HEADLINE

Dodgers looking to settle score with rival Angels

Field Level Media

July 23, 2019 at 12:27 am.

One of only two teams the Los Angeles Dodgers have played and failed to defeat this season is none other than the crosstown Los Angeles Angels, and the teams will renew their local rivalry Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.

Back in June, when they first met in Orange County, the Angels won a pair of games by identical 5-3 scores, putting the powerful Dodges on notice that they are hardly the only game in town.

The interleague rivalry might not carry with it the same fan passion as say, Mets-Yankees, or even Cubs-White Sox, but the Mike Trout-Shohei Ohtani Angels vs. the Max Muncy-Cody Bellinger Dodgers drew the biggest Angel Stadium crowd in 21 years when they first met on June 10.

Trout hit a game-tying home run in the seventh inning of that game, and Ohtani manufactured the go-ahead run with his speed in front of 45,477 fans. Ohtani then hit a home run off Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda the next day to earn the sweep of the abbreviated series.

Maeda (7-6, 3.71 ERA) will return to the rotation to pitch in Tuesday’s series opener. He made an appearance out of the bullpen Friday in the eighth inning against the Miami Marlins to help the Dodgers lock down the opener of what would be a three-game sweep.

That relief appearance was not necessarily a sign that Maeda could be losing his grip on a starting spot, but more a result of a 35-pitch start two days earlier at Philadelphia that was cut short by a long rain delay.

“I know that we view him as a starter; he views himself as a starter,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But for him to give us one or two innings, it was electric, it really was. You saw some 94s (mph) there, the slider was really on point.”

Maeda is 2-2 with a 4.22 ERA in five appearances (four starts) lifetime against the Angels. While fellow countryman Ohtani did hit a home run off Maeda, he has also struck out twice in the matchup.

The Angels will counter with right-hander Felix Pena (7-3, 4.92) on Tuesday. Pena has been a mixed bag over his last two starts. He pitched seven innings July 12 against the Seattle Mariners as the Angels finished off a combined no-hitter, but five days later he gave up eight runs on nine hits over 4 2/3 innings against the Houston Astros.

“I didn’t feel like I could throw or I could command my three pitches for strikes,” Pena said through an interpreter, according to MLB.com. “When you can’t do that, that’s what happens, always. When you can’t command your pitches, they hit you.”

Pena is 1-0 in five career appearances (two starts) against the Dodgers with a 2.81 ERA.

The Angels’ two June victories over the Dodgers seemed to give them a little life. They entered the series four games under .500 at 31-35, but are three games over .500 now at 52-49. They started the second half on a five-game winning streak, lost three in a row then defeated the Mariners on consecutive days over the weekend.

The Dodgers were in a rare funk toward the end of the first half, going 6-7 over their last 13 games before the break, but are 6-3 in the second half following the sweep of the Marlins.

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