The Fish Swim Into Dodger Stadium, Koehler Counters Haren

Dodgers Lineup vs. Marlins-5-12-14

Gordon 2B

Puig RF

Hanley SS

Gonzalez 1B

Kemp CF

Ethier LF

Turner 3B

Butera C

Haren P

Tom Koehler-3-2 vs. Dan Haren-4-1

So what happens when the club that can’t win at home, faces the club that can’t win on the road? I guess you get push against shove. That’s what we may have tonight, as the Marlins come into town to face the Dodgers for a three game series that will conclude the seven game home stand.

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

The Dodgers don’t have to see the Giants again until sometime in July. Good riddance to those jerks. The Dodgers have lost seven out of ten to the Giants, and are 7-12 at home. Meanwhile the Fish are a grisly 3-13 on the road. But the Fish are in second place in the NL East. The improved Marlins are 20-18 and two games behind Atlanta.

The Dodgers are 20-19 and in third place in the NL West. Because of their pathetic play, they are now 4.5 games behind the Giants, and sinking pretty fast.

The Marlins were red-hot, but they just got swept by the Padres, and have lost three in a row. The Dodgers have lost eight of their last eleven games at Dodger Stadium. So something has to give between these two clubs. So will push come to shove?

The Dodgers will face right hander Tom Koehler again. He beat the Dodgers in Miami back on May 2nd, by a score of 6-3. In that game he faced Josh Beckett, and tossed seven shutout innings. The guys is a big ground ball inducer, and hardly walks anyone. This time he’ll face off against Dan Haren. Koehler has been having a good season. He’s 3-2 with a 1.99 ERA, and 0.99 WHIP. He’s whiffed 29 and walked 17 in 45 innings, but has only allowed 28 hits. Giving him his low low WHIP, and ERA. Not allowing hits is an important thing for a pitcher. Koehler is now 1-1 against the Dodgers in two starts, and 0-1 at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers will counter with DanHaren. The righthander took his first loss of the season at Washington last week. He allowed three runs in six innings in that start, but it wasn’t enough.Haren is 4-1 this year with a 2.68 ERA, 36 whiffs, and nine walks. Haren’s walk per nine rate is 1.9.

Gary Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Haren has pitched well against the Marlins, but doesn’t have much to show for it. He is 1-6 with a 3.81 ERA in nine starts. He’s whiffed 56 in 54 frames, and has a 9.3 whiff per nine rate versus the Fish.

The current group of Marlins are hitting .299 (29 for 97) against Haren, with four home runs, and an .849 OPS. Giancarlo Stanton is 4 for 10 with a home run against Haren. So this means the Dodgers must stop pitching to him. The Marlins have home runs from Adeiny Hechavarria, Yelich, and Jeff Mathis.

The Dodgers are still waiting on word on Juan Uribe’s mild hamstring strain. The lovable portly third baseman has been out of the lineup for the last several days, forcing the Dodgers to use Chone Figgins, and Justin Turner. Of course both of them are atrocious, so Uribe couldn’t come back soon enough.

Apparently the Dodgers and Mattingly feel confident that Uribe should avoid the DL. He did do some running and agility training on Sunday afternoon before their game with the Giants. He could even be in the lineup tonight, although I would doubt that. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s a fun footnote to the series. Today is the ten-year anniversary of Alex Cora’s 18-pitch at-bat home run off of Matt Clement and the Cubs. Hell if anyone remembers if the Dodgers won that game or not, but we sure could never forget that epic at-bat. I think the at-bat lasted nearly a half an hour. I remember one of my friends telling me he left the Stadium during the beginning of the at-bat and by the time he drove back to his Los Angeles home, Cora was still batting. Fun stuff.

Let’s do some fishing tonight guys!

Tip for Dodgers – Stop pitching to Giancarlo Stanton please! For the love of god.

Game time – 7:10 PM

Go Blue!