Hello,
For those that stumble on this blog randomly I cheer for 5 MLB teams, although the team that I've been cheering for the longest is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I've been cheering for the Dodgers since the days of Lopes, Garvey, Russell and Cey. My goal is to write a Dodgers Daily every Dodgers game day. I also cheer for the Cubs (no matter how painful that is), Red Sox, Braves and Pirates. I will occasionally write about those 4 teams as well.
After a much needed day off the Dodgers went into Atlanta for the first game in a 3 game series. The Braves were able to win 8-5. LA actually produced some offense in this game and broke out of their we can't score more than 4 runs in one game rut. They scored 5 runs in this game, but remain in 29th place in all of MLB in terms of runs. The offensive stats explosion came from 3 unexpected sources. First was Nick Punto, who continues pushing to be the second best Dodger in the 2012 Dodgers-Red Sox trade. Adrian Gonzalez clearly is the best Dodger involved in that trade. Right now Carl Crawford is slightly ahead of Punto in that category as Punto continues to raise his batting average. Punto was 2 for 4 and is now hitting .341. Punto also added his second stolen base of the season.
The second unexpected source of offense was starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu. He had a hit and drove in his second run of the season. Ryu has as many RBIs (2) as both Justin Sellers and Luis Cruz, which tells you how ineffective those two players have been. Third, the biggest pleasant surprise is Scott Van Slyke. He hit his second and third home runs of the season today and has done that in only 5 games. LA's offense has been sorely lacking in home runs. How bad has it been? Van Slyke, in 5 games, is tied for 3rd place in homers on the Dodgers with those 3 home runs. Van Slyke is also hitting .333 so far this season He also made a nice sliding catch in his first start of the season. That catch was ESPN SportsCenter #8 play of the day Saturday morning.
Where has Van Slyke been all season, he's been in Triple A Albuquerque. Obviously if he keeps on playing like this he won't be going back to Albuquerque.
Ryu, one of three highly effective Dodgers starters, struggled with his pitching in this game. He gave up 5 hits, 5 walks and 2 earned runs. 5 was his number for this game as he also pitched 5 innings and had 5 strikeouts. The Dodgers offense stuck with the 5 theme and scored 5 runs. That's just enough offense to ensure that Ryu didn't get the loss. He remains 4-2 as his ERA rises to 3.42. This Dodgers team still won't be making the playoffs though, they now have a 5.5% chance of making the playoffs. I don't even have faith that they'll crawl out of last place in the NL West in the final standings.
Van Slyke was a nice surprise, but the story of this game was Justin Upton's sixth inning grand slam. That's his MLB leading 14th home run. Upton had 5 more RBI's in this game, which means he's tied for 17th place in that category. Jason Heyward had 2 of the 9 Braves hits and raised his batting average to .145, hopefully he's making his way back.
The Braves are now 23-18 and are in first place in the NL East. They lead the second place Nationals by.5 games. According to ESPN.com they have a 74.8% chance of making the playoffs.
Saturday will be a battle of struggling pitchers: the Dodgers Chris Capuano vs. the Braves Kris Medlen. Capuano is 1-2 and has had a tough time, I'm sure he didn't expect to be such a vital part of LA's rotation this season. Medlen had that magical run at the end of the last season where Atlanta had double digits consectutive wins with Medlen pitching. However he's not having the same kind of success so far this season. He's only 1-5 with a 3.44 ERA, which is a decent ERA. However that's not currently reflecting positively in his win-loss record.
Currently the Pirates are one of the hottest teams in MLB. Pittsburgh won their 4th straight game and have won 7 of 10. They've surged into a second place tie with the Reds in the NL Central. Both teams have a 25-17 record and are 2.5 games behind the 27-14 first place Cardinals. The Pirates, Red Sox and the Reds are tied for the 4th best record in MLB. Too bad Pittsburgh is in the same division as the team that has the best record in MLB. Pittsburgh continues to battle for respect and I hope they don't have a second half of the season fade as they did the last two years. Pittsburgh has increased their chances of making the playoffs to 47.1%.
themusicaddict
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