After the Dodgers on Wednesday blew a chance to sweep the Guardians, manager Dave Roberts talked about the recent struggles of Tanner Scott, who has blown three leads in his last five games, allowing 10 total runs during that time.
From Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times:
“Leaving middle spin sliders in the zone for them to put the ball in play, I think that when you do that, sometimes the ball finds holes or some outfield grass,” Roberts added. “It’s something that we’ve seen all year. There’s great strike-throwing, getting count leverage. But just that last pitch to put guys away … That’s what we’ve got to kind of unlock and be consistent with.”
Mookie Betts scored in the sixth inning in Cleveland in the series finale, giving him 500 runs scored with the Dodgers in 640 games, the quickest to that milestone in the modern era (1901-present) of franchise history. But he’s also taken quite nicely to shortstop after a full offseason to fully work on a still relatively-new position. Betts rates above average in Defensive Runs Saved, Total Zone Rating, and Outs Above Average at shortstop.
That earned praise from Roberts, who said this week moving Betts off shortstop (like they did later in 2024) is unlikely this season. From Bill Plunkett at the Orange County Register:
“I would say, right now he’s playing above average shortstop … a tick above major-league average, which is amazing considering he just took this position up,” Roberts said. “And he’s only getting better.”
Will Smith has the best plate discipline of his career so far this season. Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs wrote about Smith’s hot start, and how the call-up of Dalton Rushing both strengthened the Dodgers’ catching group and also could facilitate keeping Smith more fresh as the season goes on.
Rancho Cucamonga outfielder Eduardo Quintero has been lighting up the California League this season. Josh Norris at Baseball America wrote about Quintero, including Dodgers player development head Will Rhymes talking about changes to the outfielder’s swing:
“It always appeared like he was swinging down a little bit, and he would really hit some low bullets to the opposite field,” Rhymes said. “And that’s something that obviously is a great foundation, but we wanted him to be able to get behind the ball better get it off the ground some.
“I think that has been a byproduct of making the swing more efficient, as opposed to something we were going after or messaging.”
.
