Barring the unforeseen, the Dodgers will open the 2018 season with a starting rotation consisting of four left-handers and one right-hander. And while traditionally this may seem less than ideal, it’s difficult to argue that this four-to-one rotation is among the very best in the game right now; perhaps even World Series-caliber best.

That lone right-hander is soon-to-be (on April 11) 30-year-old Senboku-gun, Japan native Kenta Maeda, who will be entering his third season with the Dodgers (and the MLB) in 2018 and who made his second start of the spring on Sunday afternoon at Camelback Ranch against the hated Giants. And if what we saw is any indication, the Dodgers do indeed have a potential World Series-caliber starting rotation, 4-to-1 ratio notwithstanding.

Maeda appears to be well on his way to returning to the Dodgers starting rotation in 2018 after finishing the 2017 season (and postseason) in the Dodgers bullpen. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

As every baseball fan knows, spring training wins and losses have zero impact on who makes the Fall Classic and who does not, and is more about stretching out pitchers – especially starting pitchers – for (hopefully) a 32-start / 162-game season, although it rarely works out this way. That being said, Maeda’s brief two-inning start on Sunday certainly had to put a smile on even the harshest Maeda critic … if there are any, that is.

The 6′-1″ / 175-pound right-hander with a crafty sinker held the Giants line-up (and probably their Opening Day line-up, sans Buster Posey) to only one run on two hits, one of which was a third-inning solo home run by Giants non-roster invitee center fielder Steven Duggar, perhaps the lone exception to that probable Opening Day line-up thing, while striking out three and walking none. Here again and although brief, Maeda looked very sharp against the nine batters that he faced and 34 pitches that he made over his 2.1 innings of work.

Maeda’s only real mistake pitch on Sunday afternoon was this hanging breaking ball right over the middle of the plate to Giants minor league outfielder Steven Duggar, which he deposited well over the right field wall.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

The one question remaining with Maeda is whether or not Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, pitching coach Rick Honeycutt, general manager Farhan Zaidi and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman are willing to allow the extremely polite and surprisingly funny right-hander to go more than five innings this coming season. And although his second start of the spring was intentionally short, as are those of all Dodger starters at this point, the trend today seemingly is to not allow starters to go past two times through the opposing line-up. In Maeda’s case on Sunday, it was only once; again, not entirely uncommon this early in the spring for starting pitchers not named Clayton Kershaw.

Maeda was certainly helped by a potent Dodgers offense on Sunday afternoon, which included a second inning / two-run home run by (presumably) Dodgers Opening Day starting catcher Yasmani Grandal, his first of the spring. What made Grandal’s blast even significant is that the switch-hitting catcher hit it batting right-handed off of (wait for it…) former Dodger left-hander Tony Watson. The significance is that of Grandal’s 22 home runs in 2017, 20 of them were as a left-handed batter against right-handed pitching, with the other two batting right-handed off of lefties. Whether or not this ends up being significant during the 2018 season obviously remains to be seen.

Although Grandal hit the only home run for the Dodgers on Sunday, the teams slugged five doubles against their most hated rivals, including two by non-roster invitee second baseman Donovan Solano. In fact, when the dust finally settled, the Dodgers had amassed nine runs on 15 hits, as compared to the Giants three runs on seven hits.

Take that, Giants fans.