The Los Angeles Dodgers have not played a lot of baseball recently, as they had a scheduled off day on Thursday, then saw Friday’s series opener against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park was rained out and rescheduled for April 28 as part of a split doubleheader.
Because of that, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had the opportunity to shuffle the deck in regards to his starting rotation, and he decided to do just that. Roberts opted to start Rich Hill instead of Kenta Maeda on Saturday, and Clayton Kershaw will follow on Sunday so he can stay on a regular five-day schedule.
Maeda’s turn was skipped over in the rotation, so he is available out of the bullpen for the two games with the Giants. He appeared in the first game of the series, tossing a scoreless inning of relief.
The Dodgers have two more scheduled days off this week, as they don’t play Monday before opening a two-game series against the Oakland Athletics at Dodger Stadium, and that’s followed by another day off Thursday.
Roberts has set his rotation for that series with the Athletics, with Alex Wood starting the series opener followed by Hyun-Jin Ryu, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
Wood starts Tuesday, Ryu starts Wednesday, Maeda to bullpen for the week.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) April 7, 2018
Ryu has not pitched since last Monday, so when he takes the mound on Wednesday it will be on nine days of rest. He struggled with his control in his first start of the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks, giving up five hits and three runs while striking out two and walking five in 3.2 innings.
Wood has made two starts on the season, going 0-1 despite a minuscule 1.93 ERA. He has not received a single run of support in either of his starts.
