Tyler Anderson turned in another dominant start as the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a sweep of the San Diego Padres on Sunday night.
Anderson pitched seven innings and gave up no runs on two hits. He additionally only walked one batter, which was an improvement on his last outing against the San Francisco Giants where he walked four.
Going into the outing, the southpaw tried to do a better job of throwing more strikes and better executing quality pitches, which he felt like he was able to do.
His strong outing also came against a new-look San Diego Padres lineup following an aggressive trade deadline where they landed three new All-Star caliber talents to their lineup.
“For us, it’s just, it’s all about our lineup over here, you know,” Anderson said. “We play great defense and our guys put together great at-bats. So you want to go out and do everything you can to try to help us get a win.”
Anderson also relied on his cutter more against the Padres, throwing it 26% of the time, which he used more than his changeup.
“I worked on it a little bit because I thought last start it was pretty bad, and finally got to a spot where I like where it’s at,” Anderson said. “And was much happier with it today and so threw some more of them today.”
For Anderson, the outing was a continuation of his All-Star season and he earned his MLB-best 13th win. “You know, it’s like I said, really it’s our offense that does a lot of the work,” Anderson said.
“We go out there and there’s a lot of guys in our rotation that have a lot of wins. And that’s the reason, because we score a lot of runs and we play great defense. So our job is to go out there and try to throw strikes and keep us in games.”
Anderson now owns a 2.72 ERA across 122.1 innings with 97 strikeouts and a 1.00 WHIP, a massive improvement over his career 4.31 ERA in 746 innings. “I don’t think anyone could have forecasted this,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
“But to his credit, he’s worked his tail off to be a top-end pitcher. And he’s a winner. He’s a winner and every time he goes out there, takes the mound, we expect to win a baseball game.
“And to go deep tonight was huge again. And he’s just been able to not only prevent runs, but also save the bullpen in a lot of his outings. So he just been invaluable for our ballclub.”
Cody Bellinger enjoys playing behind Tyler Anderson
While Anderson is having an unexpected career year, Cody Bellinger isn’t shocked by the success the veteran starter is having.
“He’s really smart and he’s a great pitcher,” Bellinger said. “I’m not surprised. Even faced him in the past, he’s always been just smart in how he pitched and he’s just done a great job all year. And it’s really fun to play behind.”
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