Los Angeles Dodgers: Going for the two-game sweep with Rich Hill

The Los Angeles Dodgers enter the second game of the team’s second two-game series in a week with the same possibility: a series sweep.

The Los Angeles Dodgers had a two-game series at home against the San Diego Padres on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and were able to sweep their NL West foes. Now, after winning the first game this Tuesday, the Dodgers have the chance to do the same thing to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Tuesday really was a beautiful game for the Los Angeles Dodgers that saw the offense work in harmony and Clayton Kershaw pitch gorgeously. Instead of relying on sporadic home runs, the Dodgers were able to keep the line moving and manufacture their runs on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Kershaw looked dominant up until his last inning of work, where he allowed two straight baserunners that the bullpen allowed to score to give Kershaw two earned runs on the night.

But still, Kershaw has consistently through six-seven innings this year while allowing two-three runs. It might not be the dominant Kershaw from five years ago, but it is a consistent Kershaw that has not earned a loss to his name since July of last year.

Rich Hill is looking to have a great start of his own after having the best start of his 2019 campaign thus far in Cincinnati. Hill has good numbers at Tropicana Field as well. In 14.1 innings, Hill has a 2.51 ERA and 19 strikeouts.

With those career trends, the Dodgers’ offense might not even need to score that many runs. However, after such a productive day yesterday, it would not be surprising to see more of the same on Wednesday.

As part of our Los Angeles Dodgers Beat the Streak series, here is who we are relying on to get at least one of those hits.

Jason’s pick (Current streak: 3):  Cody Bellinger

Picking someone to get a hit against the Tampa Bay Rays is really hard because the Rays use pitchers in an unorthodox manner. If that alone was not enough, the Dodgers also have virtually no matchup history against the Rays, so there is nothing to really go off of.

Because of that, we have to pick someone that is going to be in the lineup regardless of the handiness of the pitcher. There really are three for-sure options to stay in the game for its entirety: Cody Bellinger, Justin Turner and Corey Seager.

Today we are going with Bellinger as he had the worst day of the three yesterday, although he still reached base three times, with only one hit.

Picking Bellinger, who is still hitting over .400 over a quarter of the way through the season, is the best thing I can do in this series.