When the Dodgers announced their starting lineup three hours prior to Saturday’s game against the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, two things absolutely jumped out at you. Noticeably missing from their starting nine were their two hottest hitters, outfielder Joc Pederson and catcher Yasmani Grandal.

Pederson, as you undoubtedly recall, led off the two previous games with home runs and had homered in three of his last 10 at-bats, while Grandal had homered in five of his last 28, including a dramatic two-run walk off home run on Wednesday night, not to mention the fact that he has been the team’s hottest hitter over the past six weeks.

But rather than going with his two very visibly hottest hands against the defending world champions and the top team in the American League West on Saturday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts chose analytics over the obvious.

Why would he do that, you ask?

This from our good friend Eric Stephen:

Simply put, the Dodgers skipper chose analytics over the visibly obvious against Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. and his (now) 10-6 record and his (now) 3.93 ERA – period.

There is no argument that it would be foolish to completely ignore the cold, hard analytical numbers. But it is (was) even more foolish to ignore the fact that Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp has been mired in a horrible slump over the past month and that back-up catcher Austin Barnes mired in an even more horrendous season-long slump and at risk of falling below the Mendoza Line with his unacceptable .204 batting average, the worst on the team.

Sure enough, Kemp went 0-for-4 on Saturday night with two strikeouts while stranding two runners on base, and Barnes went 0-for-1 with a walk and a strikeout before he was finally replaced by Grandal in the top of the sixth inning. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, they were already down 1-0 by then en route to an embarrassing 14-0 loss.

Too late, Doc.

There is no disputing that the Dodgers were up against a tough competitor in McCullers on Saturday night (and an even tougher Justin Verlander on Friday night), but the painful truth is that Roberts did not give his team their best chance to win by keeping Pederson and Grandal out of his lineup on Saturday, especially when you consider that Grandal is a switch-hitter.

So how does Roberts turn a loss like this around in hopes of trying to salvage at least one of the three games against the defending World champions?

“I just think for us not try to dissect it too much,” Roberts said, with his arms folded across his chest after Saturday’s lopsided shutout loss. “It got ugly really quickly, so to try to find the silver lining tonight ain’t gonna happen … the game’s over, I guess that’s the silver lining.”

Cute.

As he often does when asked tough questions about his team’s struggles, Roberts answered them with his arms folded across his chest. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Although Dodgers right-hander Kenta Maeda started off well on Saturday evening, he once again gave up a long ball that would end up being the winning run.

In the top half of the second inning, the 30-year-old Senboku-gun, Japan native hung a 92.5-mph fastball right over the middle to Astros second baseman Marwin Gonzalez, which he promptly deposited over the center field wall for a first-pitch leadoff home run.

Probably not where Maeda want this pitch to be. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Maeda would exit the game after giving up a sixth-inning one-out double to former Dodger Josh Reddick, walking Astros shortstop Alex Bregman, giving up a double to Astros third baseman Yuli Gurriel, intentionally walking Gonzalez, and giving up yet another double to Astros first baseman Tyler White. 

Ugly indeed.

And then things really got ugly.

Making his Dodgers debut, 35-year-old right-hander John Axford, whom the Dodgers acquired at the July 31 trade deadline from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for minor league right-hander Corey Copping, gave up six runs on three hits, with a hit batsman and two walks in what would end up being a seven-run eighth inning. In fact, the only out that the Simcoe, Ontario, Canada native recorded was a RBI sacrifice fly to Astros pinch-hitter Evan Gattis. In other words, Axford left the game with an earned run average of 162.02 with his new team.

Ugly personified.

The Dodgers will indeed try to salvage at least one win against the less-than-popular Astros on Sunday afternoon when they send young right-hander Walker Buehler (4-4 / 3.65) to the mound opposite Astros right-hander Gerrit Cole (10-3 / 2.55).

Let’s just hope that Roberts is a little less myopic for this one.

Play Ball!