The Los Angeles Dodgers have a chance to win a series against the Milwaukee Brewers thanks to some late inning heroics and the play from Will Smith on Friday.
Smith became just the fourth Dodgers catcher to hit three home runs in a single game after, and overall, he has been hitting very well lately after being given the time off to work on his mechanics.
It has paid off in a big way as he is hitting .310/.412/.690 in his past seven games.
The Dodgers rotation who have been one of MLB’s best this season, but it has been going through an extremely rough stretch the past seven games. The starters have been affected by injury, most notably Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but the unit as a whole has severely underperformed as of late.
Against the San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, and now the Brewers, no Dodgers starter has been able to give the club a quality start in the past seven games. Even Gavin Stone, who has been the team’s hottest starter recently, was not immune as he turned in his worst start since April 7.
It’s now James Paxton’s turn to try and right the ship as he gets the start in the second game of the series. It is going to be a challenge, as Paxton is coming off of the worst start by a Dodgers pitcher this season.
Against the Giants on June 30, he surrendered nine runs on 12 hits in just four innings of work, but part of the reason he was allowed to stay in the game for so long was due to circumstance.
Paxton has been the biggest wild card of the Dodgers’ rotation in 2024. Early on this season he was able to work around high walk totals and low strikeout totals, but it eventually caught up to him and teams have been able to more effectively take advantage of the way he is pitching.
He still has the ability to occasionally turn in a quality start, mostly against weaker competition, but the results have been very inconsistent.
The Dodgers offense was able to score four runs against Brewers’ starter Aaron Civale on Thursday, but they will have a much harder test against Freddy Peralta. Peralta has been one of the best strikeout artists in the Majors this season, and his 11.49 strikeouts per nine innings is fourth best.
Overall, he has a 3.83 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, .212 batting average against and 120 strikeouts in 94 innings.
He has been pitching well coming into Saturday’s game, with just three runs allowed in 18 innings pitched.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Vargas would get more of a runway moving forward, but he wanted to get Outman in the lineup today. Both Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages are locked into everyday roles.
Dodgers lineup
DH: Shohei Ohtani
C: Will Smith
1B: Freddie Freeman
LF: Teoscar Hernández
RF: Andy Pages
CF: James Outman
SS: Miguel Rojas
2B: Gavin Lux
3B: Chris Taylor
Brewers lineup
DH: Jackson Chourio
C: William Contreras
LF: Christian Yelich
SS: Willy Adames
RF: Sal Frelick
1B: Rhys Hoskins
CF: Blake Perkins
3B: Andruw Monasterio
2B: Brice Turang
