Dodger vs. Red Sox - lineups and other pregame notes

The Dodgers and Red Sox sit atop their respective divisions and with both games over the weekend on national television, at least part of the baseball world will be focused on Los Angeles this weekend. For some, the fact that Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke will not be pitching this weekend gives the edge to the Red Sox but that would be putting the bulk of the success of the Dodgers for the last 8 weeks solely on those two.

The Dodgers are 45-10 since their loss to the Padres on June 21st. They have had 8 winning streaks of 3 games of longer since then (they had 1 prior to that).

Per Dodger PR office, the Dodgers are 93-70 since the trade with Boston, the general sense is that both teams got what they wanted from the deal and hopefully the focus this weekend will be on the field and not off it.

Mattingly said that the current plan is not to alter the roster prior to the September 1 roster expansion date short of someone getting "banged up." He did say that it is possible that Stephen Fife could make a start to give an extra day but the current plan is to keep the current starters on rotation throughout this home stand.

Earlier Vin Scully addressed the media upon the announcement of his coming back for his 65th season. Scully told the assembled media how he was still excited and how enthusiastic he was about broadcasting and that he is humbled to amount of attention this announcement gets every year.

Scully said, he wished this could just be one line in the newspaper but by the reaction his announcement gets every year, that seems to be impossibility.

Finally, Matt Kemp ran as well as ever today per Mattingly, he did take some curves, still no timetable and they don't know if he will be able to play in any rehab games before the minor league season ends.

Game info

Time: 7:10 p.m.

TV: Prime Ticket

MLB Gameday