Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
How quickly we all forget the ups and downs that come with a full 162-game season of Major League Baseball. The Dodgers (9-4), have now dropped four of their last five games after starting the season 8-0. The Philadelphia Phillies (7-3) took two of three games this weekend to kick off the road trip, and the Washington Nationals (5-6) have now won the first two games of this series. Currently, the Dodgers are pitching poorly, but have also been hitting poorly, baserunning poorly, and playing defense poorly. It’s hard to win games like that, no matter the opponent! It won’t continue eternally, but teams do go through stretches like this from time to time. Landon Knack will be making his first start of the season, hoping to get the Dodgers out of the doldrums before returning to Los Angeles. Jake Irvin counters for the Nats.
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| 1:05 P.M. | Washington D.C. | ||
| DH | Ohtani (L) | SS | Abrams (L) |
| SS | Betts | LF | Wood (L) |
| 2B | Edman (S) | C | Ruiz (S) |
| RF | T. Hernández | 1B | Lowe (L) |
| LF | Conforto (L) | DH | Bell (S) |
| C | Smith | 2B | Garcia Jr. (L) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | RF | Call |
| 1B | K. Hernández | 3B | DeJong |
| C | Pages | CF | Crews |
| P | Knack (R) | P | Irvin (R) |
CJ Abrams, the Nationals star shortstop, will be back in the lineup today for the first time this series and batting leadoff. James Wood is terrorizing the Dodgers and simultaneously looking like he’s breaking out. The 22 year-old will be back in left field today. Washington’s haul for Juan Soto is looking quite good now with Abrams, Wood, and MacKenzie Gore pitching great early this season.
Offensively, the Dodgers will be fine, but they’re getting minimal production from the 6-9 spots in the order. Andy Pages added two hits yesterday including a garbage time homer, and while he’s been undoubtedly struggling, he deserves some semblance of a leash. Max Muncy also added a hit, bringing his average up to .190 despite still looking for his first home run of the season. Kiké Hernández has no shortage of those, hitting his fourth of the season, but is still yet to log a hit that doesn’t leave the park. Will Smith will be back in the lineup today after taking a day off last night.
Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes, and Miguel Rojas have all been bad to start the year, although with limited plate appearances for the former two. Rojas is 3-24 this year in addition to some misplays in the field, essentially his only actual performance that matters. Between Pages, Muncy, Taylor, Kiké, Rojas, and Barnes, they’ve combined for 22 hits in 156 at-bats (.141), in addition to a 31.6% strikeout rate.
With over 35% of the team’s total plate appearances going to that group, that’s pretty abysmal performance to support the rest of the offense.
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Today’s starters had 2024 campaigns that were right around what you’d expect from a slightly above league-average starting pitcher. They both came within two percentage points of the league-average strikeout rate (22.0%), and walk rate (7.6%), and are slightly better than the league-average in terms of batting average allowed (.245), and WHIP (1.27).
Last year, Irvin was worth 1.8 fWAR and 1.9 bWAR, which is a little difficult to agree with. A 4.41 ERA isn’t stellar, but logging near 190 innings of a 4.41 ERA is incredibly useful and I have a hard time seeing otherwise. The Dodgers would’ve felt like they hit the lottery to have a Jake Irvin last year, considering Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller, and Justin Wrobleski combined for a 6.74 ERA over 161.2 innings. Yikes.
Irvin’s 33 games started last year was tied for the most in baseball, while his 187.2 innings pitched were the eleventh most in the sport. The nature of making 33 starts for the 2024 Washington Nationals does also earn you the lead in the National League with 14 losses. He struggled in his last outing, allowing four runs on seven hits and one walk across five innings against the Diamondbacks. He served up two homers and comes into this start with a 5.40 ERA and 1.70 WHIP. Irvin is a big guy at 6’6″ with 92nd percentile extension, helping his stuff play up a bit. Last year he was essentially a three pitch starter, with his four-seam, sinker, and curveball covering 90% of his arsenal. His two fastballs hover around 93 MPH, while his curve sits closer to 80. He is throwing a mid-80’s changeup nearly 20% of the time this year, after throwing it just 3.5% of the time in 2024. Lefties saw him pretty well last year, with a .769 OPS allowed against them, compared to .683 for right-handed batters. It’s possible the changeup is to help alleviate that issue. Irvin is just 28 years-old and in his third full season, possibly securing a role as a mid-rotation piece for the up and coming Nats.
The Dodgers were going to need a starter for one of the games this series even prior to Blake Snell‘s injury due to scheduling and the order of the rotation, and Knack appears to be the first option of the guys on the outside looking in. Wrobleski was used yesterday but seemed more like a warm body to take down five innings for the club. He’ll be good at some point, but it wasn’t yesterday. Knack made 12 starts for the Dodgers last year and was overall successful, despite his FIP arguing that he was a bit lucky. He threw two innings out of the bullpen in Tokyo and earned the win in the second game of the season against the Cubs. His stuff played up big time in that outing, specifically his overhauled changeup.
The only similarity to his changeup from last year is the velocity, remaining in the mid-80’s. The pitch is moving like crazy now, getting five whiffs on six swings.
Supposedly it’s a “kick-change” which is the hot pitch this offseason, a changeup certain pitchers have been attempting to learn if they’d previously struggled getting the depth or movement they want from a traditional changeup.
His overall release point is up ever so slightly, as is his extension, and with the upheaval of the changeup, Knack is among the more intriguing pitchers to follow early this year.
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Getting Freddie Freeman back soon would be a welcome addition to a club that has been struggling offensively.
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Pretty fair critique here from Dave Roberts. That type of performance just shouldn’t be happening with the quality of this lineup.
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First pitch is at 1:05 PT on SNLA.
