No Sleep For Brooklyn
Rethinking short rest
The Dodgers get no rest. The Dodgers get plenty of rest.
The 2024 regular season began at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, Korea, when the Dodgers and Padres brought the NL West to the Far East on March 20.
On October 30, Los Angeles finished off the Yankees in the World Series.
One hundred thirty-nine days later, on March 18 of this year, the defending champs and the Cubs opened the MLB regular season in Japan’s Tokyo Dome.
The demands of big league travel — first-class as they are — will test athletes mentally and physically. Recovery is emphasized and appreciated more than ever. In the face of sleep science, the Dodgers have pulled baseball’s version of an all-nighter for the second straight year.
Catcher Will Smith remarked on the postgame show after Saturday’s Game 2 Dodgers victory that it took him one at-bat to get locked in after a six-day layoff between the NLCS and World Series. The wild thing is that, back in March, Smith and his teammates had their first exposure to a prolonged timeout between games of significance. After wrapping up their two-game series in Tokyo on March 19, the Dodgers didn’t play their domestic opener until March 27. And, if you’ll recall, these Dodgers won their first eight games of the season. If any team understands the offbeat cadence of the postseason — yup — it’s Los Angeles.
The Blue Jays came as advertised in Game 1. In Toronto’s 11-run outburst against, they walked as often as they struck out (four times). In the regular season, there were 13 games in which Dodgers pitchers collectively walked a number of batters greater than or equal to the number of batters they struck out. Los Angeles was 5-8 in those games.1
Conveniently enough, on August 10 at Dodger Stadium, Blue Jays pitchers walked 13 — thirteen! — Dodgers hitters (while striking out 10) and still won the game!
The Jays, meanwhile, walked at least as often as they whiffed in 27 regular season games this year and posted a 21-6 record under those criteria. The most notable, at least at quick glance, was a 2-1 win on the road against the Rangers in a game started by Jacob deGrom; Toronto walked four times that day and only struck out once.
On Saturday night, Yoshinobu Yamamoto made it clear that even the best approach is susceptible to even better pitching. In his complete game gem, the Dodgers starter struck out eight without walking any.
As the coaching carousel spins round and round this time of year, it’s worthwhile to mention one key piece of the Blue Jays arsenal who was an offseason addition last year: hitting coach David Popkins. Three weeks after the Twins relieved Popkins from the same duties in Minnesota, Toronto locked him up.
It’s a fickle world out there. Take a look at these two headlines, written about 18 months apart. (My favorite aspect of it all has to be the file photo. Don’t play poker with Popkins!)
It’s been all smiles in Toronto so far. Let’s keep an eye on the hitting coach this week.
If the World Series has you thinking that you picked the wrong week to quit drinking, check out my new project: the Wine Dog Wine Blog. I had long been contemplating a place where I could merge baseball and wine, while sharing some of the stories that continue to shape my life around the game. It’s an odd Venn diagram, but I’ve been called worse.
I also want to mention that the Wine Dog Wine Blog is published through Ghost, a newsletter/blog platform that has, for a variety of reasons, established itself as more reader-friendly than Substack. I hope to migrate WTP to Ghost in the next month or so.
You won’t have to do anything on your end. All existing WTP memberships will be transferred, and paid subscriber details will be securely migrated. The biggest difference is that emails will be coming from a slightly different address. You can get a look of the general feel at the Wine Dog Wine Blog.
Even if you’re not into wine, let me share this with you: The last three World Series-winning managers were all serious wine drinkers.
Bruce Bochy. Dusty Baker. Dave Roberts.
Bad news for the Blue Jays. I haven’t been able to tie John Schneider to a single bottle of wine.
In three of those games, position players Miguel Rojas or Kiké Hernandez pitched in mop-up roles.