Dodgers Padres Game Three Preview

The Dodgers look for a series win in the finale against the Padres.

Rich Hill is pretty good. Yasmani Grandal is pretty good. The Dodgers won their 75th game of the season yesterday, which is pretty good.

They’re looking for win number 76 today and another series win against the Padres. Sunday afternoon games can seem sort of flat and uneventful, but today’s game should be exciting.

Dodgers Starter

Jose De Leon will make his debut today. Much has been written about the 24-year-old Puerto Rican sensation. With Julio Urias graduating, JDL became the Dodgers top pitching prospect in the system.

Andrew broke down his situation a bit more here. JDL wasn’t on the 40-man roster, so from a pure numbers standpoint it was tougher to get him to the majors. Clayton Kershaw and Andre Ethier are both playing in minor league games, so they figure to be off the 60-day DL. Alex Wood will probably be back at some point (Trayce Thompson, not so much), so the Dodgers needed to keep some flexibility on their 40-man. They had a spot that JDL will slide in to for today, but they’ll need to DFA two or three guys in the coming weeks.

De Leon lives on his fastball/changeup combo and features a slider. There’s no info on him on Brooks Baseball, but his fastball has some life to it and when it’s working, it can make the change up devastating.

JDL will not reportedly not be on a pitch limit. He missed time earlier in the season, which has helped him keep his innings down. He’s topped 100 pitches four times in his 16 AAA starts this season, including a career-high 109 pitches on August 17th.

Padres Starter

Christian Frierich will get the start for the Padres. The lefty has struggled this season, with a 4.84 ERA/4.58 FIP in 100.1 innings.

Friedrich’s ERA hasn’t been under 4.00 since June 29th. He’s done a good job eating innings, as only two of his 18 starts have lasted less than five innings. The Padres have lost his last four starts and he’s allowed 15 runs in those appearances. He threw a scoreless inning in relief on August 30th.

In two starts against the Dodgers this season, Friedrich has allowed five runs in 8.1 innings. He started one of the Kenley Jansen blown saves in San Diego earlier this season, but they lost his other start at Dodger Stadium.

Dodgers Lineup

If there was any doubt, Friedrich is a lefty.

Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Josh Reddick all sit for righties. Reddick should be a platoon, but he’s working on a four-game hitting streak and finally hit one out last night. Joc should not be a platoon, but he could use days off. Seager should be in the lineup pretty much every day, but after being hit on the wrist in Colorado, he was struggling. He had two hits yesterday, but a day off won’t do him any harm right now.

Austin Barnes will make his fourth start of the season, but his first since April 10th. Barnes was one of the first September callups, as pretty much every team called up a third catcher. Yasmani Grandal caught the night game last night, but he’s probably starting over Carlos Ruiz due to his familiarity with De Leon. Barnes caught nine of his 16 starts at AAA this season.

Next: Jose De Leon to start Sunday

In other news, Kershaw is scheduled to start Friday in Miami. He tossed three innings at Rancho yesterday and didn’t allow a ball hit into the outfield. Jose Fernandez is scheduled to throw for Miami, so that game should be fun for everyone but hitters.

First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 PST and will be shown on Sportsnet LA.