LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda will take the mound Saturday against a Colorado Rockies team that he has had success against over the past three years.
Something has to give at Dodger Stadium in a nationally televised game, when Dodgers right-hander Maeda (5-4, 3.44 ERA) faces off against Rockies right-hander Marquez (5-8, 5.53).
The Rockies won the first game of the series 3-1 on Friday, and Maeda will try halt the Dodgers’ two-game losing streak.
Since returning from the disabled list after being sidelined by a hip strain, Maeda has posted a 2.87 ERA over three starts, including a scoreless seven-inning outing Monday against the Chicago Cubs when he struck out nine and picked up the win.
The nine strikeouts were reminiscent of his best stretch of the season before his injury, when he struck out 32 batters over 24 1/3 innings, including a season-best 12 strikeouts in 6 2/3 shutout innings against the Rockies on May 23.
“Ever since coming off the DL, feeling-wise, this is the best I have felt,” Maeda said through an interpreter, after holding the Cubs in check during a 2-1 Dodgers victory Monday. “Overall it was a much better feeling coming into this game than the other ones.”
Especially troublesome for the Rockies is that Maeda figures to be fresh for Saturday’s outing, having thrown just 84 pitches in his latest start. Then there is this: Maeda is 5-2 in eight career appearances (six starts) with a 2.11 ERA against the Rockies with 48 strikeouts.
Marquez has struggled lately, having gone 1-4 in June with an 8.53 ERA Authentic Mats Zuccarello Jersey , but there is no doubting his road success this year. He has a 7.93 ERA at home, but that mark falls off dramatically to 3.07 in 41 innings on the road. In fact, the Rockies have won four of Marquez’s seven road starts this season.
Marquez is 1-0 with a 3.91 ERA in four career starts against the Dodgers.
His two outings against them this season have been a mixed bag. On May 21 in Los Angeles, Marquez gave up one run over seven innings in a 2-1 Rockies victory. On June 2 at Colorado, he gave up four runs over six innings, although he didn’t factor into the decision as the Dodgers rolled to a 12-4 victory.
In his four starts since then, Marquez has given up at least five runs in each time. He gave up a combined 10 runs (nine earned) in his last two starts, both of which came at home.
“I know I have been in the league two years and if I execute my pitches, it doesn’t matter how long they have known me,” Marquez told reporters, through an interpreter, after he gave up six runs (five earned) on nine hits in 3 1/3 innings in an eventual 8-5 loss to the Miami Marlins on Sunday. “It’s about me executing my pitches.
Marquez will face a Dodgers team that has 54 home runs in June, the most in franchise history for a single month.
The head of one of the nation’s largest fish conservation groups says Fiat Chrysler’s Super Bowl ads ”glorified” the destruction of aquatic habitat in an apparent attempt to appeal to off-road thrill-seekers.
It’s the second time ads by the automaker have drawn complaints since the Feb. 4 game.
Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood said Wednesday that one ad gave the impression a Jeep Cherokee was splashing down the middle of a wild streambed.
Article continues below ... Fiat Chrysler is defending the ads but says there are no plans to run them again. It says the spot with the Cherokee was shot on a flooded county road and another with a Jeep Wrangler was filmed in a man-made lake with a man-made waterfall on private land.
Wood said many of his group’s 300,000 members and supporters own Jeeps, but the images were upsetting.
”Fish are tough and resilient critters Mika Zibanejad Jersey , but they don’t do well with several-thousand-pound vehicles driving over their spawning grounds, tearing up the gravel where they lay eggs,” he said. ”Why someone would want to put out the idea that you should buy a Jeep so you could drive it up a creek is incomprehensible to me.”
The Reno Gazette-Journal first reported the ad flap last week. Pam Harrington, Trout Unlimited’s Nevada field coordinator, told the newspaper she was upset because she’s worked with ATV clubs in Idaho repairing damage caused by irresponsible drivers.
Stream habitat improvements are part of the decadeslong efforts to protect endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest, where research shows riverbank disturbances and sedimentation chokes off fish eggs.
Wood said he didn’t learn until this week that much of his membership was upset over the Jeep ads. He said he had already written a personal letter of complaint Feb. 6 to Fiat Chrysler CEO and Chairman Sergio Marchionne after Wood’s son noticed the ad during the game.
The automaker also came under fire last week for another Super Bowl ad featuring a Ram pickup set against audio of ”The Drum Major Instinct” sermon delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years ago.
The 60-second spot included images of the truck with people helping others and hugging loved ones. Critics said it omitted King’s words in the same speech guarding against advertisers exploiting consumers, including when the civil rights icon said, ”In order to make your neighbors envious you must drive this type of car. … And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. That’s the way advertisers do it.”
A company spokeswoman said that ad ”was selling the message of serving in your community.”
Wood, who worked as chief spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service under the Clinton administration before joining Trout Unlimited in 2001, said Fiat Chrysler apparently ”got some bad marketing advice” on the Jeep campaign.
He said there are plans to connect with a Jeep branch representative for a ”broader conversation.”
”Hopefully something good will come of this, and we can begin a dialogue with Jeep to promote smart use of off-road vehicles as well as conservation of natural resources,” Wood said.