Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After splitting the first two games of the NLCS in Los Angeles, the Dodgers went into Citi Field and won Game 3 in yet another shutout. Walker Buehler provided four scoreless innings which was huge for him, coming off the disappointing six earned run outing in San Diego. The bullpen took the reins the rest of the way, with the offense putting up enough runs that Ben Casparius was able to be used for the final two innings. Michael Kopech threw just twelve pitches, while Blake Treinen threw just eleven. The Mets have still yet to see Evan Phillips, and Daniel Hudson was also allowed to get another day of rest.
Outside of being up 3-0, the situation the Dodgers are in is pretty ideal. Jack Flaherty is scheduled to pitch Game 5 regardless of today’s outcome, another favorable matchup. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be on the mound tonight, coming off the most important start of his career in Game 5 against the Padres. The left-handed veteran Jose Quintana will be on the hill for the Mets.
Earlier today, Dustin covered Buehler’s outing last night in a start that featured flashes of his past as a big-game pitcher
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| 5:08 P.M. | New York | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | SS | Lindor (S) |
| RF | Betts | 3B | Vientos |
| LF | T. Hernández | 1B | Alonso |
| SS | Edman (S) | LF | Nimmo (L) |
| 3B | K. Hernández | RF | Marte |
| 1B | Muncy (L) | DH | Martinez |
| C | Smith | 2B | Iglesias |
| CF | Pages | CF | Bader |
| 2B | Taylor | C | Alvarez |
| P | Yamamoto (R) | P | Quintana (R) |
The Dodgers switch things up with the lefty Quintana on the mound. Teoscar Hernández slides up from fifth to third, while Tommy Edman jumps all the way from eighth to cleanup. Part of that is due to Freddie Freeman not being in the lineup tonight, with Max Muncy sliding over to first base. Kiké Hernández is built for the postseason and continues to shine, and will be batting fifth tonight after ninth last night. He’ll be in the game over Gavin Lux who will be available off the bench. Andy Pages crushed lefties this year and will be in center field, while Chris Taylor stats at third base and bats ninth.
The Mets will once again keep things quite similar against another right-handed pitcher in Yamamoto. Harrison Bader will start over Tyrone Taylor, while Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo swap places in the order. In my eyes, these aren’t enough changes for a team that has scored two runs in three games outside of Landon Knack‘s blowup inning. Jeff McNeil should get in the game, as should Jesse Winker. Francisco Alvarez has looked bad and I would consider giving Luis Torrens a shot. The Mets have said they view Yamamoto as someone with reverse-splits, but that’s not something I’m all too convinced of. More on that later.
Shohei Ohtani is obviously in a wild offensive stretch, where he has 17 hits in his last 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position. He’s also 0-22 with the bases empty in 25 plate appearances this postseason. That also makes him 7-9 with runners on base, resulting in a .778/.833/1.444 slash with runners on. A 2.277 OPS with runners on base will work out most the time. While that obviously isn’t sustainable, neither is 0-22. Eventually he’ll land somewhere in between and be in a spot more similar to where he was in the regular season and throughout his career. For now, he’s getting the hits when it matters. Muncy is locked in, with a .500/.692/1.250 slash line in the NLCS, with four hits, five walks, and just one strikeout. His last eight plate appearances have gone like this — HR, BB, BB, 1B, BB, BB, BB, HR. Not bad. He’s now at a 1.078 OPS and 195 wRC+ this postseason.
Teoscar is still looking for his first hit in the NLCS, currently 0-11 with six strikeouts and four walks. Quintana will be the best matchup he’s had thus far. Edman will get the start at cleanup today, and while that sounds a bit odd it does make sense. It was his stronger side this year with a 1.299 OPS against lefties and a .471 OPS against RHP. His OPS against LHP over his career is .831, compared to .689 against right-handed pitchers, but he’s also just seeing the ball well in general. He’s hitting .321 this postseason, and while his .632 OPS is unimpressive, he’s consistently putting the ball in play and making things happen. In 31 postseason plate appearances, he has just two strikeouts while facing tough pitching, and has five hits in the NLCS. This series, he’s 5-11 with five runs batted in and would be 6-12 if he didn’t have an extra-base hit robbed last night in the right-center gap. Kiké added yet another home run last night, with a .333/.364/.619 slash thus far in the postseason. He’s obviously in the lineup for the foreseeable future. Freeman continues to scuffle to no real surprise with the state of his ankle. He’s hitting .259 with seven hits this postseason, but they’re all singles and he clearly doesn’t have any pop with his injury. He may be best used as a super sub at times, taking a day off with a lefty starter on the mound.
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Here’s how Yamamoto and Quintana fared this season.
In regards to Quintana, he is yet to allow a run this postseason, with eleven scoreless innings across two starts, both resulting in wins for the Mets. The first outing was six innings with five strikeouts against the Brewers, and most recently was on October 9, with five scoreless against the Phillies with six strikeouts and two walks. That continued a fantastic stretch he had to finish the regular season, with just two earned runs allowed over his last 25.0 innings pitched with 23 strikeouts to six walks.
Here’s how Dodgers’ hitters have hit against Quintana over the course of his career.
He had a good year as a whole, but his walks were a bit high for someone who doesn’t posses the strikeout stuff he used to have, and he also didn’t limit home runs like he had the past couple seasons. You can’t argue with the ERA and the value he brought to the Mets this year, but he isn’t a pitcher that provides much intimidation in his 13th season in the league and his age 35 season. He has a below-average walk rate against right-handed batters at 9.7%, and a below-average strikeout rate at 19.0%. He’s been slightly tougher on lefties this year as to be expected, but the only lefties he will face are Ohtani and the red-hot Muncy. Against right-handed batters he primarily throws three pitches, the four-seam fastball that sits right around 90 MPH, the upper-70’s curveball, and the mid-80’s changeup. His most frequently used pitch is his sinker which he throws 30% of the time, but he likes to use it against lefties more than right-handed batters. He also throws a slurve/sweeper, but 161 of the 168 he’s thrown have been against left-handed batters.
The Dodgers were the best team in baseball against left-handed pitchers this year, with a 121 wRC+ and .795 OPS, both leading baseball. Edman had a 250 wRC+ and 1.299 OPS against lefties, while hitting .412 over 36 plate appearances. With a minimum of at least 100 plate appearances against lefties, Andy Pages had a 157 wRC+, leading the team. Teoscar had a .931 OPS and 154 wRC+, with Ohtani (141 and .867), Mookie Betts (.852, 136), and Will Smith (.872, 136) all performing very well against southpaws. Muncy had a 107 wRC+ which was obviously his weaker side, but has been so locked in that it’s not really a concern. The same goes for Kiké, who had a 90 wRC+ against lefties this year, but post-optometrist appointment in mid July, had a .831 OPS and 129 wRC+ against lefties. Taylor is the only weak spot, with a 61 wRC+ against lefties. Not much to say there, just hopefully he figures something out.
Chad’s recap of Game 5 covered Yamamoto’s clutch outing against San Diego that sent the Dodgers to the NLCS. He went five scoreless innings against a team that had seen him well all year, allowing just two hits and one walk. He threw just 63 pitches and is likely able to throw significantly more should the game call for it.
This morning, Brim took an excellent look at the difference between Yamamoto’s two NLDS outings, and a preview towards how he should look moving forward. You should read this.
Earlier I mentioned how the Mets have said they view Yamamoto as a reverse-splits pitcher, weaker against right-handed batters. On the season he has a .193/.258/.267 slash line allowed against left-handed batters, with a 28.5% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 2.48 FIP over 179 batters faced. Compare that to right-handed batters, and that slash is .263/.291/.453 against 189 batters, but that’s still a 28.6% strikeout rate and 3.7% walk rate, with a 2.74 FIP. It’s accompanied by a .344 BABIP compared to .261 against lefties, well above the league-average BABIP of .291. His “out pitch” is the splitter which generally doesn’t feature significant platoon splits, and his arm slot also wouldn’t really point towards much of a platoon split either. It could be real and the Mets know something, or it could be just noise for someone who has just 90.0 innings pitched. If they feel there’s some real reason to avoid playing your lefties against Yamamoto, sure that is sound reasoning, but I wouldn’t like leaving your strong lefties out of the lineup due to Yamamoto’s performance over 190 plate appearances.
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Makes sense, they’ll try to avoid using Freddie unless a pinch-hit spot absolutely requires it.
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Also makes sense. Flaherty is the most likely option but it depends how tonight goes.
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First pitch is at 5:08 PT on FS1.
