Los Angeles Dodgers: Rich Hill Misses Another Start with an Immortal Blister
Starting pitcher Rich Hill missed yet another start for the Los Angeles Dodgers with a blister.
The Los Angeles Dodgers experienced yet another setback with mid-season acquisition Rich Hill. After the starting pitcher missed nearly a month with a blister, he will miss today’s start due to the same blister. Yes, this is also the blister that recently ended his bid for a perfect game.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the Los Angeles Dodgers to make this decision was their lead in the National League West. With a seven-game lead over the San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers had few fears of losing the division and instead chose to focus on having Hill be fully healthy for the playoffs.
Instead of Rich Hill, the Dodgers will send Brandon McCarthy to the hill. McCarthy, 33, has been on a one-month trip to the disabled list with right hip stiffness. He had been an effective pitcher before the injury, although he had only made eight starts. In that time, he logged a 3.63 earned run average with 9.87 strikeouts per nine innings. His control, however, was uncharacteristically problematic, as his 24 walks in 34.2 innings suggested.
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Still, McCarthy’s successful start to the season followed three straight years of disappointing results. After pitching well for the Oakland Athletics, McCarthy struggled with the Arizona Diamondbacks for a year and a half before finding better fortunes with the New York Yankees down the stretch of 2014. He fumbled again with the Dodgers, however, last season after inking a four-year, $48 million contract when he only appeared in a few games and missed most of the season. Surely, this was not the performance either party envisioned when signing the deal.
As for the scratched Rich Hill, the 36-year-old dominated in four starts with the Boston Red Sox last season after being essentially irrelevant for most of his career. The Oakland Athletics scooped him up on a one-year, $6 million deal. He rewarded them handsomely with excellent performances before the A’s sent him to L.A. for a trio of pitching prospects.
His work for the Dodgers has been great, but limited. Through just 29.1 innings, he has struck out a superb 35 batters against just four walks and 16 hits. Similarly, the lefty has prevented runs at an elite rate, although this comes with the usual small sample size warning. The immortal blister has served as the biggest knock on his performance, but this issue should hopefully go away with time. If it does not, however, the trade to acquire his services could become questionable in hindsight.