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Dodgers @ Phillies
Wednesday, 6:40 PM ET | Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, PA | Sportsnet LA / NBC Sports Philadelphia
Monday night these two clubs put seventeen runs on the scoreboard and Philadelphia won 10-7. Tuesday night they combined for three and Los Angeles won 2-1. Same ballpark, same rosters, forty-eight hours apart. That is baseball in the third week of July, and it is also a decent argument against reading too much into either result before tonight.
What does not swing game to game is the gap in class. The Dodgers are 64-38, the best record in the major leagues, and they have scored 526 runs while allowing 373. That plus-153 run differential is the largest of any team in either league, twenty runs clear of Milwaukee. Philadelphia is 56-46, second in the National League East and three games behind Atlanta, with a run differential of minus-11 that undersells the roster but does not lie about the season.
A 153-Run Gap And A Team Trying To Stay In A Race
The strangest thing about the Dodgers this year is where they have done their damage. Los Angeles is 33-19 on the road and 31-19 at home, and the offensive splits are wider than the records: .272 with a .359 on-base percentage and an .802 OPS away from Dodger Stadium against .245 and a .735 OPS at home. They have hit 68 of their 132 team home runs on the road. This is a club that travels better than it hosts, which is not how most teams are built and is very much how this one is.
Philadelphia is the mirror image and it is stark. The Phillies hit .253 with a .445 slugging percentage and a .767 OPS at Citizens Bank Park and collapse to .220 with a .285 on-base percentage and a .646 OPS on the road. That is a 121-point OPS swing, one of the largest home-road gaps in baseball, and 77 of their 133 team home runs have come in this building. The Phillies are 27-24 at home and 29-22 away, so the results have not followed the splits, but the bats absolutely have.
Both offenses are also fundamentally different animals. Los Angeles hits .260 as a team with a .341 on-base percentage and a .771 OPS, patient and deep. Philadelphia hits .236 with a .303 on-base percentage and a .705 OPS while striking out 904 times, and it survives on 133 team home runs and the top three spots in the order. When the Phillies do not homer, they generally do not score, which is exactly the profile that produces a 10-7 win on Monday and a 2-1 loss on Tuesday.
Rotation & Roster Notes
Los Angeles Dodgers Philadelphia PhilliesThe Pitching Match-Up: Lauer Against Nola
This is not a duel of aces. It is a duel of two starters whose seasons have been defined by the same failure mode, and the total of 9.5 reflects it honestly.
Aaron Nola has made 20 starts and thrown 103 innings with a 5.68 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP, and the number that explains all of it is 23 home runs allowed, more than any starter working tonight anywhere in baseball. The stuff has not gone away. He has struck out 108, a rate of 9.44 per nine, and his knuckle curve is still his signature and his most-used pitch at 34.3 percent and 78.2 mph, backed by a four-seamer at 23.4 percent and 92.2, a sinker at 19.8 percent and 91.6 and a changeup at 14.0 percent and 85.5. What has changed is what happens when the four-seamer catches the plate at 92. Opponents are hitting .278 against him.
Facing a Dodgers lineup that hits .265 with a .782 OPS and 96 team home runs against right-handed pitching, in the ballpark where Philadelphia pitching has already given up 61 homers this season, that is the central risk of the evening for the home side.
Eric Lauer arrives with the same disease in a smaller sample. The left-hander is 4-5 with a 4.81 ERA and 18 home runs allowed in 76.2 innings, a rate of 2.11 per nine that is worse than Nola's on a per-inning basis. He does not miss bats, 47 strikeouts and 5.52 per nine, and he leans hard on a four-seamer thrown 44.5 percent of the time at 90.9 mph, with a cutter at 19.1 percent and 87.1 and a changeup at 16.4 percent and 84.2 behind it. Ninety-one on a four-seamer from a left-hander is survivable when it is located and punished when it is not.
Philadelphia has the platoon edge on paper and does not use it well. The Phillies hit .228 with a .683 OPS against left-handed pitching, their worst split, though they have taken 38 of their 133 team home runs off lefties. Schwarber and Harper both hit from the left side, which is the specific reason Lauer's night hinges on the top four hitters rather than the lineup as a whole.
Advanced Stats & Style Profile
Los Angeles Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies
Put those two columns side by side and the shape of a 9.5 total becomes obvious. The Dodgers are the better offense in absolute terms and a considerably better one on the road. The Phillies are the better offense in this specific building. Both starters give up home runs at rates well above league average, and neither bullpen is being asked to protect a small margin by a rotation that goes deep. The counterweight is Los Angeles pitching, which has allowed fewer runs than any staff in baseball and is better away from home than in it.
Keys To The Game
Dodgers Keys Phillies KeysMarket Context
Los Angeles opened and sits at -131, which implies a 56.7 percent win probability, with Philadelphia at +109. For the team with the best record and the largest run differential in baseball, laying less than a third of a unit of juice is a modest ask, and it reflects both the ballpark and the fact that Eric Lauer is the least imposing name on the Dodgers staff.
The total is 9.5, with the over priced at -118 and the under at -102. That pricing is a mild lean toward runs, which is consistent with two home run prone starters in a park that has already surrendered 61 homers to visiting bats this year. The one number pointing the other way is the Dodgers bullpen, attached to a staff that has allowed fewer runs than any other in the sport.
Final Thoughts
The honest read on this game is that it is closer than the standings suggest and less close than the ballpark suggests. Los Angeles is a genuinely great team playing its best baseball away from home, and it is starting the one member of its rotation who looks beatable. Philadelphia is a good team playing in the only environment where its lineup functions, and it is starting a pitcher whose ERA has climbed past 5.60 while his strikeout rate stayed near nine and a half per nine. Somewhere in that contradiction is the game. If Nola's curve is landing, the Phillies win a 4-3 game and take the series. If it is not, the Dodgers hit three home runs by the fifth inning and this ends early. Analysis only here, no picks. The betting card is on the moneylines page and the total of the day.