The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are playing an NL west series live on the MLB schedule and the second matchup from Dodger Stadium comes ahead of Game 3 tomorrow and this game starts at 10:10 pm ET as Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner face off in the pitching matchup.
The teams have already played a series against each other and in that series in San Fran, Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner matched up in one of the games. The Giants won that game 3-2 and now the pitchers will battle again after neither factored into the decision. Kershaw comes in 1-1 on the season and he had two runs in that game with nine strikeouts and he will be looking to have a strong start.
The Giants have not been off to a great start, but they did win three against the Dodgers for a sweep at home last week and then they won two of three against the Padres. The team won against the Giants on Monday night with a strong game from Joc Pederson and he has been looking like one of the best rookies in the league. Kershaw has not been going as deep into games as usual and he said that he wants to fix that moving forward.
Bumgarner comes in at 1-1 also and he is looking to get things going. Kershaw has a 7-1 record in his last 11 against the Giants, while Bumgarner is 11-5 in the stretch with his last 18 games. Bumgarner and Kershaw have matched up against each other before the two have four matchups against each other and they now will battle once again. The Dodgers come in looking to keep it going, while the Giants have won five of the last seven games overall.
Pederson had a home run in the sixth inning of the game against the Giants and that was big, while Justin Turner later added a shot. The Dodgers need as much help as they can get, as the team has Yasiel Puig on the DL and now they have lost Brandon McCarthy for the season. McCarthy reportedly has a torn UCL in his elbow and he will now need Tommy John surgery, which will keep him out for the year.
The team has some internal options with Scott baker, but they may have to make a trade to keep things tight in the rotation behind Kershaw and Zack Greinke. The Dodgers and Giants are both considered strong options for the NL West title this season and both are trying to get on track.
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