Daily Distractions: Dodgers brace for first meeting with Nate Eovaldi.

Nathan Eovaldi

This is what Nate Eovaldi looked like after his first start for the Dodgers, a win on Aug. 6, 2011 in Arizona. (Getty Images)

It was said a couple days ago on the Dodgers’ broadcast that Nate Eovaldi‘s fastball is up to 100 mph these days. Sure enough, FanGraphs don’t lie.

Before the Dodgers dealt Eovaldi to the Miami Marlins in the Hanley Ramirez trade last year, the right-hander could dial up his fastball to 98-99. This year, batters are hitting .201 off his fastball — which bottoms out around 89 mph, a notable spread — and .269 off his other pitches, a cutter, curve, change, slider and two-seam fastball.

It’s easy to forget that Eovaldi was 22 at the time of his trade and that his arm probably had more in it. Now he’s 23 and coming off a serious bout of inflammation in his right shoulder that left him on the disabled list until June, and throwing harder.

The extra speed didn’t help much five days ago, when Eovaldi (2-3) endured the worst outing of his career. He was shelled for 11 runs by the San Francisco Giants, nine earned, on 12 hits in just three innings. The Marlins lost 14-10 and Eovaldi became the second pitcher to allow 11 or more runs in a game this season.

Eovaldi’s skill is raw but unrefined, which merely means that he fits in with the rest of the Marlins. Certainly the Dodgers have no buyer’s remorse on Ramirez. Still, it will be interesting to see how Eovaldi fares tonight against Zack Greinke — who, by the way, has the best ERA in the majors (min. 40 inning pitched) since July 8:

1. Greinke                             1.45 (9 ER/56.0 IP)
2. Jose Fernandez, MIA     1.53
3. Hiroki Kuroda, NYY        1.54
4. Clayton Kershaw, LAD  1.56 (9 ER/52.0 IP)
5. Jarred Cosart, HOU       1.60
6. Yu Darvish, TEX              1.73

Some bullet points for a hump day:

Via Peter Gammons’ blog comes this scout’s take on Dodgers prospect Julio Urias: “He’d be eligible for the 2015 draft. This guy might be in the big leagues before he could be drafted.”

• From SI.com: “There’s no disputing that [Yasiel Puig] makes [mistakes], and some of them are worthy of the ol’ triple facepalm. Eventually, he’ll have to minimize those in order to maximize his potential. But in the grand scheme they don’t loom as large as some suggest.”

• One note on this piece about what Kershaw does between starts: I’ve seen two other writers tackle the same topic with Kershaw the last two seasons. Seems everyone wants to know how he does it.

• The numbers don’t underappreciate Mark Ellis:

• The Albuquerque Isotopes have lost eight in a row and have nine games left in the season.

Ichiro Suzuki is one hit shy of 4,000 for his career. This was the first of Ichiro’s 242 hits in 2001, his first season with the Seattle Mariners.

• The Allman Brothers opened for Johnny Winter at the Fillmore East in September 1970 and played “Whipping Post.” This high quality video survives: