Recap: Giants 11, Dodgers 9 – Joc Pederson Continues to Impress
- Updated: March 29, 2015
Don Mattingly won’t say it but everyone else is; Joc Pederson will be the Los Angeles Dodgers opening day starting centerfielder. Joc Pederson hit another home run, bringing his team leading spring total to 6, and added a single while leading off the game, you can’t help but enjoy the run he’s having and if his hitting continues into the regular season, fans won’t miss Matt Kemp too much, even if he is hitting well in San Diego.
In other news, Enrique Hernandez also went deep, pushing his total to 5 for spring and 11 RBI’s and possibly creating an infield log jam where despite showing impressive power in the spring, he will be the odd-man out when it comes to trimming the roster down to 25.
Andre Ethier added a hit, a walk and a strikeout, and seems to be swinging the bat well and showing that he still has value. Whether or not that will help the team to move him is in question, as the Dodgers don’t currently have a left handed bat off the bench other than Andre Ethier and with all the talk of losing right handed power with the departure of Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez, it is their lack of left handed hitting off the bench that they seem to be lacking.
There’s not much to say about Dodger pitching, hopefuls Carlos Frias and Juan Nicasio did not pitch well, both giving up 3 earned runs, and both looking to go to AAA when the season starts.
Yasel Puig and Yasmani Grandal collected 2 hits each, Puig starting to show the swing that we know and love and getting behind my rallying cry that he be MVPuig next season.
The game was a back-n-forth affair that fans have come to expect when the Dodgers and Giants play, with the game tied at 3 going into the bottom of the 5th after Juan Nicasio got the Dodgers out of a jam in the bottom of the 4th, he couldn’t stop the bleeding and proceeded to give up 3 runs that put the Dodgers ahead for good.
Each team scored at least 1 run in each of the proceeding innings but the Dodgers couldn’t come back from the bad 5th and went down 11-9, brining their spring record to 15-8 after winning their earlier game against the Rangers.
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