Reds 10 Dodgers 3 The Pitching Was Some Kinda Bad

If this keeps up, Justin Turner is going to be posing Barry Bonds type figures at age 50. Turner’s wRC+ numbers since 2011 (his first real chance in the bigs) reads  96, 98, 99, 157 (whut), 168 (uhh). The offensive difference between 2015 Turner and Alberto Callaspo as a Dodgers is approximately 77 percentage points, the difference between 2015 Turner and post-April Alexander Guerrero is approximately 102 percentage points so lolol it’s good to have the dude back.

Joc Pederson hit a dong, walked, and hit a sacrifice fly, his plate appearances have looked soooo good lately and the results are following.

Yasiel Puig gritted his way into a run, Enrique Hernandezand Andre Ethier‘s ISO is creeping up to the .200 mark and is closing on becoming the most valuable Dodger outfielder (WAT).

Unfortunately for the Dodgers that was the extent of the good news, Mat Latos pitched and while he got 7 guys make it to strike 3 (7 times the amount he had as a Dodger coming in, so there’s that!), everything else was awful as he gave up 4 earned runs and failed to go 5 innings in his 3rd start. I don’t expect a whole lot coming from the 5th starter on the team, the trade to acquire him was still worth it considering they gave up 3 nobodies to get him, and while he’s a work in progress, his performance vs league average 5th starters is pretty on par, the upside is the big get here.

However, Mike Bolsinger is sitting in AAA looking at Latos’ IP totals since June and saying “hell, I did EXACTLY that, only better!”

It doesn’t end there, J.P. Howell gave up a dinger to Billy Hamilton (DFA), Pedro Baez gave up a dong (he’s still a good option for setup innings but he’s prone to home runs) and Luis Avilan looked like a total tire fire as he gave up 3 runs in 0.2 innings of work (I hope Liberatore beats him out for the postseason roster during September). Jim Johnson (while allowing two baserunners) pitched a scoreless inning which was better than giving up runs I suppose. At least Yimi Garcia is cool and good, pitching a clean inning and a third.

tfw underperformance in the bullpen does little to quiet the narrative Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

The division lead is down to 2.5, i’m prone to chalk this up to the unpredictability of the regular season, however it’s deliciously ironic that Chris Hatcher might be the guy saving the bullpen soon.