The fab five (Joc,Matt,Puig, Max, Cody) have now hit 18 home runs in the month of June in only seven games. That is redonkulous
| Name | GS | PA | HR | OPS |
| ▼ | ||||
| Joc Pederson | 5 | 21 | 6 | 1.81 |
| Cody Bellinger | 5 | 25 | 4 | 1.48 |
| Matt Kemp | 7 | 31 | 3 | 1.197 |
| Max Muncy | 6 | 28 | 3 | 1.179 |
| Yasiel Puig | 6 | 25 | 2 | 1.232 |
How do you play your five hottest hitters when you only have four positions for them?
The Dodgers have four positions for five very hot hitters. Matt Kemp has been here all along, Max Muncy announced himself in mid – April, Yasiel Puig joined the party in Mid May, Joc Pederson got the call last weekend, and Cody Bellinger showed up this week.
The June numbers are ridiculous for these fab five.
| Name | GS | PA | HR | RBI | OPS |
| Joc Pederson | 4 | 17 | 5 | 7 | 1.941 |
| Matt Kemp | 6 | 27 | 3 | ?10 | 1.314 |
| Cody Bellinger | 4 | 21 | 3 | 5 | 1.311 |
| Yasiel Puig | 5 | 23 | 2 | 5 | 1.253 |
| Max Muncy | 5 | 24 | 2 | 4 | 1.017 |
Dave Roberts has found a novel way to get all five in the lineup by giving the Dodgers “best hitter” Justin Turner rest two days this month due to lingering soreness in his wrist.
At some point do they really let Max Muncy play 2nd base? I hope the beat writers are all over Dave at the scrum today, asking that question.
For those counting that is fifteen home runs from those five in just six games in June. The team only hit twenty-five home runs for the whole month of April. Last year the Dodgers hit 53 home runs in June, the only month they hit more than forty in a month so maybe this team just loves June dingers?
However Dave figures it out, it is a good problem to have, and we can only hope the team continues to make it tough to make out a lineup because of the production from all involved.
Dodgers start and end successful roadtrip with bullpen games
By any measure, the recent Dodger road trip through the Rocky Mountains and Pittsburgh was a resounding success but it wasn’t easy and Dennis Santana was as involved as anyone could be who only got fourteen outs in those six games.
On the first game of the road trip, the Dodgers decided to use Dennis Santana out of the bullpen instead of making the start, and eventually used six pitchers to record a satisfying opening series victory over the Rockies. The game was started by Scott Alexander and he was followed by Dennis Santana who had a rocky major league debut giving up five runs while recording just fourteen outs. He left the game with a 12.27 ERA and sadly for him it may be a while before he has a chance to lower it. Luckily for the Dodgers, the offense was in full Coors mode and scored eleven runs and even got the win for Santana. Not many pitchers can boast of receiving a win in their debut while giving up five runs with only fourteen outs. In fact the previous sentence made me wonder how many times it had even been done. Not many, and never by a Los Angeles Dodger though old friend Luis Avilan did it as a member of the Atlanta Braves. The list below uses 1958 as the cutoff date.
Player Date Tm Opp Rslt IP H ER BB SO Dennis Santana 2018-06-01 LAD COL W 11-8 3.2 6 5 1 4 Braden Shipley 2016-09-14 ARI COL W 11-6 4.0 8 5 1 3 Luis Avilan 2014-04-14 ATL PHI W 9-6 1.0 4 5 1 1 Addison Reed 2013-06-05 CHW SEA W 7-5 3.0 5 5 1 5 Paul Clemens 2013-04-09 HOU SEA W 16-9 4.0 6 5 1 0 Ed Whitson 1986-04-29 NYY MIN W 14-11 3.1 6 5 4 3 Jim Slaton 1983-07-10 MIL CHW W 12-9 2.2 6 5 2 3 Tom Johnson 1977-09-16 MIN TEX W 9-7 4.0 8 5 1 0 Diego Segui 1974-06-11 BOS OAK W 10-9 2.0 5 5 1 2 Bob Veale 1971-07-20 PIT SFG W 11-7 4.0 6 5 3 0 Orlando Pena 1970-08-01 PIT ATL W 20-10 4.0 7 6 0 2
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Generated 6/8/2018.
The Dodgers used six pitchers in that game but that was nothing compared to what happened on the getaway game yesterday. Dennis Santana was scheduled to make his first actual start for the Dodgers but while warming up the Dodgers noticed his slider was not effective and it turns out Dennis was feeling some lat pain and was bumped from his start. Daniel Hudson took the start and nine pitchers later the Dodgers had managed another bullpen victory. For all the pain I’ve given the Dodgers over using a short bench they needed every pitcher they had on the roster during this six-game road trip.
The offense was the real story of the road trip. The Dodgers had only scored one run in their last game at Dodger Stadium before heading off to Coors but they found their offense just in time. The Dodgers scored 11, 12, and 10 runs in the three-game sweep of the Rockies and followed that up with 5, 9, and 8 runs in Pittsburgh to take two of the three games.
Fifty-five runs in six games is a good start to the month of June. The rotation isn’t as bad shape as you’d think based on the twitter chatter. They are lined up nicely this weekend with Walker Buehler, Alex Wood, and Ross Stripling going against the young stud Braves. It only gets dicey starting next week but we will get to that come Monday.
Dodgers rolled dice and crapped out
The Dodgers didn’t have to hand the ball to a twenty-one-year pitcher who had only started two games in AAA and wasn’t on the 40-man roster but that is what they choose to do for the Wednesday night game. It was exciting for everyone but in the end, it was too much to ask of Caleb Ferguson and he wasn’t able to get out of the second inning, taxing a bullpen, and wasting a nine-run effort by the offense.
I also want to take this moment to say I wasn’t really happy with the SNLA producers focusing on the family as much as they did. It was clear his mother was a nervous wreck and they could have just gone with the beginning shot and let it play out as Caleb pitched. These emotional shots of the family after every batter was annoying. I know they got a lot of mileage out of Bellinger’s family last summer but that was because Cody was hitting a home run at a historic pace.
The Dodgers had picked up P.J. Conlon off of waivers from the Mets and he could have started for the Dodgers. He had made two starts for the Mets and while they were not good starts there had to have been a reason the Dodgers had picked him up on waivers. Conlon had last pitched on May 22nd and could have easily made the start. Instead, they had to release Conlon to make room for Caleb Ferguson. I’m not sure why but it did give birth to this great tweet by Conlon.
— PJ Conlon (@pjconlon29) June 6, 2018
The Dodgers could also have gone with Manny Bañuelos who was scheduled to pitch for OKC on Wednesday but they didn’t. Manny was signed for depth and by the time you have to reach for a kid with only two starts at AAA you would think the guy signed for depth would get the call. Manny has earned that start with a solid season at AAA, including getting his command under control for the first time in his career. At 27 he has always fought the Wild Ass Lefty label but you can’t call him that in 2018 with only nineteen walks in sixty innings. On Wednesday night as Caleb couldn’t get the Dodgers two innings, Manny threw one of his best games of the year for OKC, getting seventeen outs, strikeout out ten of those seventeen and walking only three.
With the news that Dennis Santana couldn’t make his start today, will the Dodgers give Caleb Ferguson another start or will Manny Bañuelos get the call?
Caleb was a bit unlucky in his debut. The first hit batter was a bad pitch, but the second hit batter just barely skimmed the hitter. The hit that put him out of the game was a ball that was right on the chalk, one more inch it could have been foul and who knows how that inning turns out. You could easily make a case the Caleb deserves another start, but you could also make a case that Manny Bañuelos deserves that assignment.
Either way, it is not a good look for the Dodgers that they have already had to dig this deep into OKC to plug holes, but at least for now these holes are just temp with Kenta and Hill ready to go very soon.
How did the Dodgers resurrect their season?
On May 16th the Dodgers were 16 – 26 and had lost six games in a row to the likes of the Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins. They were only 8.5 games out of 1st place because the Arizona Diamondbacks were involved in their own freefall.
The Dodgers are now 30 – 30 and very much back in the NL Western Division hunt, as well as the best record in the National League.
How did they get here?
It wasn’t with Clayton Kershaw who has pitched all of five innings during the hot stretch.
It wasn’t with Justin Turner leading the offensive charge when he returned on May 15th, as Justin Turner has put up a measly .660 OPS since he returned.
It wasn’t with the Catchers who forgot how to hit in May and so far in June.
It was because of these guys, some improbable, some not so improbable.
As someone who has time to time had trouble with Dave Roberts in-game decisions, his playing personnel decisions are a big reason why the Dodgers are now 30 – 30.
Dave choose bullpen pitcher Ross Stripling to become a starter when the team needed one instead of Brock Stewart who was already stretched out and Ross rewarded that Dave Roberts decision to become the best pitcher for the Dodgers, and the second best pitcher in the NL during his run.
Dave looked at Max Muncy and decided he needed to get his bat into the lineup and moved Cody Bellinger to CF to make room for Max at 1st base after Justin Turner had returned from the DL. This was a very questionable move at the time and the kind of move that might make Dave Roberts the Manager of the Year. Max only had an OPS of .775 on May 15th, it was not like anyone was clamoring to “get Max Muncy into the lineup”.
Yasiel Puig went on the DL April 28th with an OPS of .500. Puig returned on May 9th and put up an OPS of .970 in May, and currently has a June OPS of 1.441.
Matt Kemp – what can you say about Matt Kemp? He’s been everything he wasn’t supposed to be. The bison is back and combined with the Wild Horse the Dodgers have run roughshod over the NL pasture.
Walker Buehler has been the most impressive rookie hurler since the days of Clayton Kershaw.
Chris Taylor took over shortstop duties on April 30th. He had an OPS at the time of .695. As the Dodgers starting shortstop he has put up an OPS of .930. The man he replaced had a career OPS of .866 and was considered a MVP level player. What does that make Chris Taylor?
Joc Pederson was late to the party and was a realistic candidate to go to AAA and be replaced by Alex Verdugo who is considered by many the best position prospect in the system. Joc couldn’t buy a home run and had a May OPS of .602. Many, including myself, wondered which one of Cody Bellinger or Joc Pederson would get sent to AAA because it seemed one of them probably needed to jump-start their season in AAA. Joc went into Coors to start June and had one of the most productive games for any Dodger this season. Joc followed that up with a big game last night. His June OPS now sits at 1.600 but we have to keep several things in mind. Joc did this damage at Coors and against a Pirate pitcher who he had homered against three times. Could this be a harbinger of things to come? He certainly has the talent and has shown it in the past.
Kenley Jansen was certainly a big part of the Dodger struggles in April, but he has righted the ship and is now in Jansen cruise control, making all Dodger fans feel safe again when he takes the mound to protect a win in the 9th inning.
How about Scott Alexander. Scott was the big bullpen acquisition this past winter but he looked like a bust when he sent to AAA to get straightened out. Scott left for AAA with an ERA of 6.35, he returned on May 9th. Over his next twelve appearances, he has given up a run just once. Scott has become a big part of the bridge to Jansen.
The rest of the bridge has also been quite good. Fields, Baez, Cingrani, even Erik Goedell. Dodger fans no longer cringe when the bullpen is summoned as once again, Dodger management has proven fluent at building that Jansen bridge.
Kenta Maeda needs to get a mention here. He may be on the DL right now but when the Dodgers needed some big games from a piece of the rotation, Kenta delivered the goods.
All in all, it was a bizarre team effort that has the Dodgers at 30 – 30 and it makes me look forward to the next 60 game stretch.
Can Dodgers continue to ride the Oklahoma pitching train?
Only one Dodger is still standing at the moment from the opening day rotation, thus the Dodgers have repeatedly dipped into their AAA affiliate at Oklahoma to replenish the battered rotation.
Caleb Ferguson will be following in the footsteps of Walker Buehler, Brock Stewart, and Dennis Santana. Walker Buehler, for now, looks like a permanent part of the rotation even as the Dodgers try to manipulate his innings. Brock Stewart has made two starts but the Dodgers seem to think he’s better suited in the bullpen. Dennis Santana hasn’t actually made a start even though it was really a start when he followed Scott Alexander last week in his debut. Dennis will get his first major league start tomorrow, which means the Dodgers will be using two pitchers who started the season in AA in back to back starts on Wednesday/Thursday this week.
What can we expect of a 21-year-old with two AAA under his belt? David Hood at Truebluela gives us a rundown of what Caleb bring to the mound.
Ferguson primarily pitches off of his high spin four seam fastball, which sits around 92 mph in the early innings but he can reach 94 mph when he needs it. His velocity did tend to tail off to 90-91 mph in the middle innings but he didn’t show signs of laboring in his mechanics or command. His fastball has slight armside run, and he primarily pitches up in the zone and can keep the ball above the barrel. The fastball wasn’t a true swing and miss pitch, but he was able to keep hitters from squaring it up much.
David also notes that Caleb’s primary strikeout pitch is his high spin curveball. Caleb also throws a changeup but doesn’t use it much.
Luckily for Caleb the Pirates are in a bit of a hitting slump having been shutout two games in a row by an identical score of 5 – 0 while the Dodgers are hitting home runs like the 27 Yankees.
The Dodgers have played four games in June and have hit three home runs in every game this month. Headed into June the Dodgers had only hit three home runs three times in their previous fifty-six games.
Ramon Martinez has the best game score for any LAD starting debut 21 years or younger.
Caleb Ferguson is only twenty-one years old and thus here is the game score leaderboard for Los Angeles Dodgers who made their debut start at the age of twenty-one or younger.
Ramon Martinez has the highest game score at 68. Rick Sutcliffe showed in Sept of 1976 what was to come in 1979 when he won the ROY award. That is kind of odd don’t you think? They gave the young Sutcliffe a start in Sept of 1976 but he didn’t make another start until 1979 when he went onto win the ROY.
I feel bad for Urias in that he will always be on the bottom of these lists and it will never change until another Dodger starter bombs in their debut. I hope it isn’t Caleb.
Gcar Player Age Date Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc 1 Ramon Martinez 20.144 1988-08-13 W 2-1 7.2 4 1 4 5 68 1 Rick Sutcliffe 20.100 1976-09-29 W 1-0 5.0 2 0 1 3 65 1 Edwin Jackson 20.000 2003-09-09 W 4-1 6.0 4 1 0 4 64 1 Doyle Alexander 20.295 1971-06-26(2) W 4-3 8.0 7 2 0 3 63 1 Clayton Kershaw 20.067 2008-05-25 W 4-3 6.0 5 2 1 7 60 1 Don Sutton 21.012 1966-04-14 L 2-4 7.0 7 2 1 7 59 1 Bill Singer 20.153 1964-09-24 L 3-4 6.1 4 1 5 1 57 1 Nathan Eovaldi 21.174 2011-08-06 W 5-3 5.0 4 2 2 7 56 1 Dennys Reyes 20.085 1997-07-13 W 9-3 6.0 4 3 4 6 54 1 John Duffie 21.349 1967-09-18 L 2-7 5.0 3 1 3 4 52 1 Chad Billingsley 21.321 2006-06-15 W 7-3 5.1 6 2 2 3 49 1 Mike Kekich 20.068 1965-06-09 L 3-7 3.1 2 4 5 5 40 1 Julio Urias 19.289 2016-05-27 L 5-6 2.2 5 3 4 3 35
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Generated 6/6/2018.
LAD debut starts in the 21st century
Dennis Santana didn’t get to make this list due to the Dodgers sleight of hand regarding who started and who relieved last week, but from what I gather, Caleb Ferguson will actually start the game tonight so I thought we could look at all the debut starts for the Dodgers. I limited this to the 21st century because the list would be quite long otherwise.
If you were new to the Dodgers and saw Ross Stripling with the best game score of any Dodger debut start in the 21st century you might not be surprised that he’s been the best Dodger pitcher in 2018. The rest of us are a bit shocked.
Gcar Player Date Tm Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc IR 1 Ross Stripling 2016-04-08 LAD L 2-3 7.1 0 1 4 4 74 1 Kazuhisa Ishii 2002-04-06 LAD W 9-2 5.2 2 0 3 10 72 1 Hiroki Kuroda 2008-04-04 LAD W 7-1 7.0 3 1 0 4 71 1 Kenta Maeda 2016-04-06 LAD W 7-0 6.0 5 0 0 4 66 1 Edwin Jackson 2003-09-09 LAD W 4-1 6.0 4 1 0 4 64 1 Matt Magill 2013-04-27 LAD L 4-6 6.2 4 2 2 7 63 1 Clayton Kershaw 2008-05-25 LAD W 4-3 6.0 5 2 1 7 60 1 Stephen Fife 2012-07-17 LAD L 2-3 6.0 4 1 3 1 58 1 Jose De Leon 2016-09-04 LAD W 7-4 6.0 5 3 0 9 57 1 Nathan Eovaldi 2011-08-06 LAD W 5-3 5.0 4 2 2 7 56 1 Derek Thompson 2005-05-28 LAD L 4-5 5.0 2 2 4 4 55 1 Red Patterson 2014-05-01(2) LAD W 4-3 4.2 2 1 3 1 54 1 Hyun-Jin Ryu 2013-04-02 LAD L 0-3 6.1 10 1 0 5 50 1 Chad Billingsley 2006-06-15 LAD W 7-3 5.1 6 2 2 3 49 1 John Ely 2010-04-28 LAD L 3-7 6.0 6 5 3 4 41 1 Brock Stewart 2016-06-29 LAD L 0-7 5.0 8 5 2 7 36 1 Julio Urias 2016-05-27 LAD L 5-6 2.2 5 3 4 3 35 1 Zach Lee 2015-07-25 LAD L 2-15 4.2 11 7 1 3 16
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Generated 6/6/2018.
It has been sixty years since a LAD starter did what Caleb Ferguson is going to do tonight.
Only two Los Angeles Dodger pitchers have ever made their debut as a starter against the Pittsburgh Pirates and you have to go all the way to the inaugural season of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958 when these two starters did it.
Gcar Player Date Tm Opp Rslt IP H ER BB SO GSc 1 Bob Giallombardo 1958-06-21 LAD PIT L 7-11 4.0 7 5 3 2 27 1 Ralph Mauriello 1958-09-13 LAD PIT L 4-9 0.1 3 3 1 1 33
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Generated 6/6/2018.
Yeah, I have never heard of Bob Giallombardo or Ralph Mauriello but with good reason.
Bob Giallombardo only made five starts in his career and they all came in 1958 at the age of 21. Even though his debut did not go well, Bob actually pitched well in 1958 and I don’t know why his career ended so quickly which led me to try to find out why but was was unsuccessful. I did find this cool tidbit.
The Brooklyn-born lefthander joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in their new home on the West Coast in 1958 after his showing in Reno the season before. Giallombardo was the star pitcher at Lafayette High School in Brooklyn the year after Sandy Koufax graduated from the same school. Bob was 1-1 in five starts with his victory coming by a 3-2 score over the Cincinnati Redlegs.
Ralph Mauriello also never pitched for the Dodgers after 1958, making only two career starts. Investigating why Ralph had such a short career I stumbled across this story and it struck me as I was reading it, that this is why I’m still blogging. The column in the LA Times was written in 1989 by Jeff Myers and the first sentence is what caught my eye.
Like Bob Uecker, who has raised self-deprecation to an art, former Dodger right-hander Ralph Mauriello of West Hills enjoys poking fun at his major league career, which spanned 12 innings at the tail end of the 1958 season.
West Hills!!! Ralph had been living right under my nose and while the story was written when he was 54 he is now 83 and still alive. I wonder if he still resides in West Hills.
“I went into Buzzie’s office and he showed me a list with the names of 11 pitchers,” Mauriello says. “They were going to keep 10. At the bottom of the list it said ‘Erskine or Mauriello.’ They kept Erskine.”
We can only hope that young Caleb Ferguson not only has a better debut than Bob or Ralph, but that he has a much longer Dodger career. No one was expecting Caleb to be making any starts for the Dodgers in 2018 but here we are and as we all know, debut games are must watch games.
He only has to follow a team shutout. In case you missed my earlier write-up on Caleb when he got promoted to AAA here it is.
In his AAA debut last week Caleb kind of announced himself to those who had never heard of him. He went five innings, gave up 3 hits, zero earned runs, zero walks, and struck out ten. The kind of game that if Walker Buehler or Dennis Santana had thrown would have gotten all sorts of oohs and aahs.
Max Muncy laughs at the MLB draft
Most of the baseball world will be looking at their new draft picks and salivating about things to come, and certainly, the Dodgers have done well enough in the draft to brag about the likes of 2016 ROY Corey Seager, 2017 ROY Cody Bellinger, and newest Dodger rookie sensation Walker Buehler. They were picked number one, number four, and number one respectively in their Dodger draft class.
But the Dodgers of 2018 are being led not by draft whiz kids, but by journeyman and castoffs. We are talking about Max Muncy, Ross Stripling, and Matt Kemp.
He’s batted 126 times. Out of the 298 players with at least 100 plate appearances, Muncy’s wRC+ ranks in the 90th percentile. Meanwhile, his expected wOBA, based on Statcast inputs, ranks in the 97th percentile. By hard-hit rate, he ranks in the 94th percentile. And by chase rate — out-of-zone swings — he ranks in the 90th percentile. Out of everyone with at least 50 tracked batted balls, Muncy ranks third in the rate of batted balls hit between +10 and +40 degrees. At last, his contact rate is basically average.
At the end of a long column, Jeff Sullivan says he can see shades of Matt Carpenter another non-prospect who didn’t get established in the major leagues until his age 26 season. Carpenter started out a 2nd baseman, moved to 3rd base, moved to 1st base, and this year has played all three positions. Matt Carpenter is a very valuable baseball player, and if Max Muncy can even sniff that career, that is a huge win for a man who anyone in baseball could have had for virtually nothing.
Ross Stripling is starting tonight after finishing one of the best months of May by a right handed Los Angeles Dodger starting pitcher in history. The table below shows you how he ranks for any LAD who made at least five starts in the Month of May with an ERA below 1.50. It is an exclusive list with only Mike Morgan being the abberation of brilliant Dodger pitchers. Yet, if Ross Stripling can put up a run of Mike Morgan Dodger seasons, it will be more than anyone expected headed into 2018. The K rate is ridiculous, but just as outstanding is the SO/W rate.
| Player | Split | Year | SO | GS | IP | H | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don Drysdale | May | 1968 | 45 | 0.53 | 8 | 68.0 | 46 | 0.853 | 6.0 | 3.75 |
| Kevin Brown | May | 2003 | 36 | 1.02 | 6 | 44.0 | 28 | 0.795 | 7.4 | 5.14 |
| Zack Greinke | May | 2015 | 31 | 1.05 | 5 | 34.1 | 21 | 0.816 | 8.1 | 4.43 |
| Ross Stripling | May | 2018 | 41 | 1.2 | 5 | 30.0 | 24 | 0.933 | 12.3 | 10.25 |
| Don Drysdale | May | 1967 | 44 | 1.2 | 7 | 60.0 | 47 | 1.000 | 6.6 | 3.38 |
| Mike Morgan | May | 1989 | 31 | 1.27 | 5 | 35.1 | 25 | 0.962 | 7.9 | 3.44 |
| Don Sutton | May | 1969 | 38 | 1.29 | 7 | 56.0 | 39 | 0.893 | 6.1 | 3.45 |
| Don Sutton | May | 1975 | 46 | 1.35 | 7 | 60.0 | 38 | 0.800 | 6.9 | 4.60 |
Eveyone has already written about Matt Kemp but suffice to say, WOW.
Of course I now cross my fingers that Muncy, Stripling, and Kemp don’t turn into June pumpkins, but if they do, Dodger fans can’t forget they kept the ship afloat in May when very few were.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 