Photo: Cody Bashore
The Dodgers avoided a very frustrating loss last night, as they jumped out to an early 5-0 lead. Dustin May turned in a strong five innings, but allowed three baserunners in the sixth before the Dodgers turned to Anthony Banda. Banda walked his first batter and served up a grand slam to Dane Myers to tie the game. The Dodgers also left 11 on base and only scored one run in the third after starting the inning with bases loaded and no outs. Miami took the lead in the top of the 10th, but Andy Pages walked, Enrique Hernandez bunted Pages and Michael Conforto into scoring position and Tommy Edman walked it off with a first pitch single. The win pushed the Dodgers to 19-10 on the season, tied with the Giants atop the NL West and a game back of the Mets, who became the first team to 20 wins last night. It wasn’t an ideal time for a close, extra inning game as the Dodgers are using a bullpen game tonight.
7:10 P.M. Los Angeles SS Edwards (S) DH Ohtani (L) C Ramírez SS Betts CF Myers 1B Freeman (L) 1B Wagaman RF T. Hernández 3B Norby C Smith 2B Lopez 3B Muncy (L) RF Sánchez (L) 2B Edman (S) DH Simon (S) CF Pages LF Sanoja LF Conforto (L) P Alcantara (R) P Dreyer (L) Jack Dreyer starts the bullpen game. The Dodgers have an off day Thursday before a 10 game in 10 days stretch, and wrap up their series with the Marlins with game at noon. Shoutout Eric Stephen for the handy dandy bullpen usage chart.
Here’s the recent usage for the currently active Dodgers relievers, heading into tonight’s bullpen game v. Marlins, excluding Ben Casparius & Yoendrys Gómez who each had long outings SundayScott, Phillips, or Yates pitching tonight would be 3 out of 4 days (something they haven’t done yet in 2025)
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T19:05:37.993Z
Dreyer last pitched on Saturday and threw 24 pitches after throwing 30 on Wednesday in Chicago. Tanner Scott, Evan Phillips and Kirby Yates each took down an inning yesterday and didn’t throw too many pitches. They each also threw on Saturday and haven’t thrown three times in four days yet this season. Banda had a longer outing last night, but they did avoid using Dreyer, Alex Vesia and Luis García. Ben Casparius and Yoendrys Gomez threw 54 and 50 pitches on Sunday, respectively, so it’s tough to imagine either will be able to contribute much tonight.
Sandy Alcantara gets the ball for Miami. Alcantara won the Cy Young in 2022 with a 2.28 ERA/2.99 FIP in 228 2/3 innings (!) and threw six complete games in his 32 starts, which is insane to think about. However, he’s struggled pretty badly ever since. In 2023, Alcantara posted a 4.14 ERA/4.03 FIP in “only” 184 2/3 innings and then missed all of 2024 after having Tommy John surgery. He’s back this year, but has been struggling in his return. He has a 6.56 ERA in his first five starts back and so far has the lowest strikeout rate (17 percent) of his career and his highest walk rate since the cup of coffee he got in 34 innings in 2018. His overall numbers are a bit inflated from a rough start in Philly, when he allowed six runs on four hits in only two innings. Aside from that start, he still has a not great 4.64 ERA, but batters in the other four games are only OPSing .579 off him. Alcantara topped 100 pitches for the first time since his surgery in his last start, allowing three runs and five hits in six innings against the Reds. Alcantara’s last start in LA came in August 2023, when he allowed three runs (all solo homers) and seven hits in six innings. Coincidentally, that game was the last time we saw Tony Gonsolin on a Major League mound and he returns tomorrow.
Alcantara throws a pretty even five pitch mix. He’s thrown a changeup and a sinker both 24.3 percent of the time and has a 40.4 percent whiff rate on the change. He throws a four-seamer 22.4 percent of the time, slider 17 percent of the time and a curve 10 percent of the time. The slider and curve also have generated a lot of whiffs this season (36 and 38.9 percent, respectively), but his two fastballs have each generated roughly 11 percent whiff rates. His velo has been very slightly down so far, averaging less than one MPH lower on his sinker and four-seamer compared to years past.
The usual nine in the lineup, but Conforto drops down to ninth in the order amid a rough start to his season.
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The Dodgers did make a roster move for a fresh arm that could take down some length. Noah Davis was optioned with Matt Sauer returning to the Majors.
Matt Sauer is up. Noah Davis optioned, per Dodgers.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) April 29, 2025
Sauer made one appearance for the Dodgers in DC, allowing a run and three hits in 1 2/3 innings. Sauer’s made three appearances in the Minors since then and allowed two runs and nine hits over 11 2/3 innings. He last pitched Wednesday and threw 50, 68 and 44 pitches in those three games.
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Clayton Kershaw was lined up for another rehab start tonight, but that was nixed due to the weather.
Due to tonight’s weather forecast, Clayton Kershaw will not be pitching for the Comets.
As of now, the game is still on as scheduled to begin at 7:05 p.m.
— Oklahoma City Comets (@OKC_comets) April 29, 2025
The plan was for Kershaw to start tonight and Sunday, with the goal of completing five innings in each of those. TBD on when he’ll start next, but at least this plan wasn’t paused for injury reasons.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA.
