by Cary Osborne
Max Muncy’s postseason-record on-base streak ended on Thursday in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series with an oddity.
New York Mets relief pitcher Danny Young threw a sweeper that began to drift away from the strikezone midway along its path to the catcher’s mitt. Muncy swung and missed at the pitch that was far out of the zone.
It was the 82nd pitch Muncy had seen in the series. It was the sixth time he had swung and missed on a pitch outside of the strikezone.
Muncy, said manager Dave Roberts, is leading the charge for a Dodger team giving the best meaning right now to “good eye.” The group effort is resulting in one of the best runs of excellent pitch selection in an NLCS in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008). It’s also a big part of the Dodgers’ being ahead 3–1 in this series.
Dodger batters have a clear offensive approach and they’re executing it.
“It’s being aggressive on balls in the zone, not taking balls in the zone and not swinging out of the zone,” Muncy said. “That’s just a deeper understanding for us and understanding who we are as a a team — what certain pitches we can hit and what cert pitches we can’t hit. And we’ve had an entire lineup buying into that.”
The Dodgers as a team have swung at 21.1% of pitches out of the zone in the NLCS. The Mets have swung at 28.2%.
That 21.1% is currently the third-lowest chase rate in LCS history in the pitch-tracking era. The 2017 Dodgers had the best at 20.0% followed by the 2009 Phillies rank first at 20.8%
“I think (it’s) just following the plan,” said Mookie Betts. “Our coaches do a really good job of preparing us. And the guys, we all believe in them. We believe in each other. And we know, like I said, whether the plan is right or wrong, it doesn’t really matter, at least we follow the plan no matter what. And it’s been right so far.”
And when the Mets have gone into the strike zone, the Dodgers are batting .314 — the best among the four teams left in the postseason. Cleveland is next at .277.
The Dodgers were one of the elite teams in the Majors this season at not chasing balls out of the strikezone. They had the fifth-lowest rate (25.7%).
But this Dodger group has taken it to a new level in the NLCS.
Six players are at under 20%:
1. Gavin Lux (10.0%)
2. Chris Taylor (10.0%)
3. Muncy (13.2%)
4. Freddie Freeman (14.3%)
5. Andy Pages (16.7%)
6. Shohei Ohtani (17.4%)
The bottom four of that group are in the starting lineup for Game 5 of the NLCS.
Muncy set a Major League postseason series record by reaching base 12 straight times, ending with his strikeout against Young. Eight of those 12 plate appearances ended in a walk.
The Dodgers have walked 31 times in this series and their walk rate is 17.8%. That 17.8% is tied with the 1974 Dodgers for the highest walk rate in League Championship Series history.
NLCS: The Dodgers are giving new meaning to ‘good eye’ was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.