After being swept in two separate series against the Angels (16-29) last season, the Dodgers (27-18) found a way to secure the win in the series opener despite losing Blake Snell to injury prior to first pitch. The bullpen combined to allow just two hits in their shutout win, with eight different pitchers logging at least one inning. Will Klein started the game and secured two scoreless innings before handing the ball over to Edgardo Henriquez, the first of seven relievers who would each log exactly one inning. The offense did their job rather surprisingly, putting up six runs on Jack Kochanowicz, including three home runs. One by Andy Pages, another by Max Muncy, and one by Teoscar Hernández, who has had encouraging results as of late. Today will be the toughest of the three games against the Angels, as José Soriano will be on the mound for Anaheim. Soriano has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this year, and is a real threat to completely shut an offense down in every start he makes. Justin Wrobleski will take the ball for the Dodgers, looking to pitch deep into the game and allow the bullpen to reset a little bit after a taxing series opener.
 |
 |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| 6:38 P.M. | Anaheim | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | 3B | Grissom |
| SS | Betts | CF | Trout |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | SS | Neto |
| C | Smith | DH | Soler |
| CF | Pages | RF | Adell |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | 2B | Peraza |
| LF | T. Hernández | 1B | Schanuel (L) |
| RF | Call | C | O’Hoppe |
| 2B | Kim (L) | LF | Siri |
| P | Wrobleski (L) | P | Soriano (R) |
The Dodgers are now on a three-game winning streak, and while that does include two shutouts by the pitching staff, they’ve also averaged five runs a game over those three wins. While it’s not an offensive powerhouse clicking on all cylinders, it’s enough to put the pitching staff in a position to pitch freely and not have to be absolutely perfect. Kyle Tucker will have the day off as Alex Call starts in right field, and Freddie Freeman will be back in the lineup as Dalton Rushing heads to the bench. Call is hitting .310 and has an incredible .434 on-base percentage through 51 plate appearances this season. Sure, those marks probably aren’t sustainable long term, but he’s grinding away in every at-bat he gets. He has a 17.0% walk rate compared to just an 11.3% strikeout rate, with nine walks to six strikeouts this season.
——
Here’s how Wrobleski and Soriano have fared thus far.
Soriano has the fourth lowest ERA among 100 pitchers with at least 40 innings this season, at 1.66 through nine starts. He had a 4.26 ERA across 169.0 innings last season, but it always felt like there was room for improvement for the 27 year-old. He’s tapped into that this year, with his strikeouts increasing to a well-above average mark of 28.4% up from 21.0% last season, while his walks have fallen from 10.8% to 9.3%. He had a 0.24 ERA through his first six starts, allowing just one earned run over 37.2 innings, but has allowed nine earned runs over his last three starts. He faced the White Sox in back-to-back starts, and allowed a total of eight runs against them across nine innings, and faced the Blue Jays his last time out. Toronto really struggled against him, as he allowed just one run over 7.2 innings with seven strikeouts and one walk.
Soriano sits in the upper-90’s with his sinker and four-seam fastball, routinely flirting with 100 mph on the gun. He throws each fastball variant roughly a quarter of the time, with a mid-80’s curveball and a low-90’s splitter rounding out his arsenal. He faced the Dodgers last season and went six scoreless innings, while allowing just two hits with six strikeouts. He’s been the Angels’ ace and the offense will have to be sharp to put up runs against him. The Angels are 7-2 in his outings, and 9-27 when anyone else starts.
Wrobleski had a 1.25 ERA entering his most recent start against the Braves, but all the talk was about how unsustainable his performance was while generating so little swing-and-miss. He had just 15 strikeouts through 36 innings, a staggeringly low 10.5% strikeout rate. It was inevitable that he had an outing where he got hit around, and it came at the hands of the dangerous Atlanta offense. It was an interesting outing for Wrobleski, as he allowed four runs early, but was pretty much in cruise control after that. His pitch count was low and despite being down 4-0, the game flow, his pitch count, and the ease of his innings just continued to keep him in the game.
He gave up a solo homer in the eighth inning to Drake Baldwin, but Dave Roberts decided to let him keep going and return for the ninth inning, going for a very odd five earned run complete game loss. Unfortunately, Matt Olson hit a leadoff homer in the ninth, Mike Yastrzemski was hit by a pitch, and Wrobleski was pulled just one out from a complete game. His final line was 8.2 innings on seven earned runs, seven hits, and one walk with seven strikeouts. There’s at least a little bit of humor in the fact that the start in which he struck out the most batters in a game as he has all season, he gave up seven earned runs. Anyway, he’ll look to bounce back against an Angels offense that has been one of the worst in baseball over the past few weeks.
——
In other news,
The Dodgers acquired the 27 year-old righty from the Orioles last month, and he has 16 strikeouts in 8.1 innings with Oklahoma City out of relief.
======
First pitch is at 6:38 PT on SNLA.