Los Angeles Lakers (7-4, .636, 1st NL West) @ San Diego Chargers (6-5, .545, 3rd NL West)
San Diego’s offense has been bad – nearly the worst in the NL bad. 11th in runs and OBP, 9th in AVG and home runs. Their pitching, however, is lights out. 1st in starters ERA and 2nd in bullpen ERA. They are led by Burt McElheny and his 2.38 career-ERA – the two-time all-star & $21M dollar man is 1-1 so far, with a 2.53 ERA. Arnaldo Romero – their #2 – is 1-0 with a 1.02 ERA and 18 K’s in two starts. We’ll see him in the first game of the 4-game set and most likely miss McElheny this time around. So far this year, they’ve split a couple of series against Minnesota & Phoenix, got a mini-sweep in Vancouver, and lost a set to the 49ers. If there is a groove to find, they’re still looking. This is a hard club to figure, they finished 1st in the NL last season, were swept out of the playoffs by San Francisco and did nothing to get better in the offseason. They extended McElheny for a year, and are paying 1B Ben Compton $15 after arbitration, and, in their biggest move signed 35-year old SP Heath Zody away from the Sounders to a 2-year $21M sheet. Zody is solid, but he’s old and definitely not a difference maker.
12 of 162: Michael Brisk (1-1, 4.86) @ Arnaldo Romero (1-0, 1.02)
Lakers get a one-run win in San Diego, 4-3
San Diego basically falls apart in the 3rd and hands the game to us – two of our guys get on by error and 2 of our runs come by way of sac flies. Zarate & Otto both get 2 hits, and Brisk, in an improvement over his last time out, gives us 8 innings with 9 hits, 2 earned runs, 3 walks, and 5 K’s. Saul Guzman picked up his 4th save – walked 1 & no K’s… living on the edge. Gifted a win in the opener – nice! Not so nice: Arnaldo left after 5 with an injury – diagnosis not good… he’ll be out for the season with shoulder inflammation.
13 of 162: Case Tunnell (0-0, 8.38) @ Heath Zody (1-1, 3.38)
Clipped late by 2-run walk-off HR in the bottom of the 9th, SDC wins 8-6.
The Chargers ran roughshod over us in the 4th – putting 5 runs on the board but stayed quiet after that until getting the walk-off win at home. Otto finished 3 for 4 with a triple and 1 RBI – Newman went 2 for 3 with a HR and 2 RBI, and Case Tunnel can’t make it through the 4th inning for the second time this season. 3 costly errors in this one cost us the game.
14 of 162: Josiah Kawka (2-1, 3.24) @ Prior Balazs (0-1, 1.69)
Lakers rally for the late win, take game 3 by a score of 8-4.
Your boy Pepper came through in the clutch, he went 3 for 5 with a HR and 2 RBI’s and Newman brought in the run that put us ahead in the 9th – a tasty little RBI single. Jenkins put up 2 hits and 2 RBI – Kawka only managed to give us 5 innings and gave up 4 runs in the effort – his second sub-par performance in as many tries.
Elsewhere: Eloy Delando is still angry, y’all.
In AAA (City of Compton): Rad put another solid start together, this time against the Mexico City Diablos – 6IP, 9H, 2ER, 2BB, 2K. Improvement.
15 of 162: Julen Morales (2-0, 3.60) @ Burt McElheny (1-1, 2.53) … I was wrong about McElheny.
Lakers take 3 of 4 off of the Chargers, 7-4
We backed up a 4-run 5th with a 3-run 8th to secure a series win over the San Diego Chargers. Morales gave us 8.0 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, and 1 K in a winning effort and Joshua Newman went 2 for 4, with a HR and 3 RBI. Good stuff from Newman lately. Otto finishes 2 for 4, stays hot, and is now batting .414 for the season – he’s on fire. Your boy Pepper got in on it too – 2 for 4 with a couple of runs. We’re on something of a roll.
At 10-5, we are in control of the NL West (for now) and our offense is still playing out of its mind – 1st in runs, OBP, and HRs. We’re 2 games up on San Francisco and have started the season by beating up on most of the NL West. Next, we head to Dallas for the start of interleague play. We’re off to a phenomenal start – much, much better than I would have dared to expect. For now, we’re a fun club to watch.