When Shohei Ohtani was posted after the 2017 season, he was rightfully viewed as having the best fastball among NPB starting pitchers, and it wasn’t particularly close. His slider was …
Read More »Vin Scully and the little things
A framed poster is prominently displayed on my living room wall. It is a minimalist rendering of Dodger Stadium, lights protruding above the iconic hexagonal scoreboard. The scoreboard shows that …
Read More »Andrew Heaney Has A New Pitch
When the Dodgers signed Andrew Heaney to a one-year deal before the lockout, it was viewed as a low-risk signing centered around tapping into the flashes of upside he has …
Read More »Today has been a very bad day
It’s not often that a 24-hour period in the offseason can cause this much pain, but here we are. To recap, today: The Dodgers let future hall-of-famer Max Scherzer go …
Read More »How Kenley Jansen beat Joc Pederson with the season on the line
Fifty-one thousand people in the stadium were on edge. The Dodgers’ chance to stay in the series hung in the balance. They all knew what was coming. Joc Pederson was …
Read More »Kenley Jansen is doing more with less
While it obviously was not the main story in last night’s dramatic win over the Padres, Kenley Jansen‘s 10-pitch save was a fitting exclamation point. He threw 10 pitches and …
Read More »Blake Treinen might have a new slider
Photo: Stacie Wheeler Writing an analytically-tilted baseball article this time of season is extremely difficult. Doubly so when it’s about a relief pitcher. Samples are too small to mean much, …
Read More »The moment Clayton Kershaw changed everything
Many World Series have a defining play, the moment that will instantly come to mind when thinking about it in the distant future. While the 2020 World Series had such …
Read More »Clayton Kershaw’s somewhat new weapon in his fight against predictability
On Tuesday evening in Game 1 of the World Series, Clayton Kershaw made one of the biggest starts of his life. It was a bad matchup on paper: the Rays …
Read More »More thoughts on Kenley Jansen’s recent issues
Photo: Stacie Wheeler Kenley Jansen made his first appearance of the NLCS last night, in the sixth inning with a 14 run lead. The inning was designed to boost his …
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