Dodgers Marlins Game Two Preview

Dodgers fell short last night to the Marlins, but tonight they hand the ball to Clayton Kershaw and hope the ace can get it done for them.

Trayce Thompson hit his first home run as a Dodger last night, but the Dodgers fell short by one run.

Tonight Clayton Kershaw gets the ball. Kershaw is coming into tonight’s game with a record of 2-0 and an ERA of 1.50. In his first four starts of this season, Kershaw has already struckout 30 batters. He faced the Marlins one time last year and allowed seven hits and three runs, but struckout nine. Regardless, every time Kershaw gets the ball, there is a hope that the Dodgers are going to come out with the win.

The Marlins will be handing the ball to Tom Koehler. Koehler is coming into tonight’s game with a record of 1-2 and an ERA of 4.80. His first three starts of the season have been short ones. Koehler has only pitched a total of 15 innings in 2016. Last season he faced the Dodgers two times and in those two starts, Koehler gave up three runs, nine hits and struckout ten. So far this season, Koehler has relied on his fourseam fastball and a curve using a knuckle curve grip. His fourseam fastball usually gets batters to ground out and his curve usually results in flyballs.

Tonight’s lineup is above. Carl Crawford makes his return to the Dodgers after being on the DL for his back. Crawford had a few rehab assignments with High A Rancho Cucamonga, the last one being on Sunday. In two of his games at Rancho Crawford went 3-for-8 with two RBI’s. This will be his first game since April 8. Zach Lee, who was called up when Yimi Garcia was injured in Colorado, was sent down to make room for Crawford

Howie Kendrick has this evening off as Chase Utley starts at second and Justin Turner starts at third. Other than that, the lineup is a pretty typical one put together by Dave Roberts. For the first time this season, Yasmani Grandal is behind the plate for a Kershaw start. A.J. Ellis caught yesterday while Grandal played at first. Last year, Kershaw actually put up better numbers throwing to Grandal, but threw more often to Ellis.

Tonight’s first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM and it will be shown on Sports Net LA.