The last East Coast road trip of the season starts Tuesday, against two teams with whom the Dodgers should have an easier time. But as we’ve seen lately, that doesn’t always happen.
The Dodgers just barely managed to take one game from the Arizona Diamondbacks, thanks to a walk-off home run from a pinch-hitting Will Smith on Sunday afternoon. Now after an off day, they open up a three-game series in Pittsburgh.
The Dodgers could use starting off in the win column. In the nine series they had in the month
of August, they lost the first game in five of those series and then went on to tie or lose those series.
I’m not sure if this exactly counts as “loss stopper” scenario, but Clayton Kershaw has been excellent in that capacity this season, pitching well when the Dodgers need him to the most. Kersh went undefeated in the month of August and hopes to carry this good pitching through to the end of the season.
The Pirates will send Carmen Mlodzinski to the mound, a right-hander with 3-7 with a 3.86 ERA. Mlodzinski is used mostly in the opener role, with none of his last three outings lasting longer than four innings. The supposed plan by the Pirates is to then bring in Bubba Chandler, their top pitching prospect and a top five prospect in all of baseball. The Pirates are working on stretching Chandler out to be a starter and would like him to go up to five innings in Tuesday’s game.
Chandler has been brought out of the bullpen twice since his call up. In each outing he went four innings and struck out three. He allowed one hit in St. Louis, and two against the Colorado Rockies. He also only walked one batter. Chandler is the first MLB pitcher to go 4.0+ shutout innings, throw fewer than 55 pitches, and earn a win or a save in his first two career appearances.
The 22-year-old righty threw as hard as 101 mph on Wednesday, and owns a 70-grade fastball, 60 slider and 55 changeup. If the Dodgers offense is as it’s been lately, they’ll have to look to score their runs early.
The Pirates 7-3 over their last 10 games, and like the Diamondbacks out to prove themselves. The Dodgers really like to start their road trips off slowly, so not expecting much out of them. It would be great if they proved me wrong, and won the first two before they face Paul Skenes on Thursday. But I’m not holding my breath.
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