Dodgers World Series Hopes Hinge on Timely Hitting
The Los Angeles Dodgers cruised to their seventh consecutive NL West Division title with ease.
They will have another 100 win season, their second in three years, and will almost certainly have home field advantage throughout the National League playoffs, but for Dodgers fans and even some players, none of it will truly matter unless they bring home a World Series title.
For that to happen, the team is going to have to produce offensively at an exponentially higher rate than they have in their last two World Series appearances.
While it’s easy to blame Yu Darvish, Dave Roberts, Kenley Jansen and more, the true cause of the Dodgers’ inability to capture a championship has been their struggles as a team at the plate.
In 2017 against the Houston Astros, you’d think the Dodgers were lucky to even force seven games given their overall offensive statistics.
As a team, the Dodgers hit .205 (47-229) in the series with a team OPS of .683. Over the seven games they struck out 65 times compared to only 21 walks, but even worse, hit an even .200 (11-55) with runners in scoring position, and left a total of 34 men on base.
In 2018 against the Boston Red Sox, it only gets worse.
The Dodgers hit a collective .180 (34-189) over the five game series with a .302 SLG% and a .550 OPS.
They struck out 56 times and walked only 17, and for the second consecutive year, hit an even .200 (4-20) with runners in scoring position AND left 34 men on base yet again, despite it only being a five game series this time.
Quite frankly, these two teams didn’t hit enough, and they certainly didn’t hit in timely situations enough.
This year hopes to be different, and it has to be if the team wants to end it’s quest for that elusive World Series title.
The Dodgers have been much better this season with runners in scoring position, and it’s extremely encouraging to see these numbers.
Batting Average with RISP:
Justin Turner .283
Joc Pederson .272
Cody Bellinger .296
Corey Seager .306
Chris Taylor .346
Max Muncy .266
AJ Pollock .353
Will Smith .316
Matt Beaty .393
Enrique Hernandez .269
David Freese .290
Alex Verdugo .286
Gavin Lux .333
It’s pretty simple, the Dodgers need these numbers to hold in the postseason. Timely hitting will lead to wins, and those wins will lead to the Dodgers first World Series title in 31 years.
Clayton Kershaw has been consistent yet home run prone all season, Hyun-Jin Ryu was immortal in the first half but came back to life in August, Walker Buehler has shown to be both dominant and vulnerable at times, and the team seems to be trending toward a bullpen game for it’s fourth starter position for the postseason which is a risky gamble in and of itself.
What I’m telling you is the main actor in the 2019 Dodgers World Series championship feature film must be the offense. This team cannot expect to rely on winning games 2-1 or 3-2, because this season has shown that starting pitching aside, closer Kenley Jansen isn’t the same pitcher he was in 2016.
Legendary football coach John Madden said it best, “You can’t win a game if you don’t score any points (runs in this case)”.
The Dodgers are set up for success. They have the roster to win it all, they just need the production to come at the right time.
Bringing in AJ Pollock and Joe Kelly in the offseason and the emergence of Alex Verdugo (who the team hopes to have back by the NLCS) and rookies Will Smith, Matt Beaty, Tony Gonsolin and even Dustin May and Gavin Lux have injected fresh blood into this Dodgers team and given them a new look and also a new hope.
The National League is no cake walk, and the two Godzilla-like monsters in the American League that are the New York Yankees and Houston Astros are an even taller task, but anything can happen in baseball, especially with timely and productive hitting.
Lastly, with the postseason arriving soon, I will leave you with how I would arrange the postseason roster for the Dodgers for the NLDS, keeping in mind the team intends to proceed with deploying a bullpen game strategy instead of using a fourth starter.
C: Smith, Russell Martin
INF: Muncy, Freese, Lux, Seager, Turner
OF: Bellinger, Pollock, Pederson
UTIL: Taylor, Hernandez, Beaty
SP: Kershaw, Buehler, Ryu
RP: Jansen, Kelly, Pedro Baez, Kenta Maeda, Julio Urias, Ross Stripling, Adam Kolarek, Gonsolin, May
I wrestled with choosing May over Caleb Ferguson, Yimi Garcia, and Casey Sadler, but his ability to pitch more than one inning paired with his overall stuff and recent success pitching in relief (last 4 games: 6IP, 0R, 0ER, 8K, 1BB) led me to give him the edge over the other candidates — however, I think the Dodgers do end up giving the nod to Yimi Garcia, despite the glaring amount of home runs he’s allowed this season.
No matter what happens this postseason, the Dodgers continued success should not be taken for granted, it’s not often a team dominates a division and positions themselves to have a chance to win a World Series for seven consecutive years, but hopefully for Dodgers fans, this is the season they finally produce at the right time, and bring that trophy back to Chavez Ravine.
-David Rosenthal (@_therealdrose)
