The Bison & The Dodgers Host the Braves

Braves @ Dodgers
7:10 pm
Game 1



Riding high from their walk-off win yesterday afternoon, the Dodgers led by Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier will take on the Atlanta Braves for the first time this season. Both ball clubs have identical records of 7-9, and both have had issues with offensive output. Ted Lilly (0-2, 6.00 ERA), who has been lackluster this season so far, will head to the mound in hopes of his first win this year. Lilly has been anything but impressive thus far, and in his last outing in San Francisco he allowed two homeruns in a single inning to let the game get away. He will need to keep the fly balls down. Tim Hudson (2-1, 3.48 ERA) will pitch for the Braves. His record is 6-2 with a 3.49 ERA against the Dodgers.

Take note that we may even get to see the king of meatballs himself, George Sherrill, who now dons a Braves unform. Looking at his numbers this year so far it looks like he is in typical form. He has pitched in 4.1 innings and given up 4 hits and 2 earned runs. It looks like Jason Heyward is only hitting .240, but he has 4 homers so far. McCann is leading the team in average with .327, and Derek Lowe is the team's strikeout leader with 19. To compare, Kershaw already has 29 strikeouts, and Billingsley has 24.

After Billingsley's excellent performace yesterday, let's hope Lilly can follow suit. The Rockies are still in first place with a 12-3 record, so it will take some major winnin' to catch up. James "groundball" Loney's average is now .150 and he has only had 9 hits in 60 at-bats. Don Mattingly is waiting for him to come around, but we are all asking the question, how long are we going to wait? Especially since Sands is tearing it up in AAA.

Lineup:

Miles 4
Blake 5
Ethier 9
Kemp 8
Uribe 6
Loney 3
Sands 7
Barajas 2
Lilly 1

Ok, we have Jerry Sands starting in left field tonight. Hope for hitting springs eternal. For some unknown reason, Miles is leading off which is never a good idea. Yet without Furcal or Carroll in the lineup, there isn't much choice. Groundball Loney remains at first. Uribe is placed after Kemp in the lineup, so if Atlanta knows what's good for them they'll be walking Kemp tonight.

The Sandman will make his Major League debut. Sands has been hitting .400 down in Albuquerque going 16-40 with 5 homeruns 17 RBIs in 10 games. I'm very happy to see the Dodgers make a move here, and not wait around any longer for Uribe and Loney to "come around."

Let's Stop the Chop!!