Due to rosters expanding to 40 and their organizational depth, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been able to implore platoons
at just about every position in the month of September.
While it may not be a popular decision amongst the fan base as players like Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig usually don’t start when a left-hander is on the mound and Matt Kemp, Chris Taylor, David Freese and Kiké Hernandez are typically on the bench against righties, the strategy has actually been working.
The team is 15-7 in the month of September and has gone from one of the worst hitting teams against left-handed pitching to one of the best.
Additionally, with Muncy, Bellinger and Puig coming off the bench against southpaws, that gives Dodgers manager Dave Roberts a ton of really good options later in games once the opposing team’s starter is out of the game.
That was the case on Monday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks when the offense struggled a bit against Robbie Ray but then managed to score five runs in four innings against the Arizona bullpen to earn the comeback victory.
One person who has taken note of the Dodgers platoon strategy is Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, saying that it makes his job of managing a bullpen a lot tougher, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“They have a long bench, and it was exactly what our advance scout had predicted — that after the fifth inning they would start to maneuver and start to roll things over. And we were trying to create the best matchups possible, but you don’t have enough guys to do it,” Lovullo said. “It’s how they’ve been operating, I’m sure, for several weeks, and it’s been working.”
Muncy came up with a big pinch-hit single to tie the game late for the Dodgers, so credit to him for still finding a way to make an impact despite not being in the starting lineup.
With playoff rosters going back down to 25 though, Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi recently said that they will begin to get away from platoons a bit in preparation for a potential postseason series when they will not have the luxury of an expanded bench.
