Pitching and Hitting

 OK we are going to look at the week of August 3rd to August 10th.  Over those 7 games The Dodgers only hit .189.  The looked like they were not there to play baseball at all.  They looked like they were there for the free sunflower seeds.  Wait!  During this whole Covid deal they are not allowed to have sunflower seeds.  We might be onto something.  

Anyway

Of the 42 hits they managed, 12 of them were Home Runs so they still averaged 4.9 runs a game over that stretch.  They struck out and average of 6.7 times a game and that is well below the league average.  That's just always a good sign.

During those seven games the starting pitchers had an ERA of 4.48.  The bullpen has an ERA of 2.13.  A pedestrian result from the starters and a strong result from the relievers.

Somehow they went 4-3 over those seven days.

Things only got better from there

San Francisco Giants Again

 The Dodgers have five losses so far this season and three of then have been to the Giants.  The 7-10 Giants.  The Dodgers are surviving on good pitching and timely hitting.  They are batting .234 for the season.  They are batting .256 with runners in scoring position and .266 with runners in scoring position and 2 outs.  That's how they can hit .185 for a three games series and still win two out of three.

Who can complain.

Charlie Steiner is another really great broadcaster.  He brought up how it's not just Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy who forgot how to hit the ball.  There are several All-Stars that are not even close to what they are capable of doing.  

Here is how we are going to look at that.  If you take the stats of the top 10 guys from last season and added it all up they hit.321.  They were averaging .21 Home Runs, .58 RBIs, .36 Walks and .75 Strikeouts per game.

So far this season those same 10 guys are hitting .258.  The per game deal is .13 Home Runs, .44 RBIs, .46 Walks and .82 Strikeouts.

So it's not just Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy.  What a relief!

There's still time

55-5

San Diego Padres

 Someone on MLB Network said that the Padres were going to be good.  Since that turned out to be true let's assume it was Harold Reynolds.  That guy does a good job of liking baseball and talking about it.

The Dodgers won the series 2-1 and that's good considering how atrocious the offense was.  Over the three games series they hit .200 with 22 Strikeouts.  Let's give credit where credit is due.  The staring pitchers for the Padres looked really good.  Lamet and Richards both had velocity and serious movement on their pitches.  

The starters for the Dodgers had a 4.86 ERA over the three game set so the person that we have decided is Harold Reynolds was spot on.

It seems like the difference was that the Dodgers got the hits they needed when they needed them.  The other difference was that the Padres looked like they tried to do too much when it came to base running.  I don't if that was players losing their marbles or Glenn Hoffman just waving everybody through but it helped.

The Dodgers are 9-4.  Hopefully Mookie's finger is feeling better and Corey's calf is feeling better and Cody's whatever stops getting in the way.

Now the Giants are coming back to town.

They are the next step toward...

56-4

Seven and Three

OK seriously, so far so good.  If you take a moment and consider that one weird move by Dave Roberts, they could have swept the Diamondbacks and had an MLB best 8-2 record.  It might have been an insane, untreated syphilis crazy type of move but let's let that go.

Cody Bellinger was given a day off on Saturday and in his first at bat on Sunday he hit his first Home Run of the season.  That was great.

Mookie Betts has finally become Mookie Betts and that's great.

Starting pitching has and ERA of 2.66 making them the 5th best in MLB.  The bullpen has been out of this world!  They have and ERA of 0.99 so all together the pitching staff has an MLB best 1.84 ERA.

Now it's time to beat up on the Padres.  They have scored an MLB best 59 runs so far so we are about to find how good the pitching really is.

57-3!  Sure.  No problem.