by Megan Garcia
In the face of elimination, the Dodgers are looking for redemption against Yu Darvish.
Shohei Ohtani described Darvish as crafty. Manager Dave Roberts said the Padres starter is aggressive with his spin. The Dodgers hope they have their way to counteract Darvish’s strengths.
“It’s just being ready to hit,” Roberts said. “He doesn’t give in, but when he throws his slider and curveball in the strike zone or makes a mistake with the fastball, we’ve got to be ready to hit it. I do feel if we can put pressure on him early, that puts us in a good position.”
Darvish possess an eight-pitch arsenal and varies his pitch mix to keep teams off-balanced. He used seven pitches to limit the Dodgers in Game 2. He used five of those pitches at least 10 times:
Silder — 17
Sweeper — 17
Curveball — 15
Splitter — 12
Four-seam fastball — 11
His ability to manipulate the timing of his delivery also factored into the Dodgers’ woes against him on Sunday. They swung and missed at 20% of his 82 pitches and never quite found a rhythm in the batter’s box.
“He doesn’t rely on one plan,” Ohtani said. “So, in that sense it’s for us as hitters, we have to be able to adjust — and that’s what makes him good and crafty as well.”
The Dodgers strung together three hits in seven innings against him as Gavin Lux drove in the lone run. Darvish struck out three hitters and walked two batters among the 25 he faced.
His pitching line forced to split the series to 1–1. Now, as Darvish takes the ball in Game 5, the Dodgers will need to attack when he makes a mistake on the mound.
“He’s a really good pitcher and pitched well against us,” Ohtani said. “I think he’s also very crafty as well, so there isn’t exactly one specific thing that really stands out (from what I learned in my previous at-bats against him).”
Darvish has pitched in four postseason potential elimination games leading up to Friday’s game. His teams have lost each time, including the Dodgers in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series.
However, he positioned his team well in the other three:
2012 AL Wild Card: 6 2/3 IP, 3 R, 2 ER
2017 World Series Game 7: 1 2/3 IP, 5 R, 4 ER
2020 NL Wild Card: 6 2/3 IP, 2 R, 2 ER
2022 NL Championship Series: 6 IP, 2 R, 2 ER
He also allowed one run over five innings for the Dodgers in a potential clinch game, helping the Dodgers close out the 2017 NLDS against Arizona.
Darvish said he doesn’t feel the weight of pressure approaching Game 5.
“Maybe it is the experience that I have accumulated up until today that’s making me feel calm right now,” Darvish said on Thursday.
NLDS: The Dodgers’ Game 5 plan: ‘Being ready to hit’ was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.