Hello,
In the first of a 4 game series between the Dodgers and the Rockies, LA won 6-1. For what it's worth: LA seems to really like the score 6-1, it's been the score of 3 of their last 4 games. In the recent past the Dodgers beat San Diego 6-1 on Saturday, June 22nd. They beat the Phillies 6-1 on Sunday, June 30th.
The heroes in this Dodgers victory were two players that have struggled this season so far. A.J. Ellis has been the best Ellis on the Dodgers this season, well Mark Ellis decided to throw his hat in the ring. Mark was 3 for 4 on Thursday and had 4 RBIs, although he's only hitting .261 this season. Mark Ellis is fifth on LA for number of RBIs this season, 26. He's right behind A.J., who's in 4th place, and has 27 RBIs. In batting average, excluding all the outliers, Mark Ellis is 9th on the Dodgers. In batting average, again he's right behind A.J., who's hitting .271.
The other maligned player who was a hero in the game for L.A. was Chris Capuano. He was blitzed in his last start, but he had a decent outing on Thursday. In 6.1 innings he gave up 6 hits, 0 runs and he added 8 strikeouts. Capuano improves to 3-6 as his ERA decreases to .463. Speaking of Capuano, I answered my own question about why Capuano was pitching yesterday. It's because LA is going with a rotation of 5 starters.
On the day Yasiel Puig found out he wasn't going to the All-Star game, he was 2 for 4. He raised his average back up to .397. He left the game due to a minor injury and may miss Friday's game. It's time for his teammates to pick up their games anyway. Hanley Ramirez was 0 for 2, his batting average decreases to .402. Even though he was 0 for 2, he still ended up on base 3 times. He walked 3 times, including at least once intentionally. His On Base Percentage (OBP) is .458 and he leads LA in both OBP and batting average. Adrian Gonzalez was 2 for 5 and is hitting .302.
Errata: The fragile Carl Crawford again entered the game as a pinch hitter, he was 1 for 1 and increased his batting average to .274. Crawford isn't just very durable and he'll probably miss a lot of games until his contract finally runs out and LA can dump him. I watched some of the Rockies broadcast of the Rockies -Dodgers game last night. It was mentioned a couple of times at least how Brandon League was the only Dodger who didn't play in LA's 14 inning game against Arizona. (Even Zack Greinke got in that game as a pinch hitter and earned a walk.) Why would Mattingly play him in that game, in fact why would he play him at all? It's not a big surprise the only run the Rockies scored on Thursday was against the terrible League. He gave up Carlos Gonzalez's 25th home run this season. League's ERA is at 6.25. That was hell of a signing by Ned Colleti and LA gets to pay League for two more years.
LA is above .500 for the first time since April, one of the great nuggets I found out from ESPN. LA is 46-45 and their chances of reaching the playoffs increase to 35.2%. LA has won an incredible 16 of 19 games and are easily the hottest team in MLB. They are probably at least one significant move away from being the best team in MLB. It would help LA towards that goal if they had a healthy Matt Kemp and Crawford. I would estimate right now that LA is about the 10th best team in MLB. They aren't even the best team in California right now, that would have to be AL West leading Oakland. The A's play the Red Sox in a 3 game series starting Friday, I hate when my teams play against each other.
LA still trails the Diamondbacks by 1.5 games in the NL West. Arizona is 48-44 and has a 51.3% chance of reaching the playoffs. LA's defeat of Colorado means that the Rockies trail the Dodgers by 3 games for second place. With 3 more home games against the Rockies, the Dodgers could do a lot of damage to Colorado's playoff hopes.
The scheduled pitching matchup is the amazing Clayton Kershaw (8-5,1.89 ERA) vs. Juan Nicasio (4-4, 5.31 ERA.)
Meanwhile the AL East remains incredibly competitive, the top 4 teams in that division won Thursday. Leading the AL East is the Red Sox, who beat the Mariners 8-7 in 10 innings. Boston also continues to lead all of MLB in runs scored. They have scored 28 more runs than the second highest scoring team Tigers. Boston is 57-37 and they lead the second place Rays by 3.5 games.
The Rays beat Minnesota 4-3 and have won 8 games in a row. In third place is the Orioles, who beat Texas 3-1. Chris Davis hit his 34th home run and has 86 RBIs. While his power numbers are still very impressive, his batting average has declined significantly. He'd been hitting about .330 just a few weeks ago, but has dropped to .310. The Orioles are 5.5 games back.
Meanwhile Team Drama, the New York Yankees beat Kansas City 8-4. New York welcomed back Derek Jeter, he ended up being 1 for 4, who had a hit on his first at bat of the season. Meanwhile Alex Rodriguez was scheduled to avoid and ignore questions by MLB investigators on Friday. Meanwhile the Yanks are secretly hoping, well maybe not secretly, that he gets suspended so they can save a lot of money. The Yanks are 6 games back. The Jays lost and they trail the Red Sox by 11.5 games.
themusicaddict
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