The Dodgers have the best record in baseball.
The Rays are treading water and, for good measure, had a last minute scratch of their starter today.
So I thought the Rays would be uncompetitive in this series and this game. But they weren’t!
With Shane Baz suffering from the flu, the Rays called up Jacob Lopez to make a spot start against the Dodgers today. Lopez has pitched a few major league innings with mixed results. Even his work in Durham, where he has a 4.08 ERA, hasn’t been dominant. So throwing him into a packed Dodger stadium to face Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts seemed more like the setup for a disaster movie than for a competitive major league baseball game.