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5 Dodgers who have turned around their slow starts to the season
The Dodgers have played 38 games this season, meaning that we have nearly reached the end of the first quarter of the regular season. Sitting at 23-15, and owning the second-best record in the NL, the boys in blue have had a successful start to the season. Overall, the season has been good, but that does not mean this campaign has been flawless. Between injuries and numerous paternity list stints, there have been times where the Dodgers have seemed out of sync, but recently that has not been the case.
The Dodgers dipped to 10-11 after being shutout by Drew Smyly and the Cubs on April 21, but since that day, LA is 13-4. It goes without saying that while it is still relatively early in the season, there have already been major peaks and valleys for the Dodgers as a team, and especially for certain players on the roster. Some players are still in the midst of those rough patches, but others (and the team as a whole) have already broken out. Five players, specifically, have been able to discover what was going wrong at the beginning of the season and have since righted the ship.
5 Dodgers who've shaken off slow starts to 2023 season
Jason Heyward:
Through April 26, Heyward was hitting .159, with a .269 OBP, ,386 SLG, .656 OPS and three home runs. According to expected statistics, he was getting slightly unlikely at the start of the season, but he has been able to hit the ball hard consistently through his rough patch. Recently, his hard contact has been rewarded. Although he only has one home run in the nine games since his rough start, he has gotten on base a lot more, and has hit four doubles to raise his slugging and OPS.
Heyward’s last nine games have been better than any other Dodger’s last nine games, in fact. He is hitting .381 in those games, and his four walks have given him a .480 OBP in the same span. Add in his .714 SLG and you have a 1.194 OPS to lead all Dodgers hitters in their last nine games. It seems as though Heyward’s habit of crushing baseballs has started to pay off not just on his Statcast page, but on the actual playing field, and if he is able to keep up this level of production, he will be a shoo-in in the middle of the order against right-handed starters for the rest of the season.
Brusdar Graterol:
Although relievers are hard to track with smaller sample sizes, Graterol is a great example of the eye test and stat sheet combining to state the obvious. Through April 8 (four appearances), Graterol had a 6.75 ERA (3 ER in 4 IP) with only 2 K.
But after an appearance against Arizona when he gave up two earned runs in an inning of relief work, Graterol put up zero after zero through the end of April. By the end of April, Graterol had a 2.19 ERA with 2 saves and 2 holds (including a dramatic two-inning save against the Cubs), thanks to nine straight outings (8.1 IP) without allowing a run.
Even after giving up a run to the Phillies and the Padres, Graterol bounced back against the Brewers, pitching a scoreless inning with a pair of strikeouts. He has more than halved his ERA since April 8, and looks to be trending in the right direction for the rest of the season. If Graterol keeps performing like he has recently, he will likely solidify the eighth-inning role for the Dodgers, occasionally closing games when Evan Phillips is unavailable.
Of course, he needs to stay healthy to seize the role, which has been an issue throughout his career.
Miguel Vargas:
Miguel Vargas was amazing at getting on base for the first few games of the season. Through April 19, Vargas was hitting .191, with a .277 SLG, and .658 OPS that was saved by his ability to walk frequently (he had a .381 OBP at the time). But Vargas’ best tool as a prospect was not his plate discipline, and as such, fans were wondering when he would start to add in some more power.
Well, Vargas answered those questions pretty convincingly.
Since April 14, Vargas’ OBP has actually dropped to .338, but that still ranks eighth among all rookies in MLB, and is 18 points higher than the MLB average. However, in the absence of walking a lot, Vargas has become much more aggressive at the plate, and has started to slug at a much higher level (his SLG went from .277 to .430). Vargas had not hit a home run through his first 24 games of the season, but in just 12 games since that point, he has hit four homers. In May, while his OBP is at .297, Vargas is slugging .647 to bring his May OPS to .944. If he can combine the plate discipline he had to start the season with the recent surge in power, Vargas will join James Outman as the second Dodger in prime contention for NL Rookie of the Year.
Max Muncy:
For a guy who was tied for the major league lead in home runs as recently as Wednesday, it is hard to believe how bad Max Muncy’s start to the season actually was. He was batting .121 with a .293 OBP, .212 SLG, .505 OPS, 16 strikeouts and just one home run through April 9 (his first nine games of the season). However, Muncy just needed one series against the San Francisco Giants to turn his entire season around. Muncy belted four home runs in the three-game series (despite pinch-hitting in one of the games), and went on a tear right after.
Muncy would go on to raise his OPS to 1.152 after getting on-base safely three times against the Cardinals on April 28. While Muncy has struggled since his return from the paternity list, his turnaround from the first week and a half of the season is still drastic.
He has 24 strikeouts in his last 24 games after 16 strikeouts in the first nine games of the season, and has raised his OBP from .293 to .367. More impressively, he raised his SLG from .212 to .545. Tally it all up, and Muncy entered Wednesday with a top-20 OPS in all of MLB (.912), while ranking second in home runs (12) and sitting tied for eighth in RBI (29).
Chris Taylor:
Through April 22, Taylor was hitting .111 with a .196 OBP, .378 SLG, .574 OPS and 21 strikeouts. While Taylor did have four homers, he only had five hits total, so the dingers did not feel as meaningful as they might have.
Recently, Taylor has hit for less power, but has been able to get on base at a much higher rate, and as such, his overall numbers are much better. Things started to turn for Taylor when he had a three-hit game against the Pirates on April 25, which also featured a game-winning three-run home run from Taylor in the eighth inning.
Taylor then posted three consecutive two-hit games (one against the Cardinals and two against the Phillies), and his numbers in May look much more like the 2017 NLCS MVP version of Chris Taylor than the version that has been appearing too much recently. In eight games in May, Taylor is hitting .280 with a .379 OBP, .680 SLG and an OPS of 1.059. For context, only five qualified batters have an OPS of above 1.000 over the course of the season.
Taylor has seven runs scored in May, and, perhaps most importantly, out of his seven hits, five of them are extra base hits, meaning Taylor has not sacrificed any power in order to make more consistent contact. Welcome back, CT3.