Dodgers Dugout: Andy Pages could have been doing all this for the Angels

Sports Desk

8 months ago

Occasional Digest - a story for you

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell, and it appears this Shohei Ohtani guy is quite a hitter. Where has he been the last few years?

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Before we get to some random thoughts, it’s a good time to talk about Andy Pages, who has done remarkably well since he was recalled from the minors in mid-April when Jason Heyward went on the injured list.

After his first six games, Pages, 23, was hitting .182, but since then he has hit .383/.380/.638. Those aren’t typos, his batting average is higher than his on-base percentage in that span because he has drawn no walks, which is also pretty remarkable and the only warning sign in his hitting. He has two sacrifice flies, which don’t count as at-bats but do count when you figure in OB%.

Pages has had 74 plate appearances this season and has not walked. But, let’s not focus on the one negative.

Jack Harris did a feature story on Pages the other day, so I’m just going to highlight some of it below. But make sure you read his story.

Pages could be doing all this for the Angels right now. He was part of the trade in 2020 that would have sent him, Ross Stripling and Joc Pederson to the Angels for Luis Rengifo. The Dodgers were waiting for their trade for Mookie Betts to become official before finalizing the Angels trade. In the interim, Angels owner Arte Moreno got cold feet and canceled the deal, which is a good example of why Moreno is viewed as a terrible owner.

So Pages, who came to the Dodgers from Cuba in 2018 for $300,000, remained a Dodger.

Some key quotes about Pages:

From Dodgers director of player development Will Rhymes: “In one of the first conversations I had with him back in 2019, I asked him about his leg kick, and we started talking about Justin Turner,” Rhymes said, recalling how Pages compared his timing mechanism to that of the then-Dodgers star. “And he gave me this incredible breakdown of Justin Turner’s swing, how it functioned. … Wow, this guy thinks about [the game] at a different level than most 19-year-olds.”

How Pages handled his first serious injury, a torn labrum suffered during his first game in triple-A last season:

“It was a tough blow, but from the moment it happened, he handled it extremely maturely,” Rhymes said. “He was on a mission before the injury. And if anything, the injury just put on more of one.”

A lot of newsletter readers were surprised the Dodgers sent down Pages relatively early in spring training, after he went eight for 17. Pages wasn’t.

“I knew going into the season how difficult it was going to be [to crack the majors] with so many talented players on the roster, so many superstars,” Pages said. “I knew how much work was ahead of me.”

On Pages getting off to a slow start, but adjusting to what major league pitchers were throwing him:

“We saw him make adjustments at the major league level his first week,” Andrew Friedman said. “Teams were beating up top with fastballs. And now he’s either clearing those out or at least fouling them off. He gets another pitch. He just competes in the box.”

It will be very interesting to see what happens when Heyward returns from the IL. Pages has played better than Chris Taylor and James Outman. If he continues to play the way he’s playing now, it will be difficult to justify sending him down.

Random thoughts

—The bullpen just can’t get a break. The moment Blake Treinen comes off the IL, Evan Phillips takes his place. Phillips has a mild hamstring strain and is expected back in a couple of weeks. But hamstring strains, even “mild” ones can be tricky, so you never know.

—The Dodgers have hit 47 homers, second in the majors to Baltimore’s 54. The Dodgers are on pace to hit 211 homers, which would make them only the 12th team in franchise history to hit at least 200. The 2019 Dodgers hit 279 homers, so they are well off a record pace. The 2019 Dodgers had 11 players with at least 10 homers. Only four (Max Muncy, Kiké Hernández, Chris Taylor and Will Smith) are still with the team. The others: Corey Seager, Justin Turner, Joc Pederson, AJ Pollock, Cody Bellinger, Alex Verdugo and David Freese).

—Speaking of Muncy, he seems to have recaptured his form of three seasons ago, and lately he has battled third base to a draw when it comes to fielding.

—You might be wondering why he didn’t play Sunday after hit three homers in Saturday’s game. Well, the Braves had left-hander Max Fried starting, and Muncy still can’t hit left-handers very well. He is hitting .297/.400/.608 against righties this season and .182/.300/.424 against righties. A good manager puts his players in the best position to succeed, and while you can certainly argue that you’d rather have Muncy in the lineup against lefties than Chris Taylor, I don’t really have a problem with the choice Sunday. Of course, winning makes it more palatable.

—Starting pitching, which looked very shaky for a while, has become more of a strength:

Tyler Glasnow, 6-1, 2.70 ERA
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 3-1, 2.91 ERA
James Paxton, 4-0, 3.06 ERA
Gavin Stone, 2-1, 4.06 ERA
Landon Knack, 1-1, 2.81 ERA

Knack is back in the minors to make way for the hopefully triumphant return of Walker Buehler, who starts today after his recovery from his second Tommy John surgery. Buehler last pitched for the Dodgers on June 10, 2022, so it has been nearly two years. Will he be able to recapture his old form? Will his velocity be the same? We’ll spend the next month finding out the answers to all that.

—Clayton Kershaw threw 15 pitches off the bullpen mound before Friday’s game, a big step in his recovery from shoulder surgery. He’s still on track to return sometime after the All-Star break.

—I have a recurring fantasy that Kershaw comes back, and since he is pitching less than half a season, he is still strong during the postseason and is on the mound when the Dodgers win the World Series. Then he retires. Where’s Mr. Roarke when I need him?

—Sweeping the Braves is not something that should be tossed aside, it’s a quality accomplishment. It means nothing when the postseason comes along, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be appreciated.

—After sweeping the mighty Braves, watch them lose two of three to the lowly Marlins, who just won their 10th game Sunday. They also just traded their best player, Luis Arraez, to the Padres.

The bottom of the lineup

We’ll keep track of this throughout the season, because I have a feeling this is going to be crucial when the postseason comes around. Here are the best and worst team batting averages for the Nos. 7-9 spots in the batting order:

1. Angels, .296/.359/.431
2. Milwaukee, .291/.355/.435
3. NY Mets, .275/.332/.408
4. NY Yankees, .258/.332/.376
5. Atlanta, .256/.308/.395

22. Dodgers, .207/.274/.300
26. Chicago White Sox, .201/.242/.319
27. Detroit, .197/.253/.294
28. St. Lous, .197/280./252
29. Miami, .187/.239/.272
30. Oakland, .186/.282/.334

The Dodgers have risen six places since last week, when they were hitting .189.

Let’s look at the Dodgers in the Nos. 7-9 spots individually:

No. 7 (mainly Outman and Pages): .206/.275/.294
No. 8 (Lux, Taylor and Rojas): .198/.269/.294
No. 9 (Lux, Barnes and Rojas): .216/.279/.312
Combined: .207/.274/.300

Pages has been responsible for almost all of the improvement in the last week.