Dodgers Team News

Dodgers Line Up Their Best Arms For the Braves, Not the Giants

The Dodgers have a couple of really big games ahead of them this week. They will welcome the Braves into town starting on Monday before heading out to San Francisco for the weekend. With the NL West lead on the line, they’ll need their best stuff. 

If the Dodgers had started their guys on regular rest this past week, Julio Urias would have pitched against the Rockies on Sunday afternoon. That would have led to the trip of Urias, Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer facing the Giants over the weekend. 



Instead, those 3 will pitch in that order for the Braves series. When Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was asked if they had considered lining up their best 3 for the NL West rivals, he didn’t want to change things too much for them. 

Making sure you take care of the guys, Julio and Walker, namely, as far as giving them an extra day to appreciate and understand what they have in store for them the rest of the season [is important].

The Giants series is obviously important for the Dodgers. But these games against the Braves are still ones that they need to win. That led to Doc giving them all an extra day of rest before they take their turn. 

There’s still plenty of games where we have to take care of our business, and we’ll have two of those guys against the Giants. The thought is to make sure our guys are performing optimally and with rest. We’ll bet on that.

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As is, the Dodgers would have Urias and Buehler scheduled to start the final 2 games of that series in San Francisco. So while it could have been the best trio, they still have 2 really good arms going for them. 

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37 Comments

  1. If I was setting the rotation for the next seven days for this extremely important week, I would not pitch Scherzer in the Atlanta series and have him start in S F on Friday on extra rest. A win in SF is a 2 game swing with less than 30 games left at that point. Then Urias and Buehler will also be the SF series. I would use a bullpen game on Wednesday against Atlanta or bring up Jackson to start the game. Also rosters expand to 28 on Wednesday and more pitchers can be brought up to facilitate that game from the minors. I realize all games are important to win, but time is running out to win the division and there will be no more games left against SF after Sunday, I’m not the manager or GM, but that’s what I would do. What would you do?

    1. Everything that Andrew says seems to be a gimme.
      Whatever happened to Durochers nice guys do not win”

  2. “It’s the end of the season as we know it….and we feel fine”….(fine enough to FIRE Roberts)

    1. Three games with the Giants and you choose David Price over Max Scherzer? With rosters expanding? That is insane.

    1. We need the wins against Braves as well.. Doesn’t help if we lose against Braves and win against Giants.. we first need to take care of the business against braves before worrying about the Giants.

  3. The writers on this site have turned into Dodgers management buttocks kissers. Also, the articles are too short and written for people with a 30 second attention span.

  4. Doesn’t matter who the Dodgers pitch if the offense keeps taking days completely off.

      1. They’ve beaten one tonight w/ 4 jacks and made up one game on the Giants. Adjusting to the lefties w/ curve balls. Have to keep that going.

    1. Exactly- yesterday we would’ve
      ‘burned’ Julio for nothing. Assuming
      Roberts ‘gets his act’ together with ‘some
      semblance’ of that dynamic lineup we’ve been
      clamoring for- revitalized offense for these next (2)
      series could overshadow the need for a bullpen game
      next weekend! When Price pitches- it’s a bullpen game!

  5. Robert’s decision not to line up these top 3 starters will come back to bite him in the face and he will have deserved it! I can’t imagine there’s another manager in the game that’s as inept and clueless as Roberts. I’ve had it up to here with him! With rosters expanded to consider, his reasoning about ending up with a BP game on Friday is absurd. And the way Dodgers performed offensively yesterday, Roberts and the Dodgers DO NOT deserve to win the NL WEST title this year IMHO. OH and BTW, the Braves will throw 2 LHP against the Dodgers, so I would guess this team loses 2 of 3 games against the Braves anyway. Again, I just can’t believe his reasoning on this pitching arrangement.

      1. When was the last time Roberts used sound reasoning in any of his moves. There must be some reasoning that the FO does not fire this managerial clown, but I for dam* sure can’t figure it out. He may be the nicest guy in the world, and I believe he probably is when it comes to his handling of the players, but his managing ability is well beyond horrible.

  6. Losing 2 of 3 to the Rockies with Justin Turner closing the series on the mound tells it all! The offense has disappeared!

  7. I had thought our three best would start against sf, but it’s already been pointed out you do not win if you can’t score. Losing a series to the Rox is puzzling, but these things happen over the course of the long season. I’ve got to say, though, these bull pen games are bane to my existence. I think this falls into the “Thanks, Bauer,” category. Anyway, we could get steady enough pitching, but the offense needs to wake up, and that brings us to Bellinger….

  8. On the subject of an under achieving offense, forget Belli for a second and someone for the love of God tell me why the genius that is Dave Roberts keeps writing Billy McKinney’s name on the lineup card. Matt Beaty gets sent down so this guy and his and .198 can provide yet another auto-out??

        1. yes because Mookie is playing hurt with a bad hip and will have surgery as soon after the Dodgers win the World Series this fall

  9. There is going to be no “rest of the season” due to your stupidity. And, Dave, you sure didn’t take care of business against the mighty Rockies. At home no less.

    1. time for you and Pauldodgerfan1965 to jump off the bandwagon and root for another team better than the Dodgers. Oh wait that leaves only 1 team in all of baseball, go ahead root for the giants. after all they are sooooooooooo much better than the Dodgers

      1. Joe, they are better managed than the dodgers and it shows. Also, they have Faidi. Keep believing that the Dodgers will win the WS and keep taking that hydrochloroquine and ivermectin.

        1. Right on, Dodgerglenn! I’ve been a Dodger fan since 1965 when at that time me late older brother brought the game of baseball and the Dodgers into my life. But like most others here, we see an under achieving team that should be in 1st place by this time except we aren’t and it has a lot to do with the very questionable management decisions by our field manager named Dave Roberts.

          1. Hey Paul, remember listening and falling asleep to Vin Scully in the 60’s. It’s really a shame that we are in the position of having to catch the Giants because of questionable decisions by Roberts. In all sports, at the beginning of the season, you always play your best players to let them gel and to win games. I have never heard that just because it’s going to be a long season, that you need to rest some of your best players early on. Only when you have the season “in the bag” then you can let off the gas pedal and rest your best players in preparation for the playoffs. Also, the idea is to win all the games against the lesser teams (ie Rockies, D-backs) and at minimum to split games with the stronger teams. Roberts decision to take the Rockies lightly and then concede one of the games is just pathetic. The Dodgers have a great team but they have not lived up to their potential due to managerial errors. I know that you and I both hope that the Dodgers get to the WS but Roberts is hindering their efforts. Friedman had the balls to pickup Trea and Max but if they are not used effectively his efforts are just a waste of time and money.

  10. I saw this coming last week when looking at the schedule. Between Roberts’ bozo moves and Friedman’s usual moves to bring in injured players (band aid brigade) its a wonder Dodgers won the WS last year. Recently Roberts said he was confident they would win the division. That appears to be slipping away with LA possibly looking at a 1 game wild card game, which will not be an automatic win. Its looking like we’d face the Reds who have beat LA 2 of 3 games this season with 3 more in Cincy. Our offense is looking sluggish!

  11. I have to agree that the Giants are a better managed team, but I refuse to concede that the NL West is out of Dodgers’ reach when it is clearly still within reach. There are about 30 games left in the regular season and we are currently 1 1/2 games back. Like us, SF now has a few (unavailable) starters and the Giants’ offense may finally be showing signs of wear and tear. Roberts will continue to do what Roberts does and admittedly at times he completely confounds me. Despite strategic shortcomings, a stream of players on the IL, and intermittent lackluster offense, the Dodgers have been able to keep it together enough to still be in it. Hopefully, we will be able to make it through this stretch in the lead; but, if not, Wild Card it is.

  12. Fans are never satisfied….Despite dealing with a season marred with significant injuries and the Bauer saga, the Dodgers still have 30 Games to Go, are only 1.5 games out and have the 2nd most wins in baseball (played one more game than TB)…Maybe everyone should take a deep breath and see how we sit at the end of the weekend. I’m not so sure Atlanta isn’t the more dangerous team when compared to SF right now anyways and you need to win that game too, better use your best available arms.

    Granted Roberts makes some very curious decisions from time to time, but everyone underestimates how hard it can be to manage a clubhouse with this many egos and this much talent…it can’t be easy to keep everyone happy. I also haven’t seen Roberts pick up the bat once this season, guess it’s his fault guys sometimes flounder offensively over a long season.

    The move has been made with Belli (thumbs up), you should know why McKinney can’t be sent down (someone else will take him) and we need his depth for the next 30 games despite the offensive struggles.

    I put my money on down one or even on Monday morning.

  13. As I said before I do hope the NL gets back a DH in 2022 because that will eliminate some of these difficult in game and pitching decisions and also eliminate the need for double switches that Roberts has had to deal with this year.

  14. We need to boo Roberts and Kenley so that they can hear how frustrated we are with them.

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