Dodgers Ready To Dish Out Some Payback Against Giants

The Dodgers continue their 2014 San Francisco smack down tour on Sunday night Baseball. The game was originally scheduled for 1:05 PM but was moved to 5:10 pm. ESPN jumped at the opportunity to televise this game. And why wouldn’t they? I believe whole heartily that the Giant’s miseries should be shown to a national audience.

Dodgers Lineup @ Giants

Gordon 2B

Puig CF

Gonzalez 1B

Hanley SS

Crawford LF

Kemp RF

Uribe 3B

Ellis C

Ryu P

Hyun-jin Ryu-11-5 vs. Jake Peavy-1-9

It also will show case the Dodger’s talent. I can’t even believe we’re where we are after how bad this club looked earlier in the season. Even just a couple of weeks ago it seemed like we were being frustrated on a daily basis. It was always the offense, or the bullpen, or the injuries. When you consider how bad the Dodgers played against the Giants this year, it makes you kind of take stock in how good this club can be. Well when they want to be.

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Because the Giants embarrassed us in April. Then they embarrassed us in May. The Dodgers were 9.5 games back at one point. The Giants looked like the greatest team in history at that time. They had won 72 of their first 71 games. The Dodgers looked like the worst 230 million dollar club ever assembled. I wanted everyone traded, or fired. Fire everyone! Sell now! My god it was brutal. Bruuuuu-tal I tell you. Although it probably wasn’t as brutal as 2013’s April and May. But you don’t think about that when you’re in the moment. All you know is your team is sucking right then and there. Total road block.

Then the Dodgers started winning games. They won a lot of games in June. Then all of a sudden they’re in first place. Not the same as last year’s epic run, but still pretty awesome. Huh. I guess we don’t have to fire everyone after all. Cool. Then they stopped winning for a little while. Played some .500 ball. Then they won a few. Then they stopped hitting for a minute. That lasted for like three weeks. Then after they lost four of six to the Cardinals and Pirates it looked like they sucked again. Now they look like the best team in Baseball.

Maybe it’s partially because the Giants are the worst right now. Not pitching Dan Haren normally helps. But regardless the Dodgers have been excellent the last two games. Everything they do comes up gold. The pitching has been dominating. The offense productive, and even the defense has been good. They’re even scoring runs late in games. Huh. An actual competitive Baseball club we have here guys. Maybe we don’t have to trade Joc Pederson, Corey Seager, and Julio Urias for Ian Kennedy.

Of course we still should temper our expectations accordingly during the trade deadline. Sure the Dodgers are good right now, but they still have some issues that need to be addressed. The bullpen being one of them. The bullpen needs help.

But it’s important to note that the Dodgers might not make any major moves during the trade deadline. Remember the Dodgers don’t like to fire people. They don’t like to move guys. They like to keep everyone. You know how they do. So just because Corey Seager sneezes, doesn’t mean he’s being traded.  But looking at the responses on twitter you wouldn’t be sure. I can tell you now, the Dodgers are not trading Corey Seager, so we can all relax.

That doesn’t mean Jonathan Papelbon won’t be a Dodger. He probably will, but they won’t have to give up the house for him. As Stacie said it’ll probably be someone we least expect. Like Nancy Patterson. That would be unexpected right? Throw in Roger Owens the peanut guy from the Loge section and you have a pretty good deal.

The Giants are feckless right now. They’ve been feckless for the entire series. The Dodgers have outscored them, 13-1. It’s a lot of fun. It’s like when you were a kid on Christmas and you raced down stairs to open your gifts spread around the tree. Except instead of getting a crummy sweater from weird Aunt Linda, it’s a Kershaw masterpiece. Much better indeed.

Speaking of Kershaw, please watch his latest masterpiece below. I think Kershaw is the best pitcher I have ever seen.

But back to the Giants being feckless. It’s important to remember that the Giants are kind of in some disarray. Brandon Belt is out with injury. Angel Pagan still has a bad back. (don’t want that annoyance coming back soon). Marco Scutaro is old and rusty, and now Matt Cain has a bum elbow. Things have been so bad for the Giants at second base, they actually were forced to sign Dan Uggla. Which is just LOLZ. Well nobody is really forced to sign Uggla, normally a series of grave misfortunes leads to it. Imagine if they had signed Joe Blanton before he retired. I would have passed out from excitement. Hand to god I would have.

Tonight’s pitching match-up will feature Hyun-jin Ryu versus newly acquired Jake Peavy. Before we get to Peavy, let’s talk about Ryu for a minute. Remember when Keith Law called him fringy or something? He said he wasn’t very good, or whatever. But Law is all sorts of wrong. This is proof that nobody is right all the time. He’s wrong because Ryu is good. He’s good, he’s good, he’s good. He’s not great, but he’s good.

Ryu has won his last two decisions. In his last start he beat Pittsburgh with seven frames of two-run ball. Overall Ryu is 11-5 with a 3.39 ERA. He’s whiffed 98 and walked just 22 with an FIP of 2.82. He’s good. Real good.  Against the Giants he is 1-1 this year. Overall Ryu is 3-3 with a 3.24 ERA in seven starts against he Giants. At At&T Park he is 3-1 with a 2.36 ERA in four starts. Good stuff.

Ryu has limited the Giants to a .253 (25 for 99) average against with one home run and an OPS of .673. Only Tony Abreu has homered against Ryu. Just gotta watch for Hunter Pence. He’s batting .444 (8 for 20) with two doubles and five driven in versus Ryu.

The Giants will counter with right hander Jake Peavy. No kidding. I guess Cain’s elbow is so bad, the Giants had to go out and get somebody. That somebody is Jake Peavy. Not surprising when you think about it. Every time we’ve gotten a winning streak going over the years, jerkface Peavy has gotten in the way. I can still remember him with the Padres, yelling at his own catchers. Remember in the four consecutive home run game, how he was yelling at Mike Piazza? “I said fastball! Fastball!” Shut up Peavy, shut up.

Maybe he’s chilled out with the Red Sox? I don’t know. But he’s still somebody I don’t want to see. He’s still not the same pitcher he once was. He’s 1-9 this year with a 4.72 ERA. He’s whiffed 100 and walked 46. He’s allowing 9.5 hits per nine which isn’t great. But his main problem has been the home run ball. Peavy has allowed 20 this year in 124 innings. But I’m sure the Giants feel that putting him in the more spacious ball park of At&t will cut down on some of those.

Oh man, not this dork again-Andrew Richardson-USA TODAY Sports

Peavy has been such a jerkface against the Dodgers. You know what his record is against the Dodgers? 14-2 with a 2.21 ERA. That’s not a joke. In 25 starts he’s whiffed 155 Dodgers. But again he’s not the same pitcher he once was. At At&T Park Peavy is 8-5 with a 3.90 ERA in fourteen starts.

There’s good and bad about the Dodger’s numbers against Peavy. The bad is the current Dodgers are collectively hitting .197 (25 for 127) with four home runs and a .546 OPS against Peavy. But those are mostly old numbers. Although Adrian Gonzalez is hitting .364 with two home runs, and Carl Crawford is batting .313. Uribe and Kemp have the other home runs.

I remember when I said this was a make or break series, and I stand by that. Why? Because of momentum. These are the last head-head games the club play against each other until September. This means the Dodgers can’t let the Giants get back up. They need to sweep. No messing around here. The Giants deserve this for all those awful games in April and May. You made your bed Giants, and now you have to ly in it. I just want the Giants and their fans to suffer. I want every Giant fan to have a terrible day at work on Monday. You deserve this Giants.

The Dodgers return home after the game to kick off an eight game home stand, starting with a series versus Atlanta. So kick back and relax and get ready for the big payback!

Game time – 5:10 PM

Go Blue!

Defeat SF!