Greinke And Dodgers Look To Beat Up On The Snakes Again

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Dodgers Lineup @ Arizona-4-12-14

Yasiel Puig CF

Matt Kemp RF

Hanley Ramirez SS

Adrian Gonzalez 1B

Scott Van Slyke LF

Juan Uribe 3B

Justin Turner 2B

Drew Butera C

Zack Greinke P

Zack Greinke-2-0 vs. Wade Miley-2-1

Well the Dbacks are certainly down in the dumps right now. And it’s the Dodger’s job to rub their faces in the garbage. Now is the time for the Dodgers to seize this opportunity, by crushing the Dback’s souls. The Dodgers must stomp them into the ground by sweeping them.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Now is the time. You have to beat up on these teams that aren’t paying well, when you get the chance. Especially a division rival that you hate. Watching the Dbacks and their fans suffer brings me joy, and warmth inside of me. It’s quite a wonderful feeling seeing Arizona’s season unraveling so quickly.

The Dodgers need to keep tugging on that string until the entire ball of yarn has been turned into a huge messy ball of unraveled string.

So they’ll give the ball to Zack Greinke today in order to get that series win, and continue to beat on the Snakes. Greinke is already 2-0 on the season after his wins over San Diego and the Giants. Last Sunday Greinke threw 6.2  frames of two-run ball to lead the club to a 6-2 win over the Giants.

However, Greinke has never pitched well against Arizona, and especially not at Chase Field. Greinke is 2-3 with a 5.32 ERA against Arizona in eight starts. At Chase Field he is 2-2 with a 5.88 ERA in six starts. But, and this is a big but, the current group of Snakes are hitting just .230 (29 for 136) with just three home runs, and a .609 OPS against. Paul Goldschmidt is 4 for 12 with a home run. Aaron Hill is hitting .333 (10 for 30) with a home run as well.

PA

AB

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

BB

SO

BA

OBP

SLG

Aaron Hill

31

30

10

1

0

1

1

0

3

.333

.355

.467

Miguel Montero

18

16

4

1

0

1

2

1

7

.250

.333

.500

Gerardo Parra

18

17

4

0

0

0

0

1

4

.235

.278

.235

Martin Prado

15

15

3

1

0

0

2

0

3

.200

.200

.267

Eric Chavez

14

14

1

0

0

0

0

0

4

.071

.071

.071

Paul Goldschmidt

13

12

4

1

0

1

1

1

4

.333

.385

.667

Cliff Pennington

12

9

0

0

0

0

0

3

2

.000

.250

.000

Tony Campana

7

7

1

0

0

0

0

0

5

.143

.143

.143

Mark Trumbo

3

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

.333

.333

.333

Wade Miley

2

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

1.000

1.000

1.000

Randall Delgado

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

.000

.000

.000

A.J. Pollock

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

.000

.000

.000

Total

135

126

29

4

0

3

6

6

34

.230

.276

.333

The Snakes will counter with left hander Wade Miley. The big left hander has made three starts this season, and is 2-1 with a 4.05 ERA. Miley won his last start against Colorado with an eight inning two-run performance. Miley has a career 3-2 record against the Dodgers, with a 3.52 ERA in eight starts. At Chase Field he is 17-10 with a 3.77 ERA. The Dodgers have already beaten Miley once this year, back on opening day in Australia. Miley threw five innings in that game and allowed three earned runs, and lost to Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers by a score of 3-1. Here’s how the rest of the Dodgers have fared against him.

Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

PA

AB

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

BB

SO

BA

OBP

SLG

Andre Ethier

17

16

4

0

0

0

2

0

3

.250

.294

.250

Hanley Ramirez

15

14

5

1

0

1

3

1

0

.357

.400

.643

Matt Kemp

13

12

5

0

0

2

3

1

3

.417

.462

.917

Adrian Gonzalez

12

11

2

2

0

0

1

1

4

.182

.250

.364

Juan Uribe

11

11

1

1

0

0

1

0

2

.091

.091

.182

Scott Van Slyke

10

9

3

1

0

2

3

1

0

.333

.400

1.111

Dee Gordon

9

9

3

0

0

0

0

0

3

.333

.333

.333

Yasiel Puig

9

8

2

0

0

0

0

1

3

.250

.333

.250

Tim Federowicz

3

2

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

.000

.333

.000

Justin Turner

3

3

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

.333

.333

.333

Zack Greinke

2

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

.000

.000

.000

Total

104

97

26

5

0

5

13

6

19

.268

.317

.474

Don’t forget that Kemp is hitting .417 (5 for 12) with two home runs against Miley. Since Miley is a lefty, I expect for Don Mattingly to send out his left squashing unit today, and load up the lineup with right handers. But just look at that lineup above. Mattingly is experimenting again. But seriously, what’s the reason for Turner to be playing at second base? Do the Dodgers really expect to score runs when the bottom of the lineup is Turner/Butera/Pitcher? Just let Gordon play against lefties for god’s sake.

Hopefully the Dodgers can keep squashing the hopes and dreams of the Arizona Dbacks. You can watch the Dodgers pound on the Snakes at 5:10 PM on SportsnetLA. The Dodgers have also announced that Dan Haren will start in Sunday’s series finale against Trevor Cahill. Check back in after the game for all the highlights from our recap.

Go Blue!