Los Angeles Dodgers: Overcoming left-handed woes for first

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a shot at tying the Arizona Diamondbacks for first place on Saturday. Standing in the way is southpaw Patrick Corbin.

The Los Angeles Dodgers came up with a much-needed clutch win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night to move the team back to just one game under the lead in the NL West.

The victory came at the hands of Enrique Hernandez and Justin Turner. Hernandez came in as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning and with two outs and two strikes delivered a ball into the right-center stands to tie the game at two.

In the very next inning, Justin Turner lead-off against Zack Greinke with a moonshot on a hanging breaking ball to put the Dodgers up 3-2. Kenley Jansen shut the door in the ninth and the Dodgers moved back to one game out of NL West supremacy.

Now the Dodgers send ace Clayton Kershaw to the bump opposite of all-star southpaw Patrick Corbin.

Corbin has a 3.15 ERA on the season and is seventh in the MLB in strikeouts. Kershaw, on the other hand, has really found his groove after getting completely healthy and has a 2.39 ERA over 124.1 innings pitched this season.

Over his last seven starts, Kershaw has a 1.85 ERA in 48.2 innings pitched with 46 strikeouts.

The Dodgers are going to need the best version of Kershaw on Saturday as the team often struggles against left-handed pitching. This makes it a tough matchup as Kershaw obviously needs his run support, and for whatever reason, seems to rarely get the support he deserves.

With the left-handed woes in mind, it made our Los Angeles Dodgers Beat the Streak selections hard to choose.

Sarah’s pick — Current streak 2: Clayton Kershaw

My pick for tonight is Clayton Kershaw. I picked Kershaw the last time he pitched and, sure enough, he got a hit. He is easily the best hitting pitcher the Dodgers have and makes the lineup on the day of his extra interesting.

With the Diamondbacks elite pitching staff, the Dodgers need all the hits they can get and if even one of those is thanks to Kershaw, the game could be altered for the better.

Jason’s pick — Current streak 1: Enrique Hernandez

While I do not like picking guys to have back-to-back great nights, I have to go with the hero of last night in Enrique Hernandez. Quite frankly, there are not many safe picks for the Dodgers when the team faces a left-handed pitcher with Hernandez being an exception.

Of course, I could go with Manny Machado or Turner but that is no fun. I like to spice it up on this series.

Regardless, Hernandez has been swinging the bat better lately, evident from his game-tying home run. While a 4-23 clip is not a good sign against Corbin, something tells me that Hernandez is going to produce back-to-back fireworks.