With their 30th comeback victory of the season on Friday against the San Francisco Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers extended their winning streak to six games. The Dodgers also improved to an MLB-best 72-31, or 41 games over .500. For perspective, the Giants, on the year, have won a total of 40 games.
With a win on Saturday, the Dodgers will even up the season series against the Giants, with six wins apiece for each club. Taking the mound for Los Angeles is Rich Hill, who looks to end the month of July with another quality start.
In his last outing against the Atlanta Braves, Hill allowed six hits and two earned runs in 6.1 innings, complete with eight strikeouts. It was the his sixth consecutive start with at least seven punchouts.
For the year, Hill has pitched to a 3.48 ERA, 3.58 FIP and 1.22 WHIP in 72.1 innings with an excellent 10.8 strikeouts per nine ratio. In the second half alone, Hill has posted a 2.38 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and .244 opponents’ batting average over 11.1 frames.
The 37-year-old owns a 2.62 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in nine career starts against the Giants (55 innings pitched).
Making his 17th start of the season (24th overall appearance) for San Francisco is Ty Blach, who looks to rebound from a loss on Sunday against the San Diego Padres.
In the outing, Blach allowed five earned runs on eight hits in seven innings with seven strikeouts. It was Blach’s fourth game of the year in which he gave up at least five runs.
The 26-year-old has pitched to a 4.50 ERA, 3.93 FIP and 1.32 WHIP in 106 innings this season. By home runs per nine innings, Blach has yielded the least amount of homers among qualified National League pitchers (0.8, nine total).
Against the Dodgers in his career, Blach has posted a minuscule 1.17 ERA and 0.70 WHIP in 23 innings.
Corey Seager slugged two home runs in Friday’s opener against the Giants, including the game-winner. It was the young shortstop’s second multi-home run game of the season and sixth dating back to 2016. On the season, he’s batting .293/.385/.516 with 24 doubles, 18 home runs and 53 RBI.
Giants outfielder Denard Span, who’s been mentioned in trade talks, is slashing .300/.352/.500 over his last 55 plate appearances with seven doubles and a home run.
Dodgers lineup:
LF: Chris Taylor
SS: Corey Seager
3B: Justin Turner
1B: Cody Bellinger
2B: Logan Forsythe
RF: Yasiel Puig
C: Yasmani Grandal
CF: Joc Pederson
P: Rich Hill
Giants lineup:
CF: Denard Span
2B: Miguel Gomez
RF: Hunter Pence
C: Buster Posey
SS: Brandon Crawford
1B: Jae-Gyun Hwang
LF: Gorkys Hernandez
3B: Kelby Tomlinson
P: Ty Blach
