LOS ANGELES — It’s easy to look at the Los Angeles Dodgers and see what the NL champs are without as they begin the World Series against the Yankees: Pitching.
They don’t have star starters Clayton Kershaw or Tyler Glasnow, or depth starters Tony Gonsolin or Gavin Stone. They threw bullpen games in the postseason.
But this World Series is less about what the Dodgers don’t have and more about what they do have, which is arguably the toughest lineup in baseball. While any lineup with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy is going to be tough, what makes this lineup so difficult to navigate is their exceptional discipline.
The Dodgers simply don’t chase pitches out of the zone.
“Our lineup controls the strike zone,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday at Dodger Stadium. “We can slug and the ability to create stress, traffic by way of a walk, we do that as well. When you get 1-9, it gets daunting and it’s hard for a starter to go three times through the lineup. And then in a longer series, you’re starting to see the same guys again. So all that stuff starts to benefit and become an advantage for the offense.
“That’s overall our approach and trying to scare pitchers out of the strike zone.”
The Mets were scared out of the zone in the NLCS. They largely pitched around Ohtani, but that left Betts and Freeman to contend with a runner on base. Freeman missed games with an ankle injury, but one Mets pitcher told the Daily News that “Freeman on one leg is still a tougher out than half the hitters in the league on two legs.”
Clearly, the danger is still there.
Without Freeman, the Dodgers moved up shortstop Tommy Edman, who hit .409 with seven RBI and an .891 OPS as the NLCS MVP. This shows just how long the lineup plays. Muncy, who reached base in 12 consecutive at-bats between the NLDS and the NLCS, hit as low as seventh in the order. Andy Pages and Kiké Hernandez hit big homers lower in the order. In one game, Pages hit two homers in the No. 9 spot. After pitchers contended with his big bat, they had to worry about getting Ohtani out.
It’s a nightmare of a lineup for any pitcher. Take it from one of their own.
Right-hander Brent Honeywell, who faced the Dodgers three times before they picked him up off waivers this season, is happy to be on their side now.
“They really stick to a plan that they run in their hitters meetings, and whatever plan it is, they don’t deviate from it,” said Dodgers reliever Brent Honeywell. “They’re a hard lineup to navigate, because there’s not really a hole.”
The Dodgers scored 46 runs against the Mets over six NLCS games, many of them stemming from walks. When the Mets tried to get them to chase, they resisted, taking balls and drawing walks — 42 of them total.
The Yankees are ready for this.
“I think a big thing is confidence,” said Yankees right-hander Luke Weaver, who previously faced the Dodgers as a pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks. “You’ve got to be able to trust and feel like you can get them out in the zone. They’re not going to chase. I know that from years of experience and we’ve seen that from the last series. They did a great job in that regard. We want to be able to feel like we’re in a place where we could beat them with our stuff in the zone. We’re still going to pitch and there are going to be balls that are thrown…
“Hopefully, it’s more strikes, but just making the right pitches in the right moments and setting them up.”
Catcher Austin Wells agreed with Weaver that confidence is key. Helping his pitchers stay confident might be just as important as the pitch sequencing in this series. As a catcher, one of his most important jobs is helping pitchers manage big moments. But with the margin for error thin in a championship round, the moment can’t get too big.
Even in the zone, the Dodgers will make a pitcher pay for mistakes.
“They’re here for a reason, they’ve helped us get here to face this team,” Wells said. “Hitting is really hard and it’s a big stage, but I think if you look at what it is, it’s just another game against another good team. We have to execute pitches and we have to be good. So I think if we’re executing the way we want to, it’s going to have good results.”
The Los Angeles lineup has the spotlight and their arms are happy to let them have it. They’re even happier they don’t have to face their own hitters.
“We take the pressure off of those guys,” Honeywell said. “I think it gets misconstrued. When a team gels, a team gels. If you pitch good, you think you can kind of bite the bullet and kind of sit on your heels as hitters, but no, it doesn’t work that way…
“They do their part, we do ours, and then look where it gets us.”
