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The Dodgers have lost the first two games of their series in San Francisco against the Giants and have yet to score a run against them this week, shrinking their NL West lead to just 2.5 games. Their task does not get any easier in the series finale, as Los Angeles will have to take on the 2014 World Series MVP and Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner. Luckily for the Dodgers, they’ve got their own ace on the mound, with Clayton Kershaw opposing the Giants to try to stop the recent bleeding.
Bumgarner’s season began slightly askew, as he gave up 10 runs over his first three starts, but he’s allowed just eight in his five games since, and is right where he usually is, on pace for over 200 innings and with his current ERA+ (115) matching his career rate. Kershaw’s 2015 has been a bit more worrisome, as he already has two starts where he’s allowed five runs -- that doesn’t sound like much, but we are talking about a pitcher who allowed five runs or more twice in 2013 and 2014 combined. In fact, allowing more than three runs in more than one start already puts him behind last year’s pace, and while you can’t expect Kershaw to always post an ERA comfortably under two, he’s currently at 4.24 with a well below-average ERA+.
He’ll be fine, though: the 2014 Cy Young winner is missing bats like usual and mostly avoiding walks and homers, but has been singled to death and is allowing a .355 batting average on balls in play. He’ll sort things out soon enough, but Thursday would be a good time for it if you’re rooting blue, as if Kershaw and the Dodgers lose, suddenly, the Giants are just 1.5 back. And now they have Hunter Pence in their outfield again, too. It’s almost Memorial Day weekend, so check out mentally at 3:45 p.m. ET and catch what could be a serious pitching duel between last year’s biggest starters.
- Marcus Semien has made a lot of errors -- too many errors, really -- but how much have they actually hurt the Athletics to this point? Enough that they hired Ron Washington back to the organization to help coach Semien, but still, not as much as you’d think!
- The Reds have enough talent on their roster to play things out and attempt to re-sign Johnny Cueto. They also have enough trade pieces and question marks that not selling off everything nearing its Cincinnati expiration date seems foolish. What’s a mid-market baseball team to do?
- It turns out having the last name “McCann” doesn’t inherently keep you from appreciating a flashy baseball play, such as this leaping dive into the fence from the Tigers’ backstop.
- Matt Joyce thought a day game was happening at night, so he showed up late and was benched. On Wednesday, he set roughly a million alarms to keep that from happening again.
- Josh Hamilton hit the first homer of his rehab assignment with the Rangers, and he hit it into a pool. There’s just so much to celebrate here.
- Bartolo Colon hit an infield single, Little League style.
- If you listen to what Red Sox manager John Farrell is saying, it sounds like $72 million Cuban outfielder Rusney Castillo would already be in Boston if he wasn’t away on unofficial paternity leave. That means that once Rusney comes back, he can likely bid Triple-A adieu. Except, like, in Spanish.
- The Mets have a pitching surplus, and the Dodgers are suddenly short a few arms they expected to have. They’re both contending, though, so is there a deal to be made?
- The Padres need to stop giving up homers, but they also need a shortstop, and they hope to address the latter through trade. The other problem? Time might solve it, as would Petco remembering it’s supposed to be pitcher-friendly.
- The Yankees have called up outfield prospect Slade Heathcott with Jacoby Ellsbury on the disabled list.
- The Mariners have a rotation problem that needs to be addressed, both in article form and possibly on the roster, too.
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