Dodgers-Braves Game 1: Welcome Kevin Correia, Balls In Play Afficionado

This guy is starting. Which. Well. Okay, I guess

Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Kevin Correia (5-13) vs Julio Teheran (10-8)

4:00 PM Pacific Time, ESPN

The Dodgers avoided a sweep behind Clayton Kershaw‘s masterful performance yesterday in Milwaukee, and now head to Atlanta to face a struggling Atlanta Braves team. All eyes will be on Yasiel Puig and whether he desecrates the sacred “A” sign behind home plate like the disrespectful Bryce Harper. This prompted many many hot takes and if there’s ever a chance for some drama, it’s there.

The Atlanta Braves are an interesting team, they’re 3 games over .500 which is odd when a team has as much young talent like Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran, Alex Wood, Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel who is putting up one arguably the greatest season a relief pitcher has had in the past 50 years, Andrelton Simmons, etc, etc. This Braves team is young, good, scary, so it’s odd that they’ve lost 9 out  their last 11 games. I guess that’s what happens when you house Dan Uggla, B.J. Upton, get almost nothing out of 3b, the bottom of your rotation. So this is definitely a team of extremes, great talent followed by the definition of “replacement level” fill ins trying to catch up to the Nationals.

Newest addition, Kevin Correia is starting today and this tweet says all that needs to be said about that

Yeah. A pitcher who essentially doesn’t walk anyone doesn’t give up a ton of home runs, doesn’t strike out anyone is the definition of a #6 starter who is being used pretty much for the sole purpose of giving Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Zack Greinke rest down the stretch.

Thankfully the Dodgers could use it considering that they have a 4.5 game lead on the Giants coming into tonights game, and one pretty significant thing i’d like to point out is, look at the Dodgers schedule. By this time next week the hardest stretch the rest of the way will have been out of the way. The Dodgers will only have 3 more series’s the rest of the way against teams with records over .500 (2 of which come against the Giants), most of which come against the NL West and judging by the Dodgers’s postseason probabilities 

That’s an excellent place to be at.

Adrian Gonzalez is hot, Matt Kemp is hot (and has fixed his swing), Yasiel Puig is an MVP contender, etc, etc, lets hope this is one of the games that Kevin Correia’s ball in play luck is on point as the Dodgers try to steal on in Brave Country.

Lineups:

Dee Gordon 2B

Yasiel Puig CF

Adrian Gonzalez 1B

Matt Kemp RF

Carl Crawford LF

Justin Turner 3B

A.J. Ellis C

Miguel Rojas SS

Correia P