Dodgers Beat the Streak: Game one of the Freeway Series
By Jason Reed
Every season the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels square off in what has been dubbed the freeway series. 2018’s rendition starts today.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels will face each other six times, spread out over the next two weekends. For most of Southern California, these six games provide the most exciting time to go to the ballpark and the ultimate bragging rights for the winning side.
Right now, Dodgers fans have the most to brag about. The Dodgers have made the postseason for five straight seasons and are making a run for number six. The Angels have not won a playoff game since 2009.
Plus, the Dodgers currently have the record of the two teams. After a month of the season, Angels fans finally thought it was the year to reverse the luck in LA. The Dodgers were struggling and the Angels were thriving.
Since then, the two sides have completely flipped and the Dodgers look like one of the toughest teams to beat in baseball.
That is in large part due to an explosive offense that has emerged as one of the best power-hitting offenses in baseball. Because of that, our Dodgers Beat the Streak series is finally starting to show more consistency in building streaks.
Both Sarah and I were able to extend our streaks on Wednesday as our picks, Cody Bellinger and Chris Taylor, combined to go 3-6. Granted, Taylor had two hits to Bellinger’s none and three RBIs, so I guess you can say Sarah had the better pick.
Sarah’s pick — Current streak 4: Matt Kemp
My pick for tonight’s opener against the Angels is Matt Kemp. I’m writing this before All-Star voting ends, but by the time this game begins, Kemp hopefully will have been voted to start on the NL squad, managed by his current skipper, Dave Roberts.
Matt Kemp is having an All-Star season, and the entirety of baseball has been seeing it. As the Dodgers venture down to Anaheim to face their SoCal rivals, Matt Kemp is set to continue this run he’s on, in which he’s hit .346/.370/.654 over his last 7 games, with 9 hits, 8 RBIs, and 2 home runs.
There’s no doubt that, heading into the All-Star Break, Kemp is the Dodgers starting left fielder. I have a feeling that, in this series, he’s going to remind everyone exactly why he deserves to go to D.C.
Jason’s pick — Current streak 1: Max Muncy
Max Muncy is not just the best hitter on the Los Angeles Dodgers right now, he looks like one of the best hitters in all of baseball and could end up an MVP candidate when it is all said and done.
Granted, he has to continue this level of production. However, Muncy has been nothing short of stellar and will most likely be an NL Final Vote candidate for the All-Star Game, which he should undoubtedly win.
Muncy is hitting .280 with 20 home runs and 38 RBIs. His 1.060 OPS would be good enough for the third-best mark in the MLB and the best in the entire National League — if he were qualified.
This is not a case of Muncy having an extremely small sample size, though. Muncy is just 30 plate appearances under the qualified threshold. If he gets four plate appearances a game, with a five plate appearance game or two sprinkled in each week, he will be at that line in three or so weeks.
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Muncy is going to pick up right where he left off against a relatively inexperienced right-handed pitcher, Felix Pena. I predict Muncy will hit a high, towering shot that will just narrowly tuck over the tall right-field wall (it only has to clear the line, after all).