look terrible.  However, if the Dodgers are going to play a bad team they are doing what you are supposed to do.  So far they have won both games with a run differential of +15.  They have hit .338 with 13 Walks and 9 Ks.  They have done that with Mookie Betts hitting .182 with one RBI and he isn't going to keep doing that.

In two games Dodger pitching has only walked one batter and that walk was issued by some slob named Jake McGee that they got from the Rockies.

It's a short season so each of these games means a little more important than normal.  Hey maybe the Dodgers can with them all!  Yeah let's see them go 60-0!