Less than pleased with his most recent outing, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Tyler Glasnow will get a chance to remedy the issue when he faces the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday night.
The major league leader in strikeouts with 81, Glasnow had eight in his outing against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday, totaling 28 over his past three starts. But the right-hander gave up four runs in five innings to the Reds, and the Dodgers dropped a 7-2 decision.
“Yeah, just not like a lot of rhythm, just kind of stiff,” Glasnow said. “I think as the game went on later, I started to feel a little better. I just think it was leaving stuff out over the heart of the zone.”
In his only other loss this season, Glasnow (6-2, 2.90 ERA) was under the weather in an April 15 outing against the Washington Nationals. Otherwise, the Dodgers are getting exactly what they wanted from the new leader of the staff.
But Glasnow’s two career appearances against the Diamondbacks have been a bit of a struggle, as he is 0-2 with a 16.62 ERA. But he hasn’t faced Arizona since 2018.
Shohei Ohtani also is giving the Dodgers exactly what they were looking for when he was signed in the offseason. Ohtani had two hits, two runs and two stolen bases in Tuesday’s 7-3 loss to the Diamondbacks.
Ohtani has a team-leading 13 steals, with a team-best 13 home runs. His .356 batting average leads the majors.
But it was another left-handed hitter who stole the show Tuesday. Former Dodger Joc Pederson hit a three-run home run in the seventh to give Arizona some breathing room after Los Angeles had just pulled within a run at 4-3.
Pederson has six home runs this season and now has three career homers against the Dodgers.
“I love hitting homers. It doesn’t matter who it’s against,” Pederson said on the DBACKS.TV broadcast. “I like homers.”
Christian Walker also hit a home run for Arizona, his ninth of the season, while Ketel Marte extended his career-best hitting streak to 20 games with a seventh-inning single.
The Diamondbacks were expected to send right-hander Ryne Nelson (2-3, 7.06 ERA) to the mound Wednesday as he tries to recover from his own rough start when he gave up eight runs and 11 hits in four innings Friday in a 13-0 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
But manager Torey Lovullo said an unspecified roster move is expected Wednesday. He could switch to an opener for the series finale.
Nelson has given up double-digit hits in the past two starts and has not made it to the fifth inning in either game.
“Nelly had trouble locating some pitches at times, and there was some key at-bats where I felt that (poor pitch location) lingered,” Lovullo said about Nelson’s performance Friday. “They got some extension on some pitches, and we didn’t execute on the mound.”
In two career starts against the Dodgers, Nelson is 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA.
Even with Tuesday’s loss, the Dodgers have won eight of the past 10 regular-season games against the Diamondbacks. But Arizona had its way with the Dodgers in last year’s National League Division Series, earning a three-game sweep on the way to a World Series appearance.
After he was held out of the starting lineup Saturday following a 1-for-18 stretch, the Diamondbacks’ Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has six hits over his past 13 at-bats.
–Field Level Media
