After a tension-filled, chaotic, and also successful stretch against the two toughest opponents in their division, the Dodgers (46-30) have now come out of a brutal 29 game stretch against teams over .500 with real postseason aspirations. Among those are the aforementioned Giants (42-33) and Padres (40-34), in addition to both New York teams, the Cardinals, Guardians, and the Diamondbacks. Their 17-12 record over this stretch with injuries to the rotation and bullpen has been great, and they’ve picked up ground in the NL West despite this gauntlet. According to Tankathon’s rest of season schedule strength, the Dodgers now have the easiest remaining schedule in all of baseball. The Nationals (31-44) come into town scuffling, with a 3-14 record in June, ending an eleven game losing streak yesterday against the Colorado Rockies (17-58) via a James Wood walk-off home run. The Nationals won two of three against the Dodgers back in early April, but the Dodgers haven’t lost a season series to them since 2014. They’ll have to win two of three this weekend to keep that streak alive. Clayton Kershaw is on the mound to open this series, up against MacKenzie Gore who has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this season.
7:10 P.M.
Los Angeles
SS
Abrams (L)
DH
Ohtani (L)
2B
Rosario
SS
Betts
LF
Wood (L)
C
Smith
DH
Chaparro
RF
T. Hernández
1B
Lowe (L)
CF
Pages
3B
House
2B
Edman (S)
RF
Call
LF
Conforto (L)
C
Adams
1B
K. Hernández
CF
Young
3B
Rojas
P
Gore (L)
P
Kershaw (L)
The lineups for both teams look pretty standard against opposing left-handed pitchers. Miguel Rojas and Kiké Hernández are in the lineup against Gore, while Hyeseong Kim, Max Muncy, and Freddie Freeman have the day off.
Here’s how the two offenses compare as a whole.
With some decent offensive showings from the Dodgers over the last week or so, in addition to the Yankees’ (Aaron Judge‘s) recent struggles, the Dodgers now lead baseball in most offensive categories. Over their last nine games, Mookie Betts (27 wRC+) and Freddie Freeman (36 wRC+) have been the worst two hitters on the team, both trailing Michael Conforto (61 wRC+) considerably. Most of the team has been hitting well recently outside of those three. It’s fine to slump, but when the offense falls a bit flat it’s been because the number two and three hitters on the team have been near auto-outs. Freeman hit .319 with a 1.045 OPS in April, .410 with an 1.100 OPS in May, and so far .209 with a .552 OPS in June. Rough stretch for Freddie, and he’s likely struggling in part due to the two injuries he’s dealing with.
The Nationals’ rebuild is seemingly around the corner, but I’m not entirely convinced it’s going to happen. They were blessed with how the Juan Soto trade turned out, but aside from that it isn’t pretty and the timeline isn’t lining up well. They’ve currently had 7.6 fWAR from the Soto trade this season (Wood 3.3, Gore 2.7, CJ Abrams 2.1, Robert Hassell III -0.5), and are extremely limited outside of that. Abrams and Wood have combined for 5.4 fWAR, while the rest of the roster has combined for -2.3 fWAR. Gore has been worth 2.7 fWAR, and the rest of Washington’s pitchers have been worth 3.0.
They have the first overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, and seem likely to draft Ethan Holliday out of high school. Even if he pans out, he’s likely a couple years away from the majors at the least, and they have two years of Gore and three of Abrams after this year. It’s all about stockpiling assets, player development, and timeline management. It’s possible, especially if Dylan Crews breaks out and extensions are handed out to their young stars, but without that it’s hard to see.
Wood has a 161 wRC+, 20 home runs and nine stolen bases with 54 RBI as a 22 year-old before the halfway point of the season, looking like a franchise altering talent. He hit three homers against the Dodgers back when they met in April, with a total of seven RBI over those three games. CJ Abrams continues his great season with a 20/20 pace, while his 129 wRC+ is the fourth highest mark among shortstops. Unfortunately as I mentioned before, they’ve hardly had any contribution from elsewhere in the lineup.
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Here’s how the two lefties compare.
Kershaw’s season started shaky, with a five earned run outing against the Angels in which he didn’t appear particularly sharp at all. He’s shaken off some rust since then, with a 1.90 ERA, 2.98 FIP, and a 1.18 WHIP, with 18 strikeouts to seven walks over 23.2 innings. He’s averaging just 89.1 MPH on his four-seam fastball, 85.7 on his slider, and 71.9 on his curveball, and yet is somehow still getting results. A veteran Hall of Fame pitcher with nearly 3000 innings under his belt seemingly just knows how to get outs. He likely won’t ever demonstrate a level of overpowering dominance again, but he’s getting results and winning games.
His last time out he allowed three hits and a walk with five strikeouts over seven scoreless innings, a vintage performance against the Giants. Prior to that he threw five innings of one-run ball against the Cardinals, racking up seven strikeouts en route to his first victory of the year. He’s now allowed one run or less in three of his last four outings and is nearing closer to 3000 strikeouts. It’s very unlikely he reaches that mark tonight as he needs twelve more, but when he does he’ll become the 20th pitcher to reach that mark, and just the fourth left-hander to make it there.
MacKenzie Gore has had a fantastic year thus far, building upon his solid 2024 campaign and fully breaking out in his age-26 season. His 2.7 fWAR trails just Logan Webb (3.2) and Paul Skenes (3.2) in the National League, while his K-BB% of 27.1% trails just Tarik Skubal (28.8%). His 33.6% strikeout rate and 12.26 K/9 lead all of baseball, while his 119 strikeouts trail only Garrett Crochet (125). Pretty dominant. He has just a 1.45 ERA, 2.32 FIP, and a 0.87 WHIP over his last five starts and 31 innings, but has just one win in that stretch due to his teams recent performance as a whole. He allowed two earned runs against the Marlins his last time out, marking his fifth consecutive quality start. He faced the Dodgers back in early April, going six innings allowing two earned runs with seven strikeouts and earning the win.
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In other news,
Unsurprisingly, Roki Sasaki was transferred to the 60-Day Injured List, eligible to return July 13 at the earliest. Zach Penrod was designated for assignment by the Red Sox after the Rafael Devers trade, and the Dodgers swooped in as they clearly like something about his profile. He was signed out of Indy Ball in 2023 by Boston, and has racked up a ton of strikeouts throughout the minors (in addition to a lot of walks). The 28 year-old lefty has 138 strikeouts in 102.1 minor league innings, but also has 57 walks, eighth batters hit, and nine wild pitches. Perfect.
Makes sense.
Relatively vague PR statement but it’s better than nothing.
Will Klein was acquired from the Mariners for Joe Jacques earlier this month, and has made a few appearances in OKC since acquired. He has 12 strikeouts to one walk in just 5.1 innings. He’s been up to 100 MPH with powerful breaking-balls in the mid to upper-80’s. He might be wild but could be very good.
Good to see Tyler Glasnow nearing his return.
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First pitch is at 7:10 PT on SNLA and MLB Network.
