Dodgers News: Don Mattingly Pleased With Alex Wood’s Debut
The Los Angeles Dodgers newly acquired starting pitcher Alex Wood made his debut Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies, giving up eight hits and four runs in 6.1 innings while striking out eight and walking two.
While the four earned runs may lend to belief Wood had a subpar outing, he came out of the game with only one run on the board and the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the seventh. Reliever Joel Peralta proceeded to give up a grand slam to the first batter he saw, Maikel Franco, tacking on three more earned runs to Wood’s total.
According to Bill Plunkett of the OC Register, Mattingly was impressed with Wood’s first start, but regrets sending him out there for the seventh:
I thought he did a good job,” said Mattingly, who replaced Wood at that point with the bases loaded and one out. “I probably should have got him out of there after the sixth. He did a good job for us, didn’t really need him to go back out there at that point. I thought he was throwing the ball good, though. He doesn’t deserve to be the guy who gets an ‘L’ on his back. That should be more on us. He pitched well.”
The 109 pitches Wood threw Tuesday is the third-highest total this season. He’s now 7-7 with a 3.65 ERA and 3.31 FIP in 21 starts on the year. Wood figures to be a nice back-of-the-rotation starter for the Dodgers this season, and years to come, as he is under contract until 2020.
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Nice game by Wood. Every team needs a kind of funky Lefty to mess with batters timing. When you watch him he takes a long stride to the plate and then comes side arm to 3/4 with the ball following. It must be hard to pick up as he gets a lot of swings and misses yet he is not throwing that fast. Wicked curve, especially to a left hander with that weird delivery. Nice to have him cost controlled untill 2020. He will be a terrific end of tthe rotation starter to eat up innings and has been around a 3.00 ERA so very impressive.