Dodgers still undefeated against B-Z since July 4th

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 9, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

The Dodgers lost last night but should we have been surprised? They were, after all, playing a team whose name starts with an “A”.  Since July 4th the Dodgers have now only lost to the Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks going 23 – 4 in that span.

When you are on a pace to win over 110 games you have to be really nit picky to find any fault with Dave Roberts but since he has been mostly infallible in 2017 when you find something you might as well run with it.

While watching the game last night, the Dodgers seemed to be in the driver’s seat. They had a 3 – 2 lead, they had Brandon Morrow on the mound, and they had Kenley Jansen waiting in the wings.

Sure Morrow gave up up a single but he had just struck out Ketel Marte very easily. A left handed pinch hitter was being inserted into the game and Joe Davis had just mentioned how only one left hander all year had a hit off of Morrow so it seemed like a no-brainer that Morrow would face Chris Herrmann. 

Split    PA  H  OPS
vs RHB   58 14 .579
vs LHB   38  1 .134

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/9/2017.

Dave Roberts had other ideas and elected to bring in newly acquired Tony Watson. Arizona countered with a right-hand pinch hitter putting Watson at a disadvantage. With one one move, the Dodgers went from having the advantage of a lefty killer Morrow facing a lefty to our own left-hand pitcher having to face a right-hand hitter.  Watson hit Rosales and would eventually give up the grand slam to Jake Lamb. A lucky grand slam, but still a grand slam.

I’m just curious if Brandon Morrow continues to get left-hand hitters out, if Roberts come crunch time is still going to pull him in these kinds of situations come October.