4 instances final 12 months, the Dodgers noticed Arizona Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly within the common season.
On virtually each event, they’d their manner with the veteran right-hander.
That was why, regardless of all of the roster points the crew confronted coming into final postseason, the Dodgers nonetheless had optimism within the Nationwide League Division Sequence. In spite of everything, they had been going through Kelly in Recreation 1. That they had gained all 4 conferences towards him earlier that season. And so they had been assured that, regardless of their pitching issues, their lineup’s manufacturing may compensate on the plate.
However then, Kelly tailored, pitching the Dodgers a lot in another way than he had previously.
As an alternative of leaning on his signature changeup, he bullied hitters with cutters and fastballs. He dealt the Dodgers an sudden recreation plan, then cruised by way of six shutout innings once they did not successfully react.
This has been a standard theme of the Dodgers’ latest postseason failings, when high-powered lineups have sputtered in shock playoff eliminations.
Too usually, the membership seemingly struggles to regulate to well-crafted (and generally unpredictable) opposing October pitching plans — a characterization even supervisor Dave Roberts didn’t outright dispute Wednesday, three days earlier than this 12 months’s postseason opener Saturday towards the San Diego Padres.
“You have to be able to read and react,” Roberts stated. “You have to be in the moment and make adjustments to what they’re trying to do.”
And why, come the playoffs, haven’t the Dodgers accomplished so extra persistently?
“I don’t know the answer,” he stated. “I do think that we were slow moving.”
Final 12 months, Kelly epitomized that dilemma, spearheading a three-game sweep during which the Dodgers had been continuously challenged with fastballs from Diamondbacks pitchers — who had been afforded such leeway whereas taking part in with massive leads all through the NLDS — with out ever managing to persistently punish them.
The Dodgers are again within the playoffs. However for a way lengthy is the large query.
“You can see we were getting beat with the fastball,” Roberts stated, “and we didn’t make that adjustment.”
Return to 2022, when the Dodgers and Padres final met within the postseason, and a few rival evaluators seen an identical dynamic.
That 12 months, the Padres beginning workers largely stayed on script, however their relievers appeared to lean greater than regular on breaking pitches, holding the Dodgers to only one complete run in 16 bullpen innings within the course of.
“Everyone’s always doing something or trying to get some kind of edge,” stated hitting coach Aaron Bates, who’s in his second season within the position alongside Robert Van Scoyoc. “They’re basically playing a chess match.”
Dodgers proper fielder Mookie Betts strikes out to guide off the primary inning of Recreation 4 of the 2022 NLDS.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Even in 2021, the Atlanta Braves went heavy on changeups of their NL Championship Sequence conquer the then-defending champion Dodgers.
And searching again now, it’s change into a confounding concern the membership is making an attempt to handle.
“That’s what Robert and Bates and [assistant hitting coach] JT Watkins are going to be diving in on and messaging,” common supervisor Brandon Gomes stated. “Learning from what we’ve seen in the past and how we expect teams to attack us, and make sure that we’re the ones attacking the pitcher and not the other way around.”
The irony is, offensive game-planning has been a power for the Dodgers throughout common seasons.
Lately, the membership has fielded selective lineups that put on down opposing starters, virtually all the time rating close to the underside of the majors in swing proportion (they had been twenty second this 12 months) and chase price (solely the Yankees swung at pitches exterior the zone much less usually this season).
They’ve change into recognized for working good counts and ready for hittable pitches, posting the third-best ratio of residence runs to strikeouts (for each 5.9 instances they strike out, they hit one deep) since 2021.
Come October, nonetheless, these numbers get flipped on their head.
Generally, their strikeout price will skyrocket (in 2022, it went from 22% within the common season to 29.5% towards the Padres within the NLDS). Or their energy numbers will fizzle (in 2021, a .429 slugging proportion within the common season slipped to .392 within the playoffs). Or their batting common will crater (final 12 months, they hit .177 of their three playoff video games in contrast with .257 in the course of the 12 months).
In every of these years, their situational hitting has additionally suffered, with the crew batting simply .212 with runners in scoring place during the last three postseasons.
Some regression is to be anticipated, in fact. Playoff groups virtually all the time possess higher pitching than a median regular-season foe. There isn’t as a lot worth in grinding down starters, both, with a string of proficient aid arms often beckoning within the bullpen.
A postseason setting additionally permits for extra detailed game-planning and preparation by an opponent — a side of the game that has solely grown in significance within the trendy analytical age.
“I think game-planning in general has really taken a step forward, with more teams spending a lot of time on it, trying to expose hitter weaknesses,” Gomes stated. “I think across the league and industry, we’ve seen an uptick.”
Nonetheless, as one rival evaluator famous of the Dodgers after final 12 months’s elimination, “When it’s June 17 and the other team has just flown cross-country and is playing their 19th game in 20 days, nobody can match them.”
Within the playoffs, nonetheless, the scales stability out. And the crew’s outcomes have been a wholly totally different story.
“We’ve gone into the 2022 and 2023 playoffs with really good offensive teams,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman stated, “and have way underperformed.”
The seek for solutions has yielded a number of totally different theories.
Third baseman Max Muncy stated final 12 months that the crew checked out whether or not it’s been too passive on the plate within the playoffs.
“The teams that are making it to the World Series, they’re going up there and they’re getting their swings off,” Muncy informed Foul Territory final October, “whereas we’re being too disciplined.”
There’s additionally the easy must clobber fastballs extra persistently, a weak spot that has plagued the Dodgers in every of the final three postseasons (since 2021, they’re batting simply .195 towards four-seamers within the playoffs) and was an issue at instances for this 12 months’s membership as nicely, regardless of the crew nonetheless rating top-10 in fastball batting common by the top of the season.
“We have done a lot of damage over the years on fastballs [in the regular season],” Friedman stated. “And in the playoffs, we just haven’t.”
To that finish, the Padres pose an attention-grabbing problem. Their beginning workers threw four-seamers solely 27.2% of the time this 12 months, the sixth-lowest price within the majors. However their forged of hard-throwing relievers dialed up heaters on greater than 36% of their pitches, the fourth-highest price of any MLB bullpen.
The Dodgers grappled with that development in the course of the common season, going simply 5-8 in 13 conferences towards the Padres whereas averaging solely 4.3 runs per recreation.
However the true intrigue now could be whether or not San Diego sticks with that strategy within the NLDS, or alters their recreation plan to fight the Dodgers’ familiarity with their workers.
“It definitely brings on an element of chess,” Friedman stated, noting the Dodgers face related choices in how they pitch the Padres. “Do you change things up? How are they going to approach it? I think there are some strategic elements to that that kind of vary pitcher by pitcher, matchup by matchup.”
Bates stated the Dodgers aren’t making drastic modifications to their course of coming into these playoffs.
They’ll nonetheless craft recreation plans in day by day afternoon hitters conferences. They’ll nonetheless search for broad tendencies and particular pitches to do injury towards. They’ll commerce observations within the dugout throughout video games, deciding on-the-fly if any changes are needed.
“If you’re not learning from each year, each at-bat, then you’re being foolish,” Bates stated. “But I don’t think that means you necessarily do something different either. It just depends on a case-by-case basis.”
Different components are working within the Dodgers’ favor. This October, they’ve Shohei Ohtani on the prime of their batting order. And regardless of Freddie Freeman’s unsure standing battling a sprained ankle, their lineup possesses sturdy depth, due to late-season surges from Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, Will Smith and others.
“I would say this lineup is probably the best we’ve had,” Roberts stated. “When everyone’s right, I think we’re very good versus left, versus right. There’s an on-base, there’s a slug component. There’s a bat-to-ball component. I think that it’s very well-balanced.”
The problem shall be not getting unsteadied by meticulously curated opposing pitching plans. Lately, it’s been a defining subplot of the Dodgers’ struggles within the playoffs. And this October, it’s more likely to loom giant once more of their World Sequence possibilities.
“It’s one of those things where you’ve got to keep adding on and scoring runs,” Bates stated, “and putting pressure on the other team.”
