Dodgers Stumbling Before All-Star Break, Face the Tigers
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00:00The World Series favorites, the L.A. Dodgers, might go stumbling into the all-star break.
00:09Swept this week in Philadelphia, and resoundingly so, by the Phils. L.A. was the underdog in
00:16all three games at the bank, as you might expect, against the Phils. They lost all three,
00:20eight times still only this year for the Dodgers, booked as an underdog in just two and six
00:26straight up. But an underdog in Detroit? That can only mean one thing. Tarek Skuble is on
00:33the bump for the Tigers. Detroit's won eight of its last 11 games as well. Donnie, will
00:40the Dodgers bounce back, or is this the worst spot you could hope to kind of show some resilience
00:46against the American League's Cy Young frontrunner?
00:48Yeah, man, on the road, licking your wounds after leaving Philadelphia and saying, all
00:52right, whew, we'll get the big maple on the mound. Let's see what we can do against the
00:54lowly Detroit Tigers. And then you get Tarek Skuble winning maybe the best pitcher of Major
00:59League Baseball to count to you. That's not going to be great. If you just take a look
01:03at numbers, first of all, we understand how talented that lineup is for the Dodgers, one
01:06through nine, still without Mookie Betts. It's much more talented than the Detroit Tigers.
01:10But you could argue that same thing yesterday. The Tigers weren't as talented as the plate
01:14of going up against the Guardians. Still won the game. Why? Because the pitcher is so much
01:17better on the mound. You take a look at Tarek Skuble this year, and if we're just going
01:21on home starts alone, since once again, the game is in Detroit, he's been fantastic. How
01:25about this? A 1.74 ERA at home through 51 and two-thirds innings, a 3.05 XFIP, so a
01:33little bit higher, but still, it's in that very good grade. You flip it over to Paxton,
01:37one of those guys you've heard me talk about quite a bit this year. Sometimes you just
01:40take a look at that ERA and say to yourself, well, he should be pretty good. But the XFIP
01:44numbers and the analytical numbers are sky high. Why? Walks too many batters, doesn't
01:48strike out enough, and gives up fly balls. That's a recipe for disaster. Even though
01:52that Detroit lineup is not very good against left-handed pitching, I still think Detroit
01:56wins this game. But more importantly, I think we stay under the total in this game. A few
02:01runs out of Detroit could be enough to beat the mighty Dodger bats here. So there you go.