Dodgers: The Dodgers Must Address Their 0-2 Woes

A few weeks ago, the start of an alarming trend amongst Dodgers hitters surfaced: the frequency with which they fell behind in counts; 0-2. When the Dodgers lose, especially lately, the hitting simply isn’t in attendance. 

To stop falling in the ranks, they must address, and stop falling behind 0-2 in counts.  I decided to do some research into the frequency of falling 0-2 and Dodger losses. Let’s find out what the numbers say. 

For the two recent samples, I’ll use the Cardinals series where we only scored seven runs over a three-game series and the Mariners series where we scored 21 more runs in the same amount of time. 

Cards’ Series:

The Cards three-game swept the Dodgers. By and large, it was one of the worst offensive series of the season. The Dodgers had 105 at-bats, and of those 105 AB’s, 26 of them went to 0-2 (approximately 25% of all AB’s throughout the 3-game series). The Dodgers struck out an MLB-high 35 times. Of those 35 K’s, 14 came 0-2 (40%).

Our overall average vs. the Cards was not very good: .186 AVG, but it was even worse after 0-2: .115 AVG. In other words, throughout the entire Cardinals series, we had a .115 AVG 25% of the time and a .186 AVG the rest of the time. 

Further, our overall strikeout rate vs. the Cards was 30%, but after going 0-2: 52%. 

Lastly, with regard to the Cards’ series, the Dodgers walk rate was the highest in all of baseball at 14.5%. After dropping to 0-2 however, that 15% was lowered all the way down to 3.7% (15th in MLB). 

Mariners Series:

The Dodgers won two of the three games against the Mariners in one of their final interleague series of the season. The one game that was lost, the Dodgers only lost by one run (the infamous balk-off) and managed to crack the armor of the best 1-2 punch from the 8th inning on in MLB, closer Edwin Diaz and setup man, Álex Colomé.

The Dodgers put up an astonishing 27 runs after they had managed only six runs against the Cardinals. Even more surprising, the Cardinals series started the very next day after the Mariners series. 

How can a team go from putting up a whopping 27 runs and breaking down the best 8th-9th inning combo in baseball, to such a futile offensive effort at home against the Cardinals? 

The Dodgers had 116 AB’s vs. the M’s and only 22 of those were down 0-2, making the 0-2 counts appear in only 19% of all AB’s against the Mariners. Their overall batting average in the series was a whopping .293 (compared to their .189 overall AVG vs. Cardinals), and their BA down 0-2 in the count was only .227 (still more than .100 points higher than vs. the Cards). 

The Dodgers only struck out vs. the M’s 17 times. Of those 17 K’s, only eight were down 0-2, making 47% of all strikeouts come from a 0-2 count. Though the percentage is high, the overall number of K’s down 0-2 is much lower at 8. The Dodgers struck ten home runs in the Mariners series. However, only one of those ten came from a 0-2 count. 

The Dodgers had the lowest K% throughout baseball against the M’s at only 12.7%. Down 0-2, 32% and good for the 4th best in baseball. Even more impressive, we had the 3rd best walk rate at 11.2% and, here’s the kicker, an MLB best 12% BB rate down 0-2. 

The Difference

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The biggest differential between the Cardinals and Mariners series is the overall number and percentage of 0-2 counts. The Dodgers faced an 0-2 count during the Mariners’ series only 19%; the Cardinals 25%.

LA had 11 less AB’s to the Cardinals but still found themselves down 0-2 4 more times (26 Cards-22 M’s). Therefore, the more timrd the Dodgers end up in an 0-2 count, the worse it gets. Of the NL best 10 HR’s the Dodgers had against the Mariners, only 1 HR came via 0-2. 

In the Cardinals series, only 2 home runs and neither came 0-2. Some may chalk this up to just two different series. In one the Dodgers were hot and in the second, back at home, not so much. However, if increase the sample size to August 1st-now, the numbers correlate just the same.

From August 1st through the end of the M’s series: 

Dodgers’ OPS: .812—down 0-2: .585 OPS. 

Dodgers’ AVG: .260—down 0-2: .213 AVG. 

Dodgers’ wOBA: .346—down 0-2: .259 wOBA.

Of the contending teams in the NL West and from August 1st to today, only Colorado comes close to the frequency with which the Dodgers fall 0-2. We fall 22.35% of the time and Colorado falls 22.8%, nearly identical.

Colorado has statistically been worse than the Dodgers from August 1st through today when they’re down 0-2. However, Colorado stands ahead of the Dodgers by a hair in the NL West race.  If the Dodgers want to win their sixth straight NL West division title, they must stop falling down into an 0-2 count.