Dodgers Diamondbacks Game One Preview

The Dodgers welcome the Diamondbacks to LA and welcome an old friend back to Dodger Stadium.

Yesterday’s game was a bunch of fun. Jose De Leon had a bit of trouble, but overall turned in a very solid major league debut. Yasmani Grandal continued to kill baseballs and Yasiel Puig hit his first homer since returning to the majors. The Dodger win+Giants loss put the Dodgers three up in the division and shrunk their magic number to 24 (it’s never too early to look at that).

The Dodgers welcome another NL West foe to Chavez Ravine as the Diamondbacks make their last trip here this season. They’re only two games ahead of the Padres for fourth place in the division and have been this season’s offseason champion-turned-disappointment.

Dodgers Starter

Kenta Maeda held down the fort pretty solidly as the ace, but with the rotation finally getting healthy, he’s pretty much the number three starter now. Maeda will be making his team-leading 27th start of the season and has a solid 3.38 ERA/3.69 FIP. He struggled a bit with the longball in August, allowing six homers in five starts.

Maeda’s coming off a solid start at Coors, where he allowed two runs in five innings. He only threw 88 pitches and he’s working today on five days rest, so he should be able to turn in another solid outing.

This will be Maeda’s fifth shot at the Diamondbacks. He’s allowed 22 hits in 22 innings against them this season with 10 runs (nine earned). He has a 20-3 strikeout-walk rate and at Dodger Stadium, he’s allowed two runs in 12.1 innings.

Diamondbacks Starter

This is weird. Zack Greinke starting a game at Dodger Stadium against the Dodgers. Greinke, of course, had three marvelous seasons as a Dodger. In LA, the lowest he finished in Cy Young voting was eighth.

Greinke’s success led to him exercising his opt-out clause. It seemed like he was staying or heading to San Francisco, but the Diamondbacks swooped in and offered him a huge contract. Can’t blame him for taking it, can’t blame the Dodgers for passing on it.

Greinke had a terrible start to his Diamondback career. It took him nine starts to get his season ERA under 5.00, as he gave up 32 runs in 56.2 innings to start the season. Last season, he gave up 41 runs in 222.2 innings.

He finally started to look like Greinke before missing a month with an oblique injury. He returned in August with a nice start, but had a disastrous start in Boston, allowing nine runs in 1.2 innings. He’s coming off a nice outing in San Francisco, allowing an earned run in six innings and outdueling Johnny Cueto.

He started in Arizona against the Dodgers in June and allowed two runs in seven innings. Corey Seager took Greinke deep, but Paul Goldschmidt and Jake Lamb took Mike Bolsinger deep to give Arizona a 3-2 win.

Dodgers Lineup

With a righty on the mound, the Dodgers send out their normal lineup. Josh Reddick is on a nice little four game hitting streak and has hits in seven of his last 13 at bats. When he’s going, this lineup is incredibly deep. It seems safe to say that Reddick and Puig are in a platoon, at least until one of them starts massively outplaying the other. Both are seeing the ball well of late, so right field could be a strength moving forward.

Luis Avilan was recalled from OKC today. He was already on the 40-man, so he doesn’t have to replace anyone.

The Dodgers set their rotation for the Marlins series over the weekend. Clayton Kershaw goes Friday, with Rich Hill and Maeda throwing Saturday and Sunday. De Leon’s next start is in question, depending on how Scott Kazmir‘s rehab assignment goes.

First pitch is scheduled for 5:10 PST and will be shown on Sportsnet LA and MLB Network (blacked out)