Sunday Night Baseball Preview

After missing the first six weeks with an elbow injury, Los Angeles Angels right-hander John Lackey has had an up-and-down season. When he has faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in Anaheim in the Freeway Series, however, he’s enjoyed nothing but success. Lackey brings a 21-inning scoreless home streak against the Dodgers into Sunday night’s series finale as he tries to improve to 9-0 in his career in interleague starts at Angel Stadium.

The Angels (36-30, +7 units) have seen Lackey (2-2, 6.10 ERA, 1.565 WHIP) sprinkle in a few solid outings while getting hit hard in others in 2009 since he made his season debut May 16.
At home in interleague play, though, Lackey is 8-0 with a 2.00 ERA in 11 starts - all wins for the Angels. That includes a 4-0 mark with a 0.33 ERA in four outings against the Dodgers, with 21 straight scoreless innings.

Lackey faced the Dodgers (45-24, +18 units) on the road May 23 and yielded three runs over seven innings in a 5-4, 10-inning loss. In his last start, he won Monday at San Francisco by allowing three runs over seven innings while striking out a season-high 10 and walking none in a 9-7 victory.

“I really established the ball inside early in the game,” Lackey told the Angels’ official Web site Monday, “and that allowed me to get guys to go after the curveball. It’s probably the best curveball I’ve had so far this year.” The tall Texan and his Angels’ teammates have won last five Game 3’s his been the hurler.

Several hitters for the Dodgers have fared poorly versus Lackey. Casey Blake is 2 for 16, Andre Ethier 2 for 9 and Matt Kemp is hitless in nine at-bats with seven strikeouts. Those three hitters combined for four hits and three RBIs Saturday as the Dodgers ended the Angels’ season-high seven-game winning streak with a 6-4 victory. Russell Martin added three hits, including his first homer of the year, to help the Dodgers improve to 2-3 against the Angels.

With the Dodgers starting left-hander Clayton Kershaw (3-5, 4.13, 1.364) on Sunday, the Angels are hoping Juan Rivera can take advantage. Rivera is 0 for 2 with a walk in his career versus Kershaw, but he is one of the top hitters in the majors against left-handers with a .431 average. Rivera is 7 for 20 with two homers and five runs scored against the Dodgers this year while leadoff hitter Chone Figgins is 10 for 20 in the Freeway Series, and 19 for 45 (.422) with 11 runs scored in 11 interleague games.

“When you’re a line-drive-hitting team like we are,” Figgins told the Angels’ site, “you build on your own momentum. We get a base hit, go first to third, and suddenly, everything is in motion.”
Kershaw is 0-2 with a 3.29 ERA in three starts since his last win May 27 at Colorado. He gave up four hits over 5 2/3 innings Tuesday in a 5-4, 10-inning win over Oakland. The Dodgers are hoping Kershaw can just keep them in the game and get into the Halos putrid bullpen, since they are 24-11 vs. a mediocre pen whose ERA is 4.50 or worse this season.

The Dodgers victory over the A’s is the only win in Kershaw’s five career interleague starts - he is 0-1 with a 2.66 ERA in those outings. Kershaw’s lone career start against the Angels came May 22 and he gave up one run in five innings in a 3-1 loss.

Bookmaker.com has the Angels as -128 money line favorites with a total of Ov8.5. The team from Anaheim is 15-3 playing at the Big A when playing on Sunday over the last two seasons and 24-6 at home after three straight games where they committed no errors. With Lackey on the hill, the Angels are 17-5 UNDER in intrleague contests.

The Dodgers are 13-6 (+10.1 Units) against the money line as a road underdog of +100 to +150 and 24-8 when the total is 8.5 to 10 this season. The team actually from L.A. is 15-6 UNDER in interleague action against club that has winning record.

The starting time for this Father’s Day game is 8:05 Eastern on ESPN, with the Halos having won six of the last eight meetings on home turf.

Santosh Venkataraman, STATS Senior writer contributed to this article.