Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Despite yet another bit of a late game scare last night, the Dodgers held on and won Game 3 in New York by a score of 4-2. They’re beating the Yankees in every facet of the game and thus now hold a 3-0 lead in the World Series. They can smell the title of 2024 World Series Champions, and they’re now just one win away. With a 3-0 lead in the series, they’re going to keep their foot on the gas (as much as they can with the bullpen game today), although battling back from a 3-0 series deficit has only been done once in baseball playoff history. That was the 2004 Red Sox over the Yankees, featuring Dave Roberts who played an integral role in that comeback, with one of the more memorable steals of … all time?
The Yankees will send out Luis Gil with their season on the line, backs against the wall in the worst kind of way. He’s not too dissimilar from yesterday’s starter Clarke Schmidt who doesn’t spend much time in the strike zone. Schmidt relies on the cutter and it abandoned him yesterday, diminishing his entire repertoire. He went 2.2 innings, allowing three earned runs on two hits, four walks, and three strikeouts, and one could argue he wasn’t pulled soon enough. Gil lives in the zone even less than Schmidt and ultimately gets less chase than Schmidt does as well. The Dodgers will need to get to Gil like they did yesterday with Schmidt as they’re running out a bullpen game tonight, starting with Ben Casparius. If they can get an early lead they can deploy their bullpen in such a manner as to go for the win tonight, or if they’re trailing they’ll advance with Brent Honeywell, and Landon Knack, saving some arms for Game 5.
Dustin wrote about this specific Dodgers team and what separates them from the previous few seasons.
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| 5:08 P.M. | New York | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | 2B | Torres |
| RF | Betts | RF | Soto (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | CF | Judge |
| LF | T. Hernández | 3B | Chisholm Jr. (L) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | DH | Stanton |
| CF | K. Hernández | 1B | Rizzo (L) |
| 2B | Lux (L) | SS | Volpe |
| C | Smith | C | Wells (L) |
| SS | Edman (S) | LF | Verdugo (L) |
| P | Casparius (R) | P | Gil (R) |
When it comes to the lineup constructions, the Dodgers simply flip Kiké from eighth to sixth, and Smith from sixth to eighth. Makes sense. The Yankees make some moves, one being dropping Stanton to fifth with Chisholm moving to the cleanup spot. Not sure I get that one but I’ll gladly support that decision. Volpe drops in the lineup as Anthony Rizzo moves up. Austin Wells is back in the lineup over Jose Trevino. Schmidt obviously would’ve liked to pitch better yesterday, but 3-0 after the third inning is not game over like Jack Flaherty giving up eight over three innings in the NLCS. The New York bullpen allowed just one earned run over 6.1 innings, and you’d think the combination of Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and even Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Gleyber Torres would be able to mount some sort of threat.
The discrepancy between the Dodgers and Yankees when it comes to offensive production isn’t all that noticeable in batting average, with the former at .213 and the latter at .186, or On-Base percentage, with the Dodgers leading .296 to .284, but the Dodgers are slugging .457, compared to just .294 for New York. The Dodgers are striking out just 15.6% of the time thus far, compared to 26.7% of the time for the Yankees. Neither is putting up a world class performance, but the Dodgers are outhitting New York, especially when it comes to extra-base hits. The issue for New York is that the Dodgers are beating them in every capacity besides just pure bat-to-ball.
Mookie Betts made a diving play on a knuckling ball to right field, Tommy Edman made great plays late in the game at shortstop, and Max Muncy made a nice play at third base while Chisholm made an error. These things by themselves don’t necessarily win or lose a game, but they add up and the Dodgers have been sharper in these moments. Stanton was thrown out at the plate by Teoscar Hernández, trying to score from second base on Anthony Volpe‘s first hit of the World Series. For all of Teoscar’s faults in left field, his arm is still strong enough to be a threat in situations like that.
Meanwhile, Edman scored on a Betts’ jam shot single into shallow right field, getting an incredible read to run on a ball that many runners would’ve stayed at second on, anticipating a possible catch. Kiké Hernández added an RBI single in the sixth inning that was made possible by a Gavin Lux stolen base after a walk. Lux also walked in the fourth inning and went first to third on another Kiké single to Soto, showing they don’t respect any part of Soto’s defensive game in the outfield. Lux didn’t score on a questionable bunt decision, but the chance was only possible due to the baserunning.
Freddie Freeman has a 1.635 OPS through three games in the World Series after hitting a home run for the third consecutive game. That ties him with George Springer for the most consecutive WS games with a homer at five, although….Springer did had four of those come in Games 4-7 in the 2017 World Series. I won’t go on about that, but Freeman should stand alone at five. After an awful start to the postseason due to his ankle injury, Freeman has now turned it around entirely, with a .250/.283/.500 slash line. Over the course of his Hall of Fame career, he has a career slash of .300/.387/.512 in the regular season, compared to .278/.375/.516 in the postseason. Just an unbelievably consistent player who has now shown up in the biggest possible moments for the Dodgers. I still cannot fathom that the Braves let a player like Freeman leave.
Edman is as on his heels as one can be, with a 1.235 OPS in the World Series, desperately trying to win MVP in two consecutive series. Soto is still yet to strikeout this series and has a 1.062 OPS. The Yankees are getting an awful performance from Judge who has one hit and seven strikeouts in 13 plate appearances. Volpe has given an identical performance across the board, coming off a great ALCS and ALDS. If Will Smith (.291 OPS) or Muncy (.182 OPS) could do anything at the plate, this series would still have the Dodgers up 3-0, just more convincingly.
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Gil is a talented right-hander that in the first half of the season was dominating opposing teams and providing fantastic starts every time he took the mound in the absence of Gerrit Cole. During this first half of his season, he looked like the AL Rookie of the Year favorite. Through his first 14 starts, he had a 2.03 ERA, 3.08 FIP, and a 0.98 WHIP with a 30.4% strikeout rate. That came via a .141 batting average allowed, and a .194 BABIP which pointed towards some regression at the very least. The regression came over his next 15 starts and 71.2 innings pitched, with a 5.15 ERA, 5.32 FIP, 1.44 WHIP, and a 23.4% strikeout rate.
He lost command and control, and started getting less luck on balls in play. He’s got the stuff to be a frontline starter, but he had an issue harnessing that in the second half. He has a profile that is a bit worrisome against patient and disciplined teams, very similar to that of Carlos Rodon, another fastball-slider power pitcher.
Here’s the most important piece from Rodon’s Statcast page.
Here’s the same section for Gil.
Among 126 starting pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2024, Gil’s first pitch strike rate is the lowest in the sport at just 54.8%. For example, Cy Young favorites Tarik Skubal and Chris Sale are in the top ten in first strike rate at around 70%. He runs a risky profile against a team like the Dodgers, although he has the stuff to slow down any team and have a dominant outing. The Yankees need a good one today.
His final start of the regular season came against the Pirates, in which he gave up six earned runs including four home runs. Due to the Yankees’ success up until this point in the playoffs, he’s pitched just once since September 28. His first and only playoff start came in the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians, going four innings allowing two earned runs on three hits, three walks, and three strikeouts.
He throws his four-seam fastball half the time, sitting just below 97 MPH, with an upper-80’s slider and a low-90’s changeup. Against right-handed batters he goes heavy fastball-slider, throwing his changeup just around 15% of the time, where he throws the slider and changeup both near a quarter of the time against lefties. He struggled a bit against left-handed batters as a whole, with a .584 OPS allowed against right-handed hitters, compared to .707 against lefties. The strikeout rate decreases against lefties while the walk rate increases. His 12.1% walk rate led all of baseball, as did his 77 walks despite being just 64th in innings pitched.
Casparius has thrown 4.1 innings this postseason, with just four baserunners allowed and four strikeouts. Honeywell has allowed four earned runs in 7.2 innings pitched with two strikeouts compared to six total walks, but might have the best chance at providing bulk innings for the team if need be. Landon Knack had the best results during the regular season, but looked very shaky in his Game 2 start against the Mets, resulting in no opportunities since. It’s possible that all three get in the game today and the Dodgers’ offense will try and keep the Yankees’ bullpen on the ropes with another game tomorrow if necessary. If it’s close enough, Roberts will go to his mid and even possibly high-leverage arms to secure the World Series.
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Game 4 of the World Series and Casparius gets the ball in … his first start in the majors. He’s expected to be used in a longer role than he’s had in the playoffs. He’s maxed out at 31 pitches and two innings in the playoffs, but took down 4 1/3 on 85 pitches against the Rockies in September and topped 90 pitches three times in the minors this season.
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First pitch is at 5:08 PT on FOX.
