An interesting line-up this evening. A rare day out of the starting line-up for Geraldo Perdomo, who has started 56 of the 59 games played at shortstop, and played all but 32 innings there. Jose Fernandez get his fourth start at the position instead, and Tommy Troy gets to experience life as a designated hitter for what I think is the first time. That’s what you get for hitting a home-run last night, Tommy. Or maybe for that… interesting attempt at a diving catch, which led to the Dodgers’ first run.
Ryan Waldschmidt takes over in left, and Jorge Barrosa gets consecutive starts for the first time in about four weeks (May 7-8). Presumably a reward for some excellent plays there yesterday.
Like Merrill Kelly, Michael Soroka’s outings have tended to go, based on the quality of the opposition, which isn’t a good omen for tonight. His last five wins have all come against teams who were at or below. 500 at the time of the game, and conversely, his last two defeats were against teams with winning records. You have to go back all the way to April 4th to find a decision for Soroka which did not follow that pattern. On that day, he beat the Atlanta Braves, who were 6-2 going into play that day. On that basis, the best we can hope for is a no-decision and a bullpen win, like last night’s contest.
It might help that he has only started against the Dodgers twice in his career (plus one relief appearance), and one of those starts was back in the dim and distant past of 2019. The other time was June last year, as a National – and he did indeed take a no-decision, allowing three runs over 5.1 innings in an eventual 13-7 loss, after Los Angeles were blanked through five. Miguel Rojas (4-for-10) is the only current Dodgers to have more than five PA against Michael. Rojas and backup catcher Dalton Rushing are the sole ones with hits. Meanwhile, Nolan Arenado and Ketel Marte both have OPSs over 1.100 against Eric Lauer, in 33 + 22 PA respectively. Perdomo is 0-for-5, which may factor into his day off.
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