Brock Stewart was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ biggest addition to their bullpen at the trade deadline, coming over in a deal that sent James Outman to the Minnesota Twins.
At the time of the trade, Stewart had a 2.38 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 41 strikeouts in 34 innings with the Twins.
He hasn’t gotten off to a great start in a third stint with the Dodgers organization, allowing runs in two of his first three appearances, including the last two games against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Stewart wasn’t pleased with his inability to find the strike zone early in counts Wednesday. He allowed one run on two hits and hit a batter.
“The approach is just to get ahead and compete in the strike zone, and I think I got behind some guys. That’s not a very good recipe for success,” Stewart said.
“Wasn’t very sharp. But that’s baseball. The stuff is good, just got to compete and throw in the strike zone and trust the good things are going to happen.”
Falling behind in the count wasn’t necessarily a huge problem for Stewart in the rubber match with the Cardinals. Only three of the seven batters he faced were ahead in the count, but two of those made it on base and only one at-bat lasted longer than two pitches.
With three of the first four batters he faced in the inning being left-handed, Stewart wasn’t put in the best position to succeed. Stewart’s splits skew heavily toward right-handed batters, with left-handers hitting .349/.423/.540 with four doubles, one triple and two homers in 14.2 innings pitched this season.
Falling behind in the count was more of an issue on Monday, as Cardinals’ pinch-hitter Yohel Pozo delivered a go-ahead RBI single off Stewart while being ahead in the count 2-0.
But even then, his biggest issue was failing to put away the first two batters of the inning after getting ahead in the count. That included allowing a single to Lars Nootbar on an 0-2 pitch.
In terms of preparation, Stewart hasn’t felt a significant difference between how the Dodgers and Twins operate. His adjustment following the trade has been relatively smooth.
“Everybody speaks the same language when it comes to analytics, attack certain headers, kind of the scouting reports and stuff like that,” he said. “So not too different from what I’ve dealt with.
“Just not been very sharp past couple outings and just looking forward to the next one.”
Brock Stewart felt momentum changing
The Dodgers entered the eighth inning on Wednesday with a 3-2 lead after seven innings from Shohei Ohtani and Justin Wrobleski. The letdown of surrendering the lead late was felt in their dugout.
“Yeah, I think you can feel every momentum shift, whether we take the lead or give up the lead or fall behind or then retake the lead? Yeah, I think everybody can feel that,” Stewart said.
“And then, yeah, my job is go in there and keep it where it was, didn’t do that. It’s baseball.”
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