Dodgers: Five Positive Takeaways from the First Two Weeks of the Season

Clayton Kershaw

Let’s start with the obvious and be gracious that the best pitcher on the planet is still on our roster and is healthy. Kershaw has been his usual self in his first four starts, pitching 28 ⅓ innings and is rocking a 10.16 K/9 ratio. Kershaw is 3-1 with a 2.54 ERA on the young season and has continued to demonstrate why he is in a class of his own.

Kershaw got roughed up in his lone road outing in Colorado when the Rockies took him deep three times in that game. That was the first time in Kershaw’s career that he has allowed back to back home runs.

But Kershaw rebounded as you would expect by throwing 8 innings of 1-hit ball against the Diamondbacks in his next start. He ended up allowing 1 run on four hits as he was attempting for the complete game shutout.

In his start to the 2017 season, Clayton Kershaw has tied his own record of 11 unbeaten starts at home. Carrying over from last season, Kershaw is 10-0 with a 0.65 ERA in his last 11 home starts. I know, incredible, right? What’s even more amazing is his 96 strikeouts to 6 walks during that span. That translated to a 16:1 strikeout to walk ratio.

The team is 5-7 when a pitcher not named Kershaw starts for the Dodgers, so it’s evident the team is going to rely on his arm heavily. Year after year the team is only as good as Kershaw’s left arm allows them to be. This year is off to a good start.

Kershaw’s next start is scheduled to be on the road against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday, 4/25. His counterpart? Madison Bumgarner.

Bullpen

The bullpen is the best bullpen in all of baseball. Through the first two weeks, the Dodgers’ bullpen has a league leading 1.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rating. The bullpen owns a team ERA of 1.33, which is second to only the New York Yankees.

It’s no secret the Dodgers were planning on utilizing the bullpen to their fullest this season. With a lot of question marks surrounding the starting rotation, the bullpen was one of the few things Dave Roberts didn’t have to worry about. The bullpen has pitched 54 ⅓ and has a 10.93 K/9 ratio.

The team has a misleading 1-2 record, but that doesn’t reflect their performance to start the season. Pedro Baez, Grant Dayton, Alex Wood, Josh Fields, and Luis Avilan have all combined for 25 scoreless innings in relief to start the season. There are only two relievers in the ‘pen that currently have an ERA above 3.00 and oddly enough it’s our backend of the bullpen, Sergio Romo, 3.60 and Kenley Jansen 3.00.

We expect better performances from our closer and platooned set-up man so if they start throwing shutout innings, look out!

The bullpen has repeatedly been asked to enter the game in the early innings of the game. But up to this point have answered the bell every time. It’d be good to have our starters go a little deeper in games to give the bullpen some rest. I’d be worried if this pace continues that the bullpen would be overworked come the second half of the season.

Roberts has a quick trigger and knows how to manage his bullpens. Itis good to have multiple lefty options and multiple long relief guys out of the bullpen.

Ross Stripling

Speaking of long relief guys, Ross Stripling has been a pleasant surprise this year. Stripling has tossed 8 ⅔ innings and has only allowed one earned run in six appearances this season. He’s holding hitters to a .205 average but more importantly are the hitters that Roberts is using him against.

Roberts has been using Stripling in high leverage situations, as he’s been called to face Nolan Arenado with the bases loaded and Kris Bryant with runners in scoring position in a tie game. This new found confidence that Roberts has in Stripling is off to a successful start, and frankly, I’m not in any position to want to tinker with it.

One of our contributors played with the idea of moving Stripling to the rotation while Hill gets healthy. It’s not a bad idea; it’s a testament to how well he’s been pitching. But if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Stripling is becoming one of the most reliable arms we have out of the bullpen. What’s great about him is that he’s versatile and can get both lefties and righties out.

Through his first 8 ⅔ innings, Stripling is holding lefties to a .154 batting average and righties to a .250 batting average. Another thing that makes Stripling special is his ability to pitch multiple innings. Roberts knows that he can use him for two or three innings, but also rely on him to get a big out against a big bat.

I wouldn’t doubt if somewhere down the line this season Stripling makes a few spot starts here and there. But for the time being let him settle into his role and continue to pile up innings. We’ve seen, so many starting pitcher’s careers take off once being moved to the bullpen. Although Stripling is only 27, this could be his calling with the Dodgers.

Justin Turner is hitting Left-Handed Pitching

Last season Turner had an abysmal slash rate of .209/.303/.337 against lefties. As our best right-handed bat in the lineup, he was a big reason why we struggled against left-handed pitching last season.

Well, early this season Turner looks like he’s figured out southpaws. In 30 plate appearances against lefties, Turner has a .320/.433/.480 slash rate. The extra base hits aren’t where we’d like them to be, yet. But for now, we’ll take the improvement in hits and quality at-bats.

Oddly enough Turner has had more plate appearances this season against left-handers than right-handers. I say oddly enough because if you consider that 80% of the MLB pitchers are right-handed, it’s crazy to see how the Dodgers have faced so many lefties. But the improvement from Turner was expected.

Last season Turner’s lack of production against lefties was an outlier. I knew he was in store for positive regression and so far early in the stages, it looks to be happening. The MLB is following the Dodgers’ lefty narrative trend, and teams are adjusting their rotation so that the Dodgers face more left-handers. Turner is perhaps the most important player on this roster that could help change that narrative.

Yasiel Puig

Ahhh, Yasiel Puig. Every fan loves to praise him, and every fan loves to bash him. Well, Puig has cooled down considerably since this last series against the Rockies, but his at-bats look greatly improved. Puig is hitting the ball really hard and has a hard-hit rate of 34.7%. That’s a bit below his rate in 2013 during his prolific start (37.5%).

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So Puig making very good contact with the ball is a good sign. But another good sign is that he’s striking out far less. Last season Puig was striking out at a 20% rate. This season, Puig’s strikeout rate is just below 12%. Normally, not always, that correlates with an increase in walk rate, and in this case, it does. Puig’s walk rate is up nearly 10% from 6% last season to 15% this season. That’s the best walk rate Puig has ever had.

A big change in Puig’s analytics is that he’s an improved breaking ball hitter. His [batting] pitch value over sliders (2.54), changeups (11.64), and curveballs (4.37) are all twice as high as they were last season. Of course, this is a sample size of only 67 plate appearances.

Next: Journey of Justin Turner

But regardless anyone with an eye for baseball can see that Puig is having better at-bats. He’s showing poise and confidence when at the plate. The numbers are just numbers at the end of the day. Baseball has a way of evening the luck out over the course of the season. If Puig continues his approach at the plate, he’ll be in for one of his best full season as a big leaguer.