In an age when all the things on a baseball discipline might be quantified and culled into scouting experiences that reveal the strengths, weaknesses and tendencies of pitchers and hitters, it’s nearly refreshing to come back throughout an old-school method like that of Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen.
“The biggest thing for me is just getting ahead of guys, honestly,” stated Treinen, a 36-year-old right-hander whose late-season dominance helped gas the crew’s run to the Nationwide League Championship Collection towards the New York Mets.
“I mean, it sounds so simple, but as much as the game changes, some things stay the same. You figure out where your success is, where you have margin for error, and then just trust it. You know, don’t think too much about it, just go execute.”
The uncluttered thoughts generally is a stunning factor this time of 12 months, and the Dodgers have benefitted from the zen-like serenity Treinen has displayed on the mound since good well being and confidence coalesced for him in late August, producing a string of scoreless outings that has stretched into October.
Treinen gave up one run and three hits in a single inning of an 8-4 win over the Seattle Mariners on Aug. 21, pushing his earned-run common to 2.87 in 35 video games. He has not been scored upon since, closing the common season with 15 video games during which he gave up six hits, struck out 18 and walked two over 15⅓ innings to complete with a 7-3 file and 1.93 ERA.
Treinen then threw 3⅔ scoreless innings over three video games within the division sequence win over the San Diego Padres, together with a 39-pitch, five-out save in Sport 1 and a 1-2-3 ninth inning in Friday night time’s 2-0 series-clinching Sport 5 victory, after which his teammates mobbed him on the mound.
“It’s huge,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated, when requested how Treinen’s dominance has modified the dynamics of his bullpen. “There was a point in the middle of the year where he was kind of scuffling a little bit, but he’s pitched in some huge games. To have him back to being dominant has certainly made everyone else around him better.
“To be able to deploy him at any point in time to go multiple innings, versus right and left, all of that stuff has stabilized us. He’s got a crazy-good look in his eye as far as being possessed. Honestly, I think 26 guys in that room feel that way, have that same look. But the guys in the bullpen, they’re all kind of in that good spot.”
The bullpen is perhaps the first motive the Dodgers overcame a 2-1 deficit towards the Padres, accounting for 16 innings of the 24-inning scoreless streak Dodgers pitchers closed the sequence with, together with all 9 of an 8-0 victory in Sport 4. The Padres hit .136 (11 for 81) in these 24 innings.
“If you’re talking about a series MVP,” Roberts stated, “it’s our bullpen, clearly.”
It took a number of months for Treinen, who missed many of the 2022 season due to a shoulder damage and all of 2023 after present process surgical procedure to restore rotator-cuff and labrum tears, to regain the shape that made him a key contributor to the Dodgers’ 2020 World Collection-winning crew and considered one of baseball’s finest setup males in 2021.
“A lot of it is God’s grace on the way my body’s been doing,” Treinen stated. “I’ve been fine all year, but post-surgery, there’s just aches and rustiness that I had to work through.
Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen delivers a pitch against the Giants during a game in July at Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“You have to regain the integrity of the shoulder throughout the season, but the last month or so has been as close to normal as it’s ever felt. I can just see glove, hit glove, trust body as opposed to getting to a spot and throwing. So it’s just overall health.”
Treinen appeared so good early in spring coaching that the Dodgers thought he may recapture his 2021 kind, when he went 6-5 with a 1.99 ERA in 72 video games, hanging out 85 and strolling 25 in 72⅓ innings whereas holding hitters to a .179 common and a .512 on-base-plus-slugging proportion.
Then a Cactus League comebacker drilled Treinen in the suitable rib cage March 9. Preliminary medical scans confirmed an inner bruise with bleeding in his lung. Medical doctors subsequently identified a pair of rib fractures that sidelined him till early Might.
Treinen opened his season with 14 scoreless appearances earlier than strolling three batters and giving up a grand slam to Kansas Metropolis’s MJ Melendez in a 7-2 loss on June 15. He hit one other tough patch in late July, giving up a walk-off house run to Alex Bregman in a 7-6 loss at Houston on July 27 and solo homers to Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill within the ninth inning of a 6-5 loss at San Diego on July 30. He has been nearly untouchable since then.
What makes Treinen so tough to hit is the motion he will get on his two major pitches, an 84-mph sweeper that, in accordance with Baseball Savant, drops a mean of 40.7 inches with a 15.2-inch glove-side break, and a 94.6-mph sinker that drops a mean of 27.2 inches with a 16.5-inch arm-side break.
The speed of Treinen’s sweeper is down from his 86.4-mph common in 2021, however he’s getting extra motion on it, the pitch averaging 37 inches of drop and 13 inches of break in 2021. Treinen held opponents to a .120 common (9 for 75) with 37 strikeouts in at-bats ending with the pitch this season.
Since Treinen’s success usually is based on getting forward of batters and getting them to chase his sweeper out of the zone, his 65.8% first-pitch-strike charge, which was significantly higher than his profession common of 60.9%, has performed an enormous position.
Treinen additionally throws a 90.8-mph lower fastball that has a a lot tighter break than his sweeper and a 94.3-mph four-seamer that’s much less full of life than than his sinker — it breaks a mean of eight inches to his arm facet — however is less complicated to command.
“Knowing when to be in the zone and when to be out of the zone is the biggest thing,” Treinen stated. “Some guys cover lateral well, some guys cover vertical well. For guys who cover vertical, I can play my lateral game in the zone and be OK. For guys who cover lateral, I can play the up-and-down game.
“It’s understanding how to set up your next pitch and, potentially, two or three pitches away. It’s all predicated on being ahead. Batting averages are a lot better on 1-0 and 2-0 counts than they are on 0-1 and 0-2 counts.”
Treinen’s dominance, coupled with the trade-deadline acquisition of hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech and Evan Phillips’ return to kind after a brutal July (11.74 ERA in 10 video games), has armed Roberts with the type of three-headed aid monster the Royals had once they rode Greg Holland, Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera to a World Collection title in 2015.
Twice within the closing week of the common season, Roberts used Treinen towards the guts of the Padres order — Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar and Machado — within the eighth inning of a 4-3 win on Sept. 25 and an NL West-clinching 7-2 win on Sept. 26.
Roberts prolonged Treinen within the NLDS opener — solely twice this season did Treinen throw greater than an inning in a sport — and Treinen responded by hanging out Donovan Solano with an 84-mph sweeper with the bases loaded to finish the eighth inning and Machado with an 85-mph sweeper with two on to finish the ninth.
Blake Treinen celebrates after incomes a save in Sport 1 of the Nationwide League Division Collection towards the Padres.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
The extra aggravating the scenario for Treinen, the deeper the Dodgers play into October, the slower his coronary heart appears to beat. Amid all of the pressure-packed moments of the playoffs, Treinen traveled to Washington on Thursday’s off day for the beginning of his third youngster, a daughter named Quinn, and was again at Dodger Stadium to shut Friday night time’s sport.
“I’m glad it’s intense for the everyday baseball fan and I’m glad it’s intense for other players, but I just have a different perspective, and I’m not sure why,” Treinen stated. “For me, the moment can’t be bigger than whatever it is. If you focus on doing your job and executing, why stress about it?
“Of course, I want to win and reach the World Series. But you don’t need to add stress or expectations to the situation. Just do what you know you’re capable of doing, what I’ve been doing for 30 years of my life, and that’s throwing a baseball.”
