Cliché Alert: You Can Never Have Enough Pitching

Plus: Baseball on September 11.

Sep 11, 2023

The Dodgers starting rotation has fallen and I don’t know if it can get up. Since alphabetical order is as good a method as any, here are the gory details: Tony Gonsolin; Tommy John surgery. Dustin May: two Tommy John surgeries. Walker Buehler: two Tommy John surgeries. Clayton Kershaw? A shoulder malady of some sort.

Oops, sorry. Former Dodger Tommy John? Tommy John surgery.

Oops again, sorry. I have two words for Julio Urias: scum and bag. Perhaps he’ll join Trevor Bauer in pitching on the other side of the Pacific. I’m in no hurry to find out.

Oh, right, I almost forget to mention that Lance Lynn was responsible for more bombs in the fifth inning Wednesday at Miami than Robert Oppenheimer managed in 1945 at Los Alamos. So in case you missed it, Los Angeles is poised to fight the Autumn 2023 wars with a rotation that’s at least one-fourth radioactive.

But let us pause our discussion of what the Boys in Blue lack three weeks before postseason play — a star-studded, veteran group of SPs — to focus on what they have — a couple or three young guns, rookies all — who just might shock the baseball world. Beginning with Bobby Miller.

The 24-year-old right-hander is better than his 3.98 earned run average might indicate. Poo-poo pitchers wins all you like, but the 9-3 record, and the fact that he’s taken the ball 18 times without missing a turn is significant, as is the 1.141 WHIP and 8.1 strikeouts per nine (SO9). Miller has been the victim of some poor decision making by his skipper, Dave Roberts, who has stretched him into the seventh inning three more times than is necessary. Hence the 15.45 seventh-inning ERA. More importantly, Miller has tossed a career-high 116 major and minor league innings in 2023, with three weeks of regular-season play remaining and perhaps a month of post.

Ryan Pepiot pitched a magnificent seven scoreless Thursday, taking a perfect game into his final frame and finishing it with just a hit allowed. The 26-year-old righty sports a 0.86 ERA through four games, with an equally microscopic 0.524 WHIP, only two walks and 17 strikeouts in 21 innings. Having missed most of the season with an intercostal injury, Pepiot has only 43 2/3 innings under his belt (majors and minors) after going 127 2/3 last year. There will be holding him back in October. If he continues to pitch like he is now, he’ll be in there.

Gavin Stone struggled in his first opportunity with the big club, and at Oklahoma City for much of the season, but has been solid of late, as reflected in his 2.49 second-half Triple-A ERA, to go along with 56 strikeouts in 47 innings. Stone added an inspiring six-inning, two-run relief outing at Boston in August, which — and tell me if this sounds familiar — was spoiled by Mr. Roberts’ call to use him for a seventh (up pops the devil; zero outs, two more runs). We’ll see Stone versus the Padres at Chavez Ravine tonight. Whether it’s an audition for inclusion on the playoff roster I can’t say, but it very well could be.

It’s also possible for the Dodgers to run out Miller, Pepiot, Stone and Lynn in a prospective National League Championship Series. That’s not a prediction, but it could happen. Also within the realm is a start or two for Ryan Yarborough, who boasts a 3.08 ERA and 0.911 WHIP since the trade from Kansas City, where he recorded a 3.21 ERA as a starter this season.

Kershaw, who’s scheduled Monday start was pushed back to Friday, may be fine and dandy in four days and for as long as L.A. needs him. But mark me down as skeptical. I think there’s a genuine injury and that the warrior Kersh plans to empty the tank for the duration, the duration being between now and when he can no longer pick up a baseball. I’m not even sure he’ll make the belated Friday start, let alone last the postseason. Or the season.

Long shot of long shots, veteran left-hander Mike Montgomery has a 5.24 ERA in14 starts for the OKC Dodgers, with six quite good outings among them. In fact, he pitched six innings of scoreless, two-hit ball yesterday. I’m just throwing it out there because the club just might throw him out there.

The Dodgers wanted to see what their young players could do in 2023 and they’ve gotten just that, with more in store. No one among us can predict the postseason, myself very much included. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Media Savvy:

Dateline: Calistoga, California: “Tom Seaver’s vineyard still carries on his legacy: ‘I see him in the grapes’” by Tim Britton at the Athletic.

Here is an interesting story about the stats and milestones today’s players care about, some of which may surprise you. By Stephen J. Nesbitt at the Athletic.

Importantly, and yet again at the Athletic, by one of my all-time favorites, Jayson Stark, is a look at the tweaking of the electronic strike zone going on at the minor league level for eventual use in the big leagues.

Here is “Unforgettable Fernando Valenzuela and K-Rod were Dodgers’, Angels’ top September call-ups,” by Steve Henson at the Los Angeles Times.

Here are three from baseball historian Bill Arnold.

1. Major League Baseball decided to go with a new balanced schedule this season, ensuring that every team would play all 29 other teams at least once. The Toronto Blue Jays became the first club to win at least one match against each of their 29 rivals when they defeated the Colorado Rockies on Sept. 1. The Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres are still in contention to match the Jays' feat: The Orioles must garner one win in a series they are hosting against the St. Louis Cardinals Sept. 11-13; the Dodgers must defeat the Seattle Mariners when they visit Chavez Ravine Sept. 15-17, and the Detroit Tigers, arriving to play Sept. 18-20. The San Diego Padres will need to beat three teams: the Astros in Houston this coming weekend, the Oakland A's over Sept. 15-17, and the White Sox in their season-closing series in Chicago Sept. 29-Oct. 1.

2. Garrett Alexander, a pitcher for the Fargo-Morehead RedHawks of the independent minor league American Association, made an insane catch on August 29 in the eighth inning against the Lake County DockHounds, grabbing a smash line drive - with his armpit. And because the ball was caught outside his uniform, not trapped inside, the one-of-a-kind catch was legal.

3. On Tuesday night, Mariner first baseman Ty France became the ninth player to be hit by a pitch 30 or more times in one season. The other members of the black-n-blue get-on-base-free club are Ron Hunt (50 hit-by-pitches, 1978), Don Baylor (35, 1986), Craig Biggio (34, 1997), Steve Evans (31, 1910), Brandon Guyer (31, 2016), Jason Kendall (31, 1997-98), Anthony Rizzo (30, 2015), and Craig Wilson (30, 2004). France has so far endured 88 HBPs in his five-year career.

(I’ll just add that Ron Hunt was a slacker in the hit-by-pitch department until immediately departing the Dodgers, in a trade to San Francisco for Tom Haller following the 1967 season. Hunt had been plunked 51 times lifetime during his first five seasons, including his first four as a Met from 1963 to 1966, and managed 10 HBPs in L.A. before going on to lead baseball with 25 in 1969 and for the next five straight years. He led the NL with 10 in 1974 and reached a career-high 50 with the Expos in 1971.)

And finally, here is a piece I wrote about baseball on September 11 prior to the 10-year anniversary in 2011, at the Orange County Register. My byline no longer appears for some reason, but trust me; it’s my story. I’m confident you’ll recognize the voice.