After the brilliant performances of Rafael Furcal and Clayton Kershaw last night, the Dodgers look to take game 2 of a 4 game set against the Chicago Cubs. On the bump for the Dodgers tonight is Chad Billingsley who has been quite impressive since coming off the disabled list. Billingsley has allowed 3 earned runs in 12 innings since returning from the disabled list, and with a bullpen that is a definite quesiton mark at this point, the Dodgers will look to Billingsley to give another quality start. Even though the Dodgers are 2-0 in Billingsley pitched games since he returned to action, Billingsley hasn't gotten a win since May 26th; in Chicago.
Opposing Billingsley with be the Chicago veteran Ted Lilly. Lilly enters the contest with an ugly looking record of 3-7, while the ERA is solid enough at 3.76. His peripherals aren't quite as pristine however, as on the year he has an x-FIP of 4.63.
Who sets up?
As alluded to above and has been discussed in the comments, the Dodgers seem to be a bit thin with legitimate bullpen depth. Jonathan Broxton is the clear closer and Hong-Chih Kuo is the setup man, but Kuo is limited to pitching every other day. With Ronald Belisario gone, who is called upon on days when Kuo can't go? I can't imagine the Dodgers will trust the pitchers who lack overpowering stuff in Justin Miller, Travis Schlichting, Carlos Monasterios and Jeff Weaver. George Sherrill has been a trainwreck and Ramon Troncoso is working on getting his sinker to sink again in AAA. It seems to me that it is as good of a time as any to see if Kenley Jansen can fill that role. While I don't think Jansen should be called up and thrown into high leverage situations immediately, it seems like the time is now to get Jansen some reps at the big league level and see if he can be called upon down the stretch.
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Game Time 7:10
Prime Ticket