Saturday’s #BeatLA Lineups and Pre-Gamer: Bumgarner looks to slow down streaking Dodgers

It only took the Los Angeles Dodgers three innings to put the game in the bag on Friday night, and Madison Bumgarner hopes his offense can provide some help at the expense of Stephen Fife in today’s nationally televised game with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, everybody’s favorite duo. For the record, I don’t have a problem with Buck, just with McCarver for the things he says. Back to the people that decide the outcome of the game, the Dodgers will leave Matt Kemp out of the lineup today after that swing of his in yesterday’s game revealed everything may not be right in that left shoulder. Don Mattingly says he should be out a couple of days.

So, I guess they’re still doing the “#whiff” promotion, but the Giants don’t really seem to be behind it all that much. Always found that a little interesting, maybe they’re just picking and choosing their contests that they really get into, and I’m sure the Cafe @ SF took quite a bit of focus as well. Despite all the recent troubles, you wouldn’t blame Bruce Bochy for blowing up the lineup and mixing things up just because, but he’s stayed fairly consistent with the order of things lately:

Here are some arbitrary endpoints a Dodger blogger threw out there:

June 20, 2013; San Diego, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Stephen Fife (59) throws during the second inning against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Fife and Bumgarner both went against the other’s team the last time their spot in the rotation came up, but pitched on different days. Still, Fife and Bumgarner both gave their teams a chance to win on the days they pitched, and the last six starts for Fife and for Bumgarner have been pretty good. I’ve never thought much of Fife as a pitcher, but he’s so far proving me pretty wrong and doing well for the surging Dodgers. Here are the pitches you’ll see out of him:

Only has seven starts on the year, so his numbers are going to be lower than Bumgarner’s, whose stats pile up as such:

Lots of fastballs from Fife and Bumgarner, as you’d expect, but Bumgarner still uses more sliders than fastballs. Fife has a curveball he’ll show off and change speeds with, and you shouldn’t be surprised to see Madison use that curveball in strikeout situations. Hopefully the Giants can return the favor on Fife after what the Dodgers did yesterday to Matt Cain so the Giants won’t be kept as off balance if Fife has a good cutter or changeup going today.

Other happenings around the baseball: Ken Rosenthal reporting some movement on the Ricky Nolasco trade front:

That would, of course, be higher than the two prospects that the Giants offered, and I think it’s time for the Giants to bow out if the prospects required for this trade are mid-level, and that decision’s not even considering their losing ways of late. I really worry how much payroll Ricky Nolasco would soak up, but as I’ve talked about before, the options that could be on the market aren’t anything to get excited over.

It appears we have another promotion happening, this one for reliever Derek Law:

Today’s nationally televised game will begin at 4:15PM PST on FOX with plenty of talk about the shadows. Look for our article on the All-Star Game rosters later today, with Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, and Sergio Romo all being possible winners of roster spots.