Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (38-29) at Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles (45-23)

In Series Previews by berselius102 Comments

Jake Arrieta no-hitters aside, I always seem to expect disaster when the Cubs make trips to California. The Cubs did manage to take two of three from the Dodgers at Wrigley earlier this year as a part of bouncing back from their disaster start to the season.

Even money whether Joe raises a stink over Jansen’s delivery.

Team Leaders

Cubs

  • OBP: Rizzo (.399)
  • ISO: Rizzo (.273)
  • HR: Rizzo (17)
  • R+RBI: Rizzo (99)
  • wRC+: Rizzo (150)
  • BSR: Bryant (1.8)
  • Defense: Baez (6.8)
  • SP K/9: Darvish (10.08)
  • SP BB/9: Hendricks (1.50)
  • SP FIP: Hendricks (3.11)
  • RP K/9: Ryan (10.80)
  • RP BB/9: Kintzler (1.88)
  • RP FIP: Cishek (3.11)
  • WAR: Baez (2.7)

Dodgers

  • OBP: Bellinger (.445)
  • ISO: Pederson (.344)
  • HR: Bellinger (20)
  • R+RBI: Bellinger (105)
  • wRC+: Bellinger (187)
  • BSR: Muncy (2.0)
  • Defense: Bellinger (5.6)
  • SP K/9: Hill (10.40)
  • SP BB/9: Ryu (0.52)
  • SP FIP: Ryu (2.62)
  • RP K/9: Jansen (12.49)
  • RP BB/9: Floro (1.57)
  • RP FIP: Jansen (3.00)
  • WAR: Bellinger (4.5)

Injuries, transactions, etc.

The Dodgers took what would be a big blow to any other team, losing Corey Seager to a hamstring strain in Tuesday’s game. He’s expected to miss 4-6 weeks, but given the amount of firepower in the rest of the lineup they shouldn’t miss him *too* much.

The Dodgers are also missing AJ Pollock, who was a big offseason acquisition but can’t seem to stay on the field. Pollock hit the DL in early May after an infection seemed to flare up in the site of a nasty arm injury that he’s been fighting since 2010. He had another surgery a month ago to fix stuff from the last surgery and is still slowly working his way back.

On the Cubs side, Steve Cishek suffered a shin injury in warmups before Wednesday’s game and had to be carted off the field. No real news on this, but the Cubs website currently lists him as day-to-day, as are we all.

Pitching matchups

K/9, BB/9, ERA, Projected ERA listed for each. The Dodgers haven’t officially released their probable pitchers so I’m guessing here.

Thursday: Jon Lester, LHP (8.50, 2.19, 3.56, 3.97) vs Clayton Kershaw, LHP (8.05, 1.36, 3.14, 3.07), 9:10 PM CT

Friday: Kyle Hendricks, RHP (7.93, 1.50, 3.00, 3.57) vs Rich Hill, LHP (10.40, 2.40, 2.40, 3.91), 9:10 PM CT

Saturday: Yu Darvish, RHP (10.08, 5.47, 4.98, 4.27) vs Walker Buehler, RHP (9.32, 1.55, 3.35, 3.30) 8:10 PM CT

Sunday: Jose Quintana, LHP (7.89, 2.75, 3.89, 3.74) vs Hyun-Jin Ryu, LHP (8.06, 0.52, 1.36, 3.34), 6:05 PM CT (Yet another ESPN game)

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Comments

  1. dmick89

    I think my favorite part of the season so far is Joe getting pissed off at Doolittle’s delivery a couple weeks after debuting CJ’s ridiculous delivery. I’d like to think it was Joe’s attempt at humor.

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  3. BVS

    dmick89:
    A lot of guys pitching in this series with really good control. Then there’s Darvish…who didn’t walk anyone in his last start, even though it was in Denver.

    Fixed?

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  4. BVS

    I really want to read Arenado’s thoughts on cookware care here at OV. Which of our illustrious OV leaders is lining that up?

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  6. andcounting

    Annoying thing about the Arenado comments is how they’re framed in print to make him out like a meathead, when if you watch video of his answers, he comes off as a guy saying he doesn’t want to make a big deal about anything that happened and anyone watching the two series can figure out what was happening. He even questioned Rizzo getting hit as really surprising since warnings had been issued. He said (poorly, obviously) he didn’t want to talk about it but didn’t want to be a jerk so he finally started answering the questions he was being asked. A guy trying his best to politely downplay the whole situation winds up getting quoted in a way that makes him sound angry. He wasn’t at all after the game. It’s intentionally bad reporting to indicate otherwise.

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  19. andcounting

    Only lefties in the lineup against Kershaw are Rizzo and Schwarber (well, Lester too). Kyle is officially officially no longer a platoon player.

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  33. EnricoPallazzo

    dmick89,

    oh wow you’re right. weren’t most projections thinking that both western conferences would be super tight races? maybe i’m thinking of last year. also hard to believe that the twins are 11 games up.

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  34. EnricoPallazzo

    this david ortiz story is really fucking mysterious. apparently the assailants were paid like $8k for the hit? they’ve already arrested 9 people.

    also, not sure if this already came up on here, but zobrist is apparently not getting paid while he’s gone according to mlbtr.

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  35. andcounting

    EnricoPallazzo,

    Kind of interesting they think he might play again this year. With nothing but my gut reaction to how Zo looked this year, I thought he might be retiring even before I’d heard anything about his marriage. I keep going back to legal issues that might be affecting things. I wonder if he might try to come back in August. My reasoning is, he filed in Tennessee, where they live in the offseason, but he may not have established residency there for legal purposes. For his separation/divorce filing to be legit in Tennessee (where he can include fault in the divorce and limit how much money/custody his wife will get), he needs to establish residency for 90 days. If he joins the team earlier than that and spends no actual time in Tennessee, his attorney may worry there will be objections to that residency claim. Come mid-august, he won’t have to worry about that. His 90 days will be up.

    Psychologically though? Being apart from the team may be more devastating than not being paid (especially if he winds up saying her infidelity cost him that pay and is awarded compensation /consideration for that in the settlement). The sudden loss of camaraderie has got to hurt. This is not a fun time for the Zobrists.

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  37. dmick89

    andcounting,

    That makes sense though I absolutely hate the idea of Zobrist trying to keep as much money away from her as he can. He has enough money. I don’t know what happened, but in my experience marriage is a 2 player sport. There’s usually blame to be spread around for marriages that crumble. Mostly though, I just hate the idea of a wealthy man trying to keep money away from his wife. Not a good look in my opinion.

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  39. dmick89

    BVS,

    I’m not even saying she should get half. I have no idea what the fair split is once we consider everything. Maybe it’s half. Maybe it’s not. I don’t know. I’d just much prefer they figure out a way to work it out without resorting to this sort of stuff. This is going to be far worse on the kids than it’s going to be on either of the parents.

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  40. andcounting

    dmick89,

    Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. They’re two adults with more money than 99.9% of humans could ever dream of, all the anger and hurt in the world toward each other, and kids who feel their hearts being ripped apart who just want to know life is going to be ok. Obviously I could be wrong (and hope I am) but the two filings in two states just screams pettiness and fighting to me.

    And I could be projecting, but what are you gonna do.

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  55. andcounting

    Perkins,

    With the Cubs batting, he used Javy’s strike zone, Schwarber’s for the Dodgers. It was determined before the game by coin flip, it’s hard to get too upset.

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  58. andcounting

    Perkins,

    Seems like he made more horrendous ball calls (5-0) against the Cubs and one more horrendous strike call (3-2) in favor of the Cubs. At some point (it seems inevitable) someone will develop WPA for ball/strike calls. The one against Heyward in the 9th that was a good six inches above the zone and made it 0-2 instead of 1-1 (I think) had to be pretty costly.

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  61. Perkins

    I have trouble believing Martin is *that* much better a framer than Contreras, especially since Contreras looks a lot better this year. But Bucknor is one of the handful of umps whose names I remember, so I’ll chalk it up to his being worse at his job than a robot.

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  62. Rizzo the Rat

    I think it’s interesting that Jansen intentionally balked Heyward from second to third when there was a two-run lead in the ninth. His run didn’t matter and he can’t steal signs from third. I’ve actually wondered before why pitchers don’t do this in this situation.

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  86. Perkins

    I’d bitch about Taylor’s having walked on two borderline calls that appeared to be in the zone, but the Dodgers probably wouldn’t have scored in the 6th if Maddon had a quicker hook with Q.

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  92. Smokestack Lightning

    Rizzo the Rat:
    Damn it, Vic.

    Pretty weird that a groundball hitter hit a groundball there.

    Not that there was much choice of who to send up. That’s on Theo. Too many fucking groundball hitters on this team.

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  96. Myles

    That was a rough, rough road trip. Sure doesn’t feel like we went 3-4 against the Dodgers on the year.

    I think you can make an argument that the Cubs are the second best team in the NL, but there is no argument here- the Dodgers are the best team in the NL. They may be the best team in the MLB. Great pitching, great hitting, decent bullpen. Hard to see anyone being favored against them in a 5 or 7 game series.

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  98. WaLi

    Luckily the Cubs have a pretty favorable schedule in the coming weeks.

    Cubs play two against the White Sox, four against the Mets,and four against the Braves all at home before playing three in Cincinnati to finish out the month, with another four against the Pirates in Pittsburgh and two more against the White Sox before All-Star break. Atlanta has won 9 of their last 10, but other than that the others are all sub .500.

    Unfortunately though, I doubt the Cubs will be able to pull ahead of the Brewers by the All-Star break since the Brewers play the Padres, Reds for two series, Mariners, and two series against the Pirates, all of which are sub .500 teams.

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  99. dmick89

    So Kimbrel will make his MiLB debut with the I-Cubs tomorrow, which means he’ll have to be up to big league team by around July 8th. He’ll probably be up before that. It’s moving more quickly than I thought it would be, but I’m guessing June 28th.

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  101. andcounting

    Here’s what I really don’t understand: in seasons past, Joe has shown a preference toward squeeze bunting with a runner on 3rd and less than two outs. Especially in situations in which one run is essential. Even when the other team knows it’s coming, the run scores practically every time. This season? He’s stopped doing it altogether. Last night he could have brought in Lester instead of Caratini and got Almora in to tie the game or at least arrived at the same outcome. Why has he abandoned this tactic?

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