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Dodgers July review: The Clayton Kershaw & Zack Greinke show

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The Dodgers finished strong in July with two straight wins to close out the month, but it was in many ways quite an up-and-down month.

Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke were at their peaks and allowed five total runs in nine combined starts, but the flip side was the Dodgers bullpen that allowed three more runs in July than did the starters, in 80 fewer innings.

The offense was hampered by slumps from Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig and Howie Kendrick, but weirdly even with a bad month and amid talk of his lack of old standard production numbers Puig still managed to lead the team in RBI. Adrian Gonzalez, Yasmani Grandal and Justin Turner nearly balanced the slumps with strong months of their own, and Jimmy Rollins had his best month of the year.

Dodger Batter of July: This goes to Adrian Gonzalez, who had a power spike with eight home runs and a .650 slugging percentage.

Dodger Pitcher of July: If I were a betting man, I think the National League Pitcher of the Month Award might be split, but for the sake of not riding the fence I will pick Clayton Kershaw as the single winner. He had one fewer start than Greinke but only five fewer innings. Kershaw allowed only one run in the entire month and struck out 45, 11 more punchouts than Greinke.

July record: 14-10
92 runs scored (3.83 per game)
93 runs allowed (3.88 per game)
.495 pythagorean winning percentage (12-12)

July National League West Standings
Club W-L Pct GB RS RA
Dodgers
14-10 .583 --- 92 93
San Francisco 14-10 .583 ---
108 79
Arizona
13-11 .542 1 100 79
San Diego 13-11 .542 1 74 85
Colorado 9-15 .375 5 114 133

2015 record: 58-45
428 runs scored (4.16 per game)
365 runs allowed (3.54 per game)
.572 pythagorean winning percentage (59-44)

National League West Standings through July 31
Club W-L Pct GB RS RA
Dodgers
58-45 .563 --- 428 365
San Francisco 56-46 .549
440 389
Arizona 50-51 .495
7 448 435
San Diego 50-53 .485
8 401 449
Colorado 43-58 .426
14 461 525

Game of the Month: In the final game of the first series after the All-Star break, in a battle of first-place teams, Zack Greinke out-dueled Max Scherzer in a contest of Cy Young candidates. Greinke struck out 11 in eight scoreless innings in a 5-0 Dodgers win over the Nationals on July 19 in Washington D.C.

Pinch Hitting: For the month, Dodger pinch hitters were 6-for-34 with a double and three walks, hitting .176/.237/.206.

Runners in Scoring Position: In July, the Dodgers hit .234/.291/.380 with runners in scoring position in 210 plate appearances, with nine doubles and six home runs.

They had a runner on third base with less than two outs 34 times in July, and got the runner home 16 times, or 47.1 percent (the entire National League scored 336 of 690 times, 48.7 percent).

They had a runner on second base with nobody out 36 times in July, and the runner advanced 23 times, or 63.9 percent (the entire NL advanced the runner 277 of 503 times, 55.1 percent).

Bases loaded: The Dodgers were 3-for-17 with the bases loaded in July, with one walk and two sacrifice flies, hitting .176/.200/.176.

Previous months in review: April | May | June

July weeks in review: July 6 | July 13 | July 20 | July 27

July Stats

Player PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SB/CS BA/OBP/SLG OPS
Gonzalez 89 80 15 24 4 0 8 13 8 0/0 .300/.371/.650 1.021
Grandal 64 53 10 18 3 0 2 8 9 0/1 .340/.444/.509 .954
Turner 73 67 6 23 8 0 2 8 2 0/0 .343/.384/.552 .936
Ethier 61 51 6 16 3 0 0 6 7 0/1 .314/.410/.373 .782
Rollins 84 77 12 18 5 1 4 10 7 2/1 .234/.298/.481 .778
Kendrick 101 94 11 24 2 1 1 9 4 3/0 .255/.290/.330 .620
Puig 92 86 8 17 3 0 4 16 5 1/0 .198/.239/.372 .611
Pederson 96 89 6 15 5 0 1 5 4 0/1 .169/.229/.258 .488
Starters 660 597 74 155 33 2 22 75 46 6/4 .260/.322/.432 .754
Ellis 22 20 3 8 1 0 2 4 2 0/0 .400/.455/.750 1.205
Hernandez 32 29 4 11 3 1 0 4 1 0/0 .379/.406/.552 .958
Barnes 12 10 1 3 1 0 0 0 1 0/0 .300/.471/.400 .817
Van Slyke 30 22 3 5 2 0 0 0 7 1/0 .227/.414/.318 .732
Callaspo 34 30 2 6 0 0 0 4 4 0/0 .200/.294/.200 .494
Guerrero 22 22 3 2 0 0 1 2 0 0/0 .091/.091/.227 .318
Crawford 11 11 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0/0 .091/.091/.091 .182
Bench 163 144 17 36 7 1 3 14 15 1/0 .250/.327/.375 .702
Pitchers 52 49 1 5 1 0 0 0 0 0/0 .102/.102/.122 .224
Totals 875 790 92 196 41 3 25 89 61 7/4 .248/.311/.403 .713

:

Pitcher G W-L Sv IP H R ER BB K ERA WHIP FIP*
Kershaw 4 3-0 -- 33 19 1 1 2 45 0.27 0.636 0.62
Greinke 5 4-0 -- 38 17 4 4 5 34 0.95 0.579 1.75
Thomas 1 1-0 -- 5 3 1 1 0 5 1.80 0.600 1.07
Bolsinger 5 1-1 -- 27 26 10 9 9 19 3.00 1.296 2.44
Anderson 5 1-2 -- 28⅔ 31 13 10 7 19 3.14 1.326 4.40
Beachy 2 0-1 -- 8 10 7 7 6 5 7.88 2.000 4.95
Garcia 1 0-0 -- 2 4 2 2 0 2 9.00 2.000 7.57
Lee 1 0-1 -- 4⅔ 11 7 7 1 3 13.50 2.571 5.21
Starters 24 10-5 -- 146 121 45 41 30 132 2.52 1.032 2.48
Thomas 1 0-0 -- 2 0 0 0 1 2 0.00 0.500 2.57
Howell 10 1-0 1 7⅓ 7 3 2 3 9 2.45 1.364 2.25
Baez 10 2-1 -- 10 10 4 4 3 9 3.60 1.300 3.77
Coulombe 1 0-0 -- 2 3 1 1 1 0 4.50 2.000 4.57
Peralta 9 0-0 -- 7⅓ 11 4 4 4 6 4.91 2.045 2.66
Jansen 10 0-1 6 9 8 6 6 2 17 6.00 1.111 5.74
Nicasio 8 0-1 -- 10⅓ 9 8 8 5 13 6.97 1.355 2.97
Ravin 2 0-0 -- 2⅓ 2 2 2 3 3 7.71 2.143 11.21
Garcia 3 0-0 -- 2 3 2 2 0 3 9.00 1.500 0.07
Tsao 5 1-1 -- 7 15 9 8 3 7 10.29 2.571 7.50
Surkamp 1 0-0 -- 3⅓ 4 4 4 1 4 10.80 1.500 11.17
Liberatore 5 0-1 -- 3⅓ 7 5 5 2 0 13.50 2.700 7.78
Relievers 24 4-5 7 66 79 48 46 28 73 6.27 1.621 4.74
Totals 24 14-10 7/2 212 200 93 87 58 205 3.69 1.215 3.18
*FIP is estimated