Dodgers Team News

Dodgers: Gonzalez and Miley Announced as Games One and Two Starters

While the Dodgers have yet to officially announce their game one starter for the NLCS, the Brewers already announced games one and two today. Gio Gonzalez will get the ball to kick off the series in Milwaukee. Wade Miley, the left-handed pitcher, will get the start over Jhoulys Chacin in game two.

Game One

Gio seems like the strange choice to start game one, considering his splits. He has allowed a .265 batting average to right-handed hitters as opposed to the .219 average aginst lefties. He also has not faced the Dodgers all season.

His last start came on September 30th against Detroit when he tossed five scoreless innings. Gonzalez had one of his best months of the year in September, so it appears as though Milwaukee is hoping to ride the hot hand. He tossed 25.1 innings of work across his five starts and pitched to a 2.13 era in the month. Matt Kemp and Manny Machado have owned Gio thourhgout their careers. The two righties are a combined 14-42(.333) with Kemp having gone deep twice. Expect those two in the lineup.

Game Two

Miley is having somewhat of a career year, despite being limited due to injuries and minor league stints. Miley has tossed a combined 2.57 ERA across his 16 starts in 2018. He has also held opposing hitters to a .237 batting average.

In his most recent start, Miley tossed 4.2 shutout innings against Colorado in the Division Series. He struck out two and induced nine groundballs en route to an easy win. On a much better note, Miley had the worst month of his season in September. He had an inflated ERA of 3.52 across five starts. He also progressively got less and less deep into games as the month went on. He started out the month pitching six innings in a game against Chicago and finished up pitching three innings against Detroit. Regardless, Miley has shown that he can induce groundballs and get quick outs.

Matching Up

The last time Miley faced Los Angeles, he shut them down for seven innings and allowed just two hits. He outdueled Walker Buehler in that game, who was almost just as good. This was way back in July though, and the Dodgers are a much different team. Manny Machado, Yasiel Puig, and David Freese all match up very well against Miley, so I would expect to see them in the lineup. They are hitting a combined .362 with three homeruns against Miley in their 47 total at-bats.

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