LOS ANGELES, CA — After Friday night’s 6-2 win at Dodger Stadium, the Giants were tied for first place with the Dodgers in the NL West. They have not been as hard hit by injuries as other clubs, but nonetheless have had some key players go down. Third baseman Matt Chapman, batting .243 with 12 home runs and 30 RBI, just landed on the 10-day injured list due to right-hand inflammation. And don’t look for 42-year-old Justin Verlander to return from his stint on the IL in this three-game series. Right now, the most significant threats at the plate for San Francisco are 25-year-old Heliot Ramos, Humacao, Puerto Rico, .295/11 HR/36 RBI, and Jung Hoo Lee, .275/6 HR/32 RBI.
The Dodgers have fourteen players on the injured list (IL) who make up their forty-man roster, and all of them are pitchers. Ten are quality starters. As of today, their rotation looks like this: Last night’s losing pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Wrobleski, and Ben Casparius.
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Kershaw, 1-0, 4.35, got the start Saturday, as Landen Roupp, 4-4, 3.29 ERA, took the hill for the Giants in game two of this three-game series. It took 69 games for these two rivals to finally meet this year. For a stretch of twenty-six games, the Dodgers will have played the Yankees, Mets, Padres, and Giants twenty times. Who is making up these schedules?
Shohei Ohtani got things started in the bottom of the first inning with a 419-foot bomb into the center-field pavilion, his twenty-fourth home run of the year. And then, in the next inning, the bottom fell out for Roupp as the Dodgers exploded for five runs, sending ten batters to the plate. In the sixth inning, Ohtani hit his second home run of the night and number 25 for the season. It was also number 250 for his MLB career.
2024 National League LatinoMVP Award nominee Teoscar Hernández, Cotui, Dominican Republic, then got into the mix with a 422-foot two-run home run into the Dodger’s bullpen to make it a 10-0 game.
Kershaw would leave with a line of seven innings pitched, three hits, zero runs, one walk, and five strikeouts, and now only needs twelve more to reach 3000 K’s in his Hall-of-Fame career. He gave the Dodgers a much-needed long outing and the fans a fantastic performance.
Image Credit: Emma Sharon/Latino Sports
Both clubs decided to pitch position players for the last inning to save arms. Kiké Hernández, San Juan, Puerto Rico, walked the bases loaded and gave up a grand slam on a 34-MPH fastball to Casey Schmitt. Then, two more hits and an error made the score 11-5. So Dave Roberts had to go to his bullpen anyway, as Anthony Banda mercifully came in to get the last out.
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