Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Man, it all felt like this was going to be over last night. But then, some things happened and there’s another baseball game tonight.
Predictably, there’s a lot of doom-and-gloom on Dodger Twitter about the game. I’ve become used to it. But they’re still up 3-1 in the series and there are some takeaways we can focus on from Game 4 that should help Dodger fans feel a bit better about things:
- Yankees scored against all low-leverage arms, plus Daniel Hudson
- Yankees’ bullpen had to throw 5 innings in a game in which they scored 11 runs
- All Dodger high-leverage arms available tonight
- Jack Flaherty starts Game 5
- A second look at Gerrit Cole
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Yankees scored against all low-leverage arms, plus Daniel Hudson
With Ben Casparius starting, I don’t think anyone thought he’d go out there and fire six scoreless innings. Instead, he was just good enough to allow just one run through he first two innings. He made some solid pitches, but the moment was pretty big for a guy making his first MLB start. Landon Knack threw four innings of 1-run ball despite this:
And Brent Honeywell Jr. was thrown to the proverbial lions last night in the eighth inning.
The biggest question mark was with Hudson. The idea of bringing him in with a 2-1 lead to face Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. makes some sense. And he got Soto to strike out on six pitches — all sliders. For whatever reason, he didn’t have good command of his offerings and got into trouble quickly. It was still 2-1 before he gave up the grand slam to Anthony Volpe, which would have been a time for Dave Roberts to go to a higher-leverage arm to, hopefully, get Volpe. Instead, he stuck with Hudson and, well, you saw.
Yeah, basically.
I have to think Evan Phillips would have gotten the call there, had he been healthy. Just another time in this series when his absence has been felt.
Also, If I’m a Yankees’ fan and their offense didn’t jump on the Dodgers’ 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th-best pitchers, I’d be concerned about how the team is constructed going forward.
Yankees’ bullpen had to throw 5 innings in a game in which they scored 11 runs
That might be a simplified just a bit, but it still happened.
I’m not gonna lie: When Freddie Freeman hit that 2-run home run, I thought that was it. Not that it would only take two runs to win the game, but I thought it would have been the start of the offense to get going against the Yankees’ 4th-best starting pitcher. Luis Gil threw 30 pitches in the first inning, but escaped further damage. The Dodgers chased him in the fifth inning and cut the deficit to one run. After that, though, the Yankees’ bullpen locked down the Dodger bats.
Yes, that’s not a good thing. However, the more looks the Dodgers get at the Yankee arms, the more likely they are to be successful at some point. Aside from Clay Holmes — whom Aaron Boone is giving the Brandon Morrow treatment — no other Yankee reliever has appeared in all the games. The Dodgers got 21 pitches out of Luke Weaver, which cannot be overlooked. Mark Leiter Jr. and his junk balls will eventually get tagged. The fact is, the Yankee bullpen arms are good-not-great, and the Dodgers will have a chance to take advantage of that, no matter how long the series goes.
All Dodger high-leverage arms available tonight
Because Roberts opted not to go get Hudson, he was either banking on Hudson getting out of the jam or living with the consequences. The latter happened. Because of that, the Dodgers have the full allotment of arms ready for tonight. Not having to throw Blake Treinen, who threw 55 pitches in Games 1 and 2, last night hopefully was a bit of a reset for him for tonight and if the series goes longer than five games. Michael Kopech got tagged in the ninth inning of Game 3, so him getting the night off helped, too. And as nice as it would have been to see Alex Vesia in the third inning instead of Hudson, Roberts wasn’t going to burn his best LHP that early in the game.
Jack Flaherty starts Game 5
Flaherty is coming off a strong Game 1 performance in which he made one bad pitch. It isn’t going to be an easy task tonight, but he is more than up to the task. I’m not sure if he’ll repeat the game plan from Friday, seeing Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler had some success with their 4-seam fastballs against the Yankee hitters, but his fastball is different than theirs. He’ll just have to have good-to-great command again with all his pitches, because they’ve seen him once and know what he wants to do. The Dodgers acquired Flaherty for these kinds of situations. Ideally, it’d be Tyler Glasnow in this spot, but Flaherty isn’t a bad consolation prize.
A second look at Gerrit Cole
Cole was doing his best Justin Verlander impression against the Dodgers in Game 1 (the Dodgers won both Verlander starts in 2017, by the way). He was getting a lot of outs on his 4-seam fastball, and it didn’t look like the Dodgers were as prepared for that as they should have been. He averaged 96.7 MPH on it — up from the 95.9 average in the regular season. The Dodgers swung at 26 of Cole’s 4-seamers and had four whiffs, 13 foul balls and nine balls in play. They went 3-for-12 with a double and triple. The average spin rate was slightly up on all his spin pitches, but not enough to have made a huge difference. Overall, he had nine whiffs, good for a below-average 18% rate. That’s what the Dodgers need to do against Cole tonight. They need to get back to being patient and punishing mistakes. They’ll get another look at him tonight, and the data they got off him in Game 1 should help tonight. Of course, the hitters have to show up and not chase (Max Muncy comes to mind).
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I know you’ve already heard this, but if you told us the Dodgers would be up 3-1 in the series going into Game 5, not a Dodger fan on the planet would have been upset with that. Game 4 just left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth not only because the Yankee offense looked mostly lifeless in the first three games, but also because Freeman put the Dodgers up 2-0 in the first inning. It felt like that was it. Then again, if it wasn’t a scheduled bullpen game that has really only worked once this postseason, perhaps we’d be celebrating today.
Instead, we’ll have to wait until tonight. Hopefully.
