There has been so much national media coverage of the Dodgers today, no doubt as the nation prepares for the home debut of Rod Barajas. The Phillies come to town atop the wild card race, with the Dodgers several games behind. The Dodgers really need to sweep, perhaps not only the Phillies, but the Giants as well this coming weekend.

I like really obscure baseball statistics, especially for things that aren't the easiest to track (even more if I'm not the one doing the tracking), so this stat from today's Dodgers game notes blew my mind: tonight's starters, Hiroki Kuroda and Roy Halladay, are the top two pitchers in baseball over the last three seasons when it comes to breaking bats.

Broken bats is one of those things that you don't think much about, let alone think they are being tracked somewhere, by someone.

Halladay thew a perfect game in Florida earlier this year, and is the first pitcher to face the Dodgers in the same season of a perfect game since Randy Johnson, who pitched against the Dodgers three times in 2004 after his perfect game against Atlanta.

Deconstructing Kemp

You will never find a more detailed and thorough breakdown of a player and his performance than Chad Moriyama's analysis of Matt Kemp over at Memories of Kevin Malone. An excerpt can't possibly do it justice, but here is one:

Now going back to my original hypothesis, I believe Matt Kemp’s contact struggles stem from his inability to hit fastballs rather than curves and sliders, and as far as I can tell, the statistics back me up on this.

In 2009, he was worth 23 runs above average against fastballs and -4.3 runs above average against off-speed pitches. In 2010, he is worth 2.6 runs above average against fastballs and -3.8 runs above average against off-speed pitches.

If you only read one article on the Dodgers this year, it has to be this one. Except for everything ever written at True Blue LA of course.

Notes

• Ramon Troncoso, who has allowed 10 home runs in 40 1/3 innings combined between LA and Albuquerque since the beginning of May, is back with the Dodgers, taking the roster spot of one Manuel Aristides (Onelcida) Ramirez
• Ryan Theriot has a 10-game hitting streak, the fifth double-digit hitting streak by a Dodger this season
• Today is the one-year anniversary of the acquisition of Ronnie Belliard from the Nationals. In his time with the Dodgers, he has hit .265/.335/.435 in total, which is pretty much what you would expect
• Vicente Padilla will pitch on a rehab assignment for the Class A Inland Empire 66ers tonight. The game, the finale of a homestand in San Bernardino, starts at 7:05pm, and you can listen here.
• I don't have the legal expertise nor the desire to write about the McCourt divorce trial, which started today, but if you want updates, you should follow Josh Fisher (@DodgerDivorce) and Molly Knight (@molly_knight) on Twitter.

Get your guesses in for Xeifrank's game simulation here.

Game Time: 7:10 p.m.

TV:Prime Ticket

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