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First and foremost; momentum. The Brewers have it, taking 3 of 4 from the previously division leading Cardinals, while the Dodgers...not so much. After going on a tear towards the end of April and into May that consisted of an 8 game winning streak, they ran into John Maine and the Mets, followed by the suddenly red-hot Houston Astros. As a result, they have lost their last 4, being outscored 32-7 in that stretch.
The Brewers send Carlos Villanueva to the mound for what could be a make or break start for the youngster as the rest of the rotation is coming off strong outings and Carlos was rocked in his last outing for 7 runs in just 5 innings of work. It's really tough to put your finger on what is going wrong for Carlos; he's throwing a lot of strikes and not walking a lot of batters. He just hasn't been able to keep the ball down in the zone and as a result, opposing hitters are teeing off on him. Over his last two starts, he's pitched 10 total innings and given up 19 hits, 13 ER, 6 HR, while walking just 2 and striking out 10. As a result of the great amount of hits given up, his pitch count has been up around 100 after the 5th inning and has resulted in early exits. It's a simple formula for Carlos to follow if he wants to get back to his form from a season ago; keep the ball down while still attacking the strike zone. The Dodgers are among the bottom of the NL in HR's and extra-base hits, but they do boast the leagues 3rd best AVG (.276) behind only the Braves (.284) and Cubs (.283). Meaning that if Carlos can avoid leaving the ball up to consecutive hitters and limit the extra-base hits, he has a very good chance of putting together a good outing and throwing at least 6 strong innings.
The Dodgers send their staff ace, Brad Penny, to the mound for tonight's match-up hoping that he can be their stopper and put an end to this team's losing streak. Penny has struggled a bit so far this year and as a result, he heads into tonight's match-up with a 5-3 record and a 4.79 ERA. That ERA has to be explained a bit though, as it was at 3.19 before his last outing. His last outing against the Mets, Penny allowed 10 ER in just 4.2 innings of work. It's probably safe to say that the Brewers won't be able to count on the same Brad Penny that took the mound that day. Unfortunately, as a Brewers fan, I can't offer the same type of insight about Penny's struggles as I could about Villanueva's but looking at Penny's splits for the season, I would like to think that Ned Yost would start Craig Counsell at 3B and Tony Gwynn Jr. in CF. Lefties boast an almost unbelievable .477 OBP against Penny this season as opposed to the .264 for right-handed bats. Ryan Braun is on fire of late and it will be very important for Penny to keep him off the bases with Fielder being the only real left-handed power threat the Brewers have batting behind Ryan.
This is a tough one to make a solid prediction for. Despite Penny's last start, the Dodgers have the definite advantage in the pitching department. This goes without even mentioning the bullpens. The Brewers' bullpen has been very good as of late, with the the exception of Gagne. But with Gagne out as the closer, that bullpen is very undefined as far as what roles each pitcher now holds. On the other hand, the Dodgers bullpen is statistically the best bullpen in the NL and maybe the best in all of baseball. Spearheaded by Chan Ho Park, and the exceptional closer Takashi Saito, the Dodgers don't blow many late inning leads.
Despite struggling before the Cardinals series, the Brewers' offense seems to have finally awoken behind Ryan Braun and Corey Hart and as I mentioned earlier, the Dodgers now find themselves struggling to score runs.
I'm looking forward to a very good game #1 and a very good series in general.
Any thing you could add about the Dodgers for us bigd or any other Dodgers fans?
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